Face places
Eyewear towns, barber streets, theatre homes and the places where face traditions live. 15 places so far.
South Asia
Living tradition, India, 1 face guideJaipurRajasthan's capital and jewellery city, maker of the bridal nath, the borla and other face ornaments.Living tradition, India, 1 face guideVrindavanKrishna's town in Braj, where Vaishnava devotees wear the vertical urdhva pundra tilak of clay.Living tradition, India, 1 face guideZiro valleyThe Apatani valley in Arunachal Pradesh, where women once wore facial tattoos and wooden nose plugs.Living tradition, IndiaAmritsarThe city of the Golden Temple, the spiritual centre of Sikhism, where unshorn beards are part of faith.Living tradition, IndiaKolkataThe city of Durga Puja, where married women smear each other with sindoor on the festival's last day.Living tradition, IndiaMon and the Konyak countryThe Konyak homeland of Nagaland, where the last men with face tattoos marking old headhunting rites still live.Living tradition, IndiaVaranasiShiva's city on the Ganges, where the tilak and the three ash lines of the tripundra are applied at the ghats every morning.
Southeast Asia
Living tradition, Myanmar, 1 face guideMindat, Chin StateThe hill town in southern Chin State where the last generation of women with tattooed faces still live.Living tradition, MyanmarYangon and Myanmar's thanakaMyanmar, where women, children and many men wear pale yellow thanaka paste on their cheeks every day.
Sub-Saharan Africa
Living tradition, Nigeria, 1 face guideOyo and the Yoruba townsThe old Yoruba royal town of southwest Nigeria, in a region where facial marks once showed lineage and home town.Living tradition, EthiopiaJinka and the Lower Omo ValleyThe market town for the Lower Omo peoples of Ethiopia, among them the Mursi, whose women wear clay lip plates.