Quand les femmes font corps.: Le tatouage facial féminin chez les Drung du Yunnan

International audienceIn this chapter, I examine the seldom studied but now obsolete tradition of facial tattooing among Drung women in Yunnan province, China. In particular, I analyse the progressive, quasi-initiatory transition into womanhood established by tattoos, both during girls’ playful trial tattoo sessions, or on the occasion of the formal execution of the facial tattoo by a fully experienced woman. Female tattooing—by puncturing the skin, causing bleeding and pain—sustains and marks the social and physiological time of the transition to nubility. I show that tattooing can be understood as a processual construction of womanhood that is inseparable from the exchanges that take place between women and from the specific relationships involving fertility, which is transmitted, “revealed,” and represented by tattooing