R w4 a1

Classmate writing

Rituals are constantly revised, overlapped and adjusted but that doesn't change how significant they are to religion. They show loyalty and commitment and can be very powerful in terms of well-being and even physical healing. Rituals teach us a lot about religion, like the system and beliefs of a community and how they are constructed.  An important ritual of Morocco is the art of henna. These henna rituals commonly applied to women "highlight skin as a boundary between the external and internal self"(Kapchan, p.129). The application is preformed on the Moroccan woman at different stages of the passage to womanhood. These tattoos are drawn for either adornment or "expressions of prophylactic, supernatural belief". A hennaed woman can be a recent bride, laboring, or woman healing from fever or ringworm. In difficult times it guides her through her loss of innocence and birthing process. It can even beautify or ward off evil spirits. This is where baraka comes in, “working through the physical body to affect the metaphysical one”(Kapchan, p.131). Henna is a bearer of baraka, “blessed or holy”. It permeates the skin, purifies the body and “produces feelings of well-being”. Henna gives the Moroccan woman everything she needs to accompany her and bless her through life stages and through this plant paste “baraka enters the skin from without, purifying what is within while what is polluting is discharged”(Kapchan, p.132). 

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