Mendhi Rites of Passage Party

For the Extra Credit Group I choose to review a documentary film titled “The Painted Bride”. This film details the importance of mendhi body painting; a type of intricate floral design, using a henna paste that is painted on the hands and feet of soon to be brides. The film especially focuses on Pakistani immigrant Shenaz Hooda, a mendhi artist, and how she retains her Pakistani heritage through her desire to perform mendhi body painting on other Pakistani immigrant women, but also to keep that tradition going as she shows her art to elementary students. I will focus on how this tradition of a mendhi party is a particular type of ritual, more specifically a rites of passage ritual.


Rites of passage mark notable dates or stages in a persons’ life. (Sims 110) The mendhi party is kind of similar to an American wedding shower. In The Painted Bride the mendhi party takes place two to three days prior to a woman’s wedding day. This event is attended mostly by women, all in traditional Pakistani outfits. However, men play a particular role in this film towards the end of this event. The party begins with the preparation of the henna paste; which consists of crushed up henna leaves that Ms. Hooda gets from family members in India , clove oil, lemon, tea water, and sugar which is in turn soaked for a couple of hours. Ms. Hooda states “in the olden times henna was done with a pen like tool and that used to take longer, now she uses a cake decorating method”. Once the henna paste is ready to apply, all the women begin to sign songs. The songs that the women sign are songs that tease and make fun of the bride and the bride’s future in-laws. The purpose of the songs is to ease the bride’s nerves about her approaching wedding day. The songs are accompanied by drum beats and hand clapping. Ms. Hooda states in the film “the purpose of painting the hands and feet in intricate floral and leaf designs is because the hands are the first thing that comes in contact between a husband and wife. Also painting your hands and feet becomes more colorful.” When applying the henna design Ms. Hooda will hide a letter in the design with the purpose being, if the husband can find the letter the wife must obey her husband, if he cannot find the letter, then the husband has to obey the wife. In addition, Ms. Hooda will also apply henna designs on all the women attending the Mendhi Party. This leads to the reason why, towards the end of this ritual, the men are present at this event. With all of the women’s hands painted they cannot make or serve the food, therefore the men’s jobs is to prepare and serve the meal.

The text states “most rituals are stylized, highly conceptualized, deeply symbolic activities that enable groups to acknowledge, exemplify and or act out certain traditional ideas, values and belief. (Sims 95) All of these types of folklore from the verbal folklore of singing songs, the customary folklore of dancing and clapping, to the material folklore of the traditional clothing and the art of mendhi body adornment. All of these types of folklore come together to create the ritual known as rites of passage. (Sims 95) Although this ritual has become more Americanized, it’s still important to the participants. (Sims 96)



This posting is for the Extra Credit Group-Documentary Film Review.

Dargan, Amanda and Susan Slyomovics dir. The Painted Bride. 1990. 1 Dec. 2007
http://www/folkstreams. net/video/painted_bride

Sims, Martha and Martine Stephens. Living Folklore an Introduction to the Study of People and Their Traditions. Logan, Utah: Utah State University Press, 2005.