Uli Body Painting in Awka

Ùlì art is used for decorative, social, spiritual, or medicinal purposes. The designs are created using a dye extracted from plants known collectively as ùlì. While often used to decorate women's bodies, the art is also applied in larger forms to the walls of clay houses. The practice typically utilizes small, thin applicator tools to transfer the plant-based dye to the skin.

Winifred Beatrice Yeatman was an ethnographic and medical artifact collector active in Nigeria during the 1930s, focusing her efforts on the Onitsha Province, including Awka and Abiriba. Her contributions to the Pitt Rivers Museum Body Arts | Scarification in Nigeria include items collected in 1934 and donated via the Wellcome Historical Medical Museum in 1942. She also donated materials and tools related to Uli art directly to the museum in 1975.

During the 1930s, Awka served as a prominent center for Igbo craftsmanship and cultural practices. The use of woven organic fibers, such as palm fronds or reeds, for mats and structural walls was characteristic of the local architecture of the period. This photograph is part of a broader historical effort to document both temporary body arts, like Uli, and permanent body arts, such as scarification, within the Onitsha and Awka regions.

The dye used in Ùlì art is extracted from several plant species, most commonly from a fruit pod, the bean of a second species, or the crushed root of a third. The most common dye, Ùlì Oba, is obtained by squeezing the juice of the fruit into a bowl. According to Pitt Rivers Museum Body Arts | Uli materials and tools, the designs initially appear green but turn black as they react with body heat, typically lasting for about one week.

The precise application of these designs is achieved using a thin sliver of wood or a specially forged iron tool. This practice was often a professional endeavor, as some collectors in the 1930s noted that Ùlì was usually performed by women who earned a living through this work, as detailed in Pitt Rivers Museum Body Arts | Uli materials and tools.