I wrote an article about ritual body art and modification for Widdershins some time ago. It was mostly about tattooing and piercing as rites of passage and symbolic representations of life changes. Not long after it appeared in print I got a call from a man asking me if I had read his book. "No, I am afraid not. Never heard of it actually." was my reply. He seemed to think I must have used his book as a reference for my article and when I told him I had never even heard of it, he inferred that I must read it because it was the definitive word on ritual body art. "Ok," I thought, "I'm open to reading it. Send me a review copy." I told him. So the publisher did send me a copy.
I have had it lying around for a while and I have skimmed it several times, thinking, "I really should read this and do the review." But it was not at all what I was expecting. Nothing in it really related to my area of interest, and what I had written my original article about, which was tattooing and piercing and body modification done in ritual.
Mr. Arnold's book is really only about temporary body painting! Which I don't have a huge interest in myself. I guess it could be considered body art in the broadest sense, and it might be fun to do a ritual where you were painted or painted one another. Or it might be fun to paint yourself as a part of an initiation ceremony or at a festival, but this is not what I consider ritual body art. Maybe it's a difference in terms?
The Maori people do permanent ritual body art. So do native peoples from all over the world. I, personally, do not consider masks and make up to be body art. Maybe it's just me?
This book does have some good information. There are some interesting pictures of naked people with brightly colored symbols painted on their bodies. There is some useful data: a whole chapter on symbols, one on colors, another on aromas and one about make up. It covers both masks and mask making, and jewelry and stones.
There is also some information on creating your own body paint. Personally, I would not bother to go to the trouble of making body paint when tempura paint mixed with glycerin works so well.
The book describes a number of Gardnerian based rituals for sabbats, esbats and rites of passage. Along with some oil recipes that look a lot like Scott Cunningham's.
All in all, it's not a bad book, but Ritual Body Art? I would suggest it should have been called Ritual Body Decoration. Or Magickal Body Painting!
By the way, I don't generally do a lot of body painting but I painted a tuxedo on a naked man last year at Samhain for a nude Halloween party and it turned out great!
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