The Hamsa in Tunisian Culture.

We have learned in class that culture is something subjective and so vast. Culture can easily be generalised and we all have a different definition of what it may be and what we see ourselves fitting into. I think that as a person that has lived in various countries and adapted to many cultures, I like to think that I really belong to the world culture, but at the same time I don’t. Putting aside that I have lived in various countries all different from one another, that I was attending a french school most of my life and that I would watch endless hours of Disney Channel up until the age of 12, I was still raised in a Tunisian household. 

Today I’m going to talk about the Hamsa pronounced Khamsa خمسة  meaning five in Arabic, also known as the Hand of Fatima to french speakers . Now this symbol was originally used mainly by the people in the Middle East and North Africa, but it is very multicultural and can be found in countries in Asia. People in Islam and Judaism and also apparently Buddhism associate with it, but it not a religious symbol (does anyone understand this nuance?) . Today it is now popularised all over the world, a design found to be “tumblr” and “stylish” that is imprinted on many clothing, jewellery and decorative items. The origins are said to go back from Mesopotamia (today Iraq) as well as Carthage (Tunisia). The meaning of this varies from culture to culture , but I’m going to focus more on it’s meaning in my country.

The Hamsa can be an amulet, necklace or even at the entrance of houses, and it is a symbol of protection and it is believed to fight against the “evil eye”( a malicious stare that may cause harm to the person being stared at, from death to just bad luck) . It is the number five that is associated to protection against the “evil eye” which could fight the looks of an envious person or the thoughts of jealous people and before it is believed to be one of the ways to combat that. The open hand stops the bad eye. The number five can also be associate to the five pillars of Islam ( Belief, Worship, Fasting, Almsgiving, and Pilgrimage), the appellation of Fatima comes from the name of the daughter of the prophet Mohammed (pbuh) , which was more popularised when the colonialists came to North Africa as they were not able to pronounce Arabic and the actual name of the symbol. It does date well before any religion was born, making it more something more spiritual than religious, even if the previous information may not make it seem that way. 

Historically and traditionally, the Hamsa can be hung in front of the house, either being in the shape of a flat ceramic (like the one below) or a ceramic directly in the shape of the hand and until today this can be seen in old houses. Sometimes it’s painted in red or even  blood from someone’s hand that was dipped in a sacrifices blood from Eid. Now it was also given to expecting or new mothers to ward off the bad eye and anyone would have it around in their house or wear it as jewellery to get the bad eye away. The hand can be fingers spread apart to get the evil away or put together for good luck, and really the direction of the hand pointing upwards or down is just a variation of design, like placing an eye on the palm is a variation as well.

I wear on a daily basis a Hamsa necklace that goes incognito most of the time. I can still remember my grandma’s reaction when she first saw it. She said: “ Oh it’s cute you believe that can take the evil eye away”. Well at least I know sarcasm is a hereditary thing. Anyways back to the point I was trying to make. In the end I think that the Hand of Fatima or whatever you want to call it is a beautiful symbol, it has so many different interpretation and one culture alone can see it in different views. I think that it is important that when wearing a symbol you may not know of, it’s important to know the meaning behind it, because you are wearing something that is a part of a history and a specific mindset.