Bindi Can Be

A Bindi Can Be …

A young girl makes a bindi with her grandmother and discovers what wearing one means to her. A young girl is eager to learn all about bindis, the red dot that goes between her brows. Paati, her grandmother, shows her how to make a bindi by combining traditional ingredients in a clay pot. They mix and mix and mix until, like magic, the mixture turns from yellow to bright red. The girl wears her bindi when she celebrates festivals, such as Diwali. But she also wears it on an ordinary day, since it keeps her centered and calm, and lets her see the world as one. In this way, she discovers that her bindi is more than just a dot.

Bindi

Faces around the World

This book provides a comprehensive examination of the human face, providing fascinating information from biological, cultural, and social perspectives. Our faces identify who we are—not only what we look like and what ethnicities we belong to, but they can also identify what religions we practice and what personal ideologies we have. This one-of-a-kind A–Z reference explores the ways we change, beautify, and adorn our faces to create our personalities and identities. In addition to covering the basics such as the anatomical structure and function of parts of the human face, the entries examine how the face is viewed around the world, allowing students to easily draw connections and differences between various cultures around the world. Readers will learn about a wide variety of topics, including identity in different cultures; religious beliefs; folklore; extreme beautification; the "evil eye;" scarification; facial piercing and facial tattooing masks; social views about beauty including cosmetic surgery and makeup; how gender, class and sexuality play a role in our understanding of the face; and skin, eye, mouth, nose, and ear diseases and disorders. This encyclopedia is ideal for high school and undergraduate students studying anthropology, anatomy, gender, religion, and world cultures.