From: bloodthorn@sloth.equinox.gen.nz (Jennifer Geard)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: body painting 
Distribution: world
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 93 00:54:39 GMT
Organization: Lethargy Inc.


  > Try Woad!!

... said Gaelan MacCuinneagain.  Yeah, right:  how does Sir prefer to wear his 
woad?  I quote from the article "Woad as a Prehistoric Pigment", published 
in the Journal of the Royal Horticultural Society (1901) by Charles B. 
Plowright M.D.

*QUOTE ON*

One of the first concrete facts of English history which a child learns at 
school is that the Ancient Britons dyed themselves blue with a plant called 
Woad.

Did the Ancient Britons really dye themselves blue?  Caesar clearly says they 
did: "All the Britons stain themselves with Woad (vitrum), which produces a 
blue colour and gives them a more horrible appearance in battle." [1]  Pliny 
says, however, "There is a plant like Plantain, called in Gaul glastum, with 
which the wives and daughters of the Britons smear their bodies in certain 
ceremonies and go naked, being of the colour of Ethiopeans;"  while Ovid 
speaks of our ancestors as Virides (green) Britannos.  Lastly, Herodian 
refers to the Ancient Britons as being ignorant of the use of clothes, but 
"They mark their bodies with various figures of all kinds of animals, which 
is the reason they wear no clothes for fear of hiding these figures."

Caesar and Pliny, then, agree as to the use of Woad as a decorative pigment, 
but Caesar says it was blue, Pliny that it was black, while Ovid, although 
not mentioning the exact substance, refers to our ancestors as "green", and 
Herodian intimates that they were tattooed.  It is quite possible that each 
of these writers is more or less correct, for Woad will yield not only a blue 
pigment -- which, however, is often more or less green -- but even more 
easily yields a black one, as the hands of the Woad gatherers in autumn 
plainly show.

To return to our ancestors.

(1)  They may have dyed themselves blue by infusing fresh young Woad leaves 
in hot water, adding pearl ash or wood ashes, and washing themselves with the 
liquid.

(2)  By substituting an excess of lime-water or by slaking quicklime in the 
infusion, they might have dyed themselves a green colour.

(3)  By rubbing themselves with the juice of the plant they would have dyed 
themselves as black as the "wadmen" still dye their hands every autumn when 
cropping and balling the Woad.

(4)  By infusing the plant, adding a small quantity of lime water, and drying 
the precipitate they could have obtained nearly pure indigo with which (a) 
they could have tattooed themselves, or (b) smeared it on their bodies, mixed 
with oil.

(5)  It is most likely, however, that they obtained woad-indigo and used it 
for tattooing their bodies from the scum which rises to the top of the vessel 
in which the process of Woad dying is being successfully carried on.  this 
was probably the source from which Pliny's chalk was stained blue, as it was 
that from which the missal illuminators of medieval times -- the pictori that 
Ruellius speaks of -- obtained their beautiful blue pigment.

*QUOTE OFF*

[1]  (I haven't see the original, but I understand it can be found in _De 
Bello Gallica_, Book 5, Chapter 14.  P. le C.)


My comments:  I've only just found a supplier of woad seedlings and first-
year plants, and when they arrive I intend to use the precious leaves to dye 
wool.  In a year I might have enough to try body paint.  I reproduce this 
article with *no guarantees* that any of it will work, but if you give it a 
try I'd love to hear how it goes. 

Remember that the classical sources were often based on hearsay or on 
observations which the writers did not fully understand.  Note also that 
Plowright does not claim that Herodian makes a clear statement about the use 
of tattoos, only that "he intimates that they were tattooed."  Even assuming 
Herodian's statement is grounded in fact, the Britons might have marked their 
bodies with tattoos or they might have made up the oil-based paint from 
option (4) and decorated themselves by finger-painting.  I make this point 
because someone asked recently about tattoos:  this is an interesting piece 
of evidence, but it is very shaky and on its own it proves nothing.  By the 
way, if they did tattoo it is likely that it was a development of an earlier 
tradition of less-permanent body decoration.  

Getting blues from woad requires the use of an alkali.  In recipe (1) this is 
wood-ash, which by itself is probably okay.  Some woad recipes call for 
stronger alkalis like caustic soda or the lye made by seeping rainwater 
through a barrel of hardwood ashes.  This stuff is viciously caustic and I 
wouldn't want it anywhere near my skin until it's been neutralised.  Be 
sensible.  

Don't make your first batch of woad body paint just before the assault on 
Hadrian's Wall:  you need time to experiment with the different methods and 
to check out (on a small, unobtrusive patch of skin ]-) how you and woad get 
on.  What colour is it after two hours?  Does it run?  Does it wash off?  
Some of these recipes should wash off in soap (although I only know the 
theory, not the practice, remember) but others (like (3)) probably won't.  
Being authentically tinted may be great fun for the weekend, but will you 
still be as keen come Monday?

As a point of interest for illuminators:

    Woad also provided the beautiful blue pigment of European painting 
    from the thirteenth century on, and one of the most popular 
    subjects of medieval and Early Renaissance art -- the Virgin Mary -- 
    was traditionally clad in a robe that glowed pale or dark blue with 
    the juice of this plant.  (The scum that rose to the top of the dye 
    vat was mixed with plaster of Paris and white of egg for the pale 
    shades;  the plant was bruised with vinegar and urine and set in the 
    sun to make the darker shades.) 
    (Robertson, p. 79, quoting an article by Violetta Thurston.)

And finally, please let me know how your woad experiments go.  Given the work 
I've had to do to get this far I think a case could be made for gathering the 
information and experimentation on woad together (with sections on fabric 
dyeing, body-painting, and cultivation) so new dyers don't have to re-invent 
the wheel.


REFERENCES (the short list)

The Plowright article is not an easy source to find, but the passage can be 
found in the margin of:

    Robertson, Seonaid  _Dyes from Plants_  NY, Toronto, London, etc:  Van 
        Nostrand Reinhold Company, 1973, pp. 79-80,

and is paraphrased in:

    Goodwin, Jill  _A Dyer's Manual_  London:  Pelham Books, 1982, p. 78,

which includes a comprehensive and practical section on dyeing with woad.

In addition to the full version of the Plowright article, students of woad 
are advised to track down:

    Hurry, Dr. J.B.  _The Woad Plant and its Dye_  Oxford University Press, 
        1930;  reprinted by Augustus M. Kelly, Clifton, New Jersey 07012, 
        and distributed in England by Merlin Press. 


Pagan le Chaunster
Trying to persuade her flatmates that stale and fermenting urine produces 
wonderfully soft wool and would be tolerable in sealed buckets in the garage. 
________________________________________________________________________ 
Jennifer Geard                         bloodthorn@sloth.equinox.gen.nz 
Christchurch, New Zealand