Sicanje
What is Sicanje?
FAQ
Sicanje
Sicanje
Sicanje
What is Sicanje?
FAQ
Sicanje
Sicanje is hand-poked onto the hands: crosses, sun circles and scatters of dots, worn mostly by women, from childhood on.
Sicanje — also called bocanje — is the traditional tattooing of the Catholic communities of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia, worn mostly by women and documented for centuries. Crosses, sun circles, wheat ears, branches, bracelets and scatters of dots, hand-poked onto the hands, the fingers, the forearms and sometimes the chest. It was a mark of identity and of protection, often put on from childhood. It's one of the few European tattoos to have had that function, rather than being an ornament chosen in adulthood. The practice nearly died out in the 20th century and is drawing renewed interest today, carried in particular by descendants of the women who wore it.
On YokoFolio, pick the style Sicanje and then your city, and widen the radius a lot: the practice is very rare, and it's concentrated in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia. Look for someone who knows the history of this tradition and not only its motifs. If you have no connection to these communities, read up first: these signs were worn in a context of protection and sometimes of coercion.
They mix Christian signs — the cross above all — with older solar and plant forms: rayed circles, wheat ears, branches, bracelets, scatters of dots. They stated belonging to a community and served as protection. Interpretations vary by region and by family, and much of that knowledge has been lost: the surest sources are ethnographic work and the testimony of the last women who wore it.
It was hand-poked with a needle, using ink made at home from soot and honey, on specific dates in the Christian calendar — often around spring. The work usually fell to an older woman in the village, and it brought several people together: it was a communal moment, not an appointment. Its exact role, particularly as a mark of protection under Ottoman rule, is debated among historians.
Far more rarely than women, who were both its main wearers and the ones who put it on. When men did wear it, it was generally a simple cross on the hand or the forearm, without the dense arrangements of bracelets and dotted fields you see on women's hands. Here again, practice varies by region: if the subject interests you, look for documented sources rather than online summaries.