Stealing Beauty

Portrait Photography - Series

2013

Brent Lewin
w: lewinimages.com

Photography: Brent Lewin

Young Apatani girls, revered for their beauty, were often kidnapped by warriors of the neighbouring tribes. As a defence against the poaching of their women, Apatani girls were deliberately defaced at the time of puberty with facial tattoos and bamboo nose plugs. Under recent pressure to assimilate, the practice of nose plugs and facial tattooing has been discontinued. Currently there remain only a handful of women adorning these marks of beauty.