A name from the colour
The name refers to the green tone that soot-based pigment takes beneath the skin over time. Across Tamil Nadu, Kerala and the old Mysore region of Karnataka, women and men received names, dots, flowers, deities and protective figures on the forearms, hands and face.
The Korathi tattooist
Historical accounts describe Korathi women, of the Kurava and related itinerant communities, travelling between villages to tattoo for a small fee in food or coin. Lars Krutak notes that in the Mysore region they offered intricate designs drawn from kolam, the threshold patterns drawn each morning by women at the doorway.
A design was traced on the skin, then pricked with a bundle of needles dipped in a pigment of lamp soot mixed with plant juices or breast milk. Turmeric and oil were applied afterwards. Accounts mention singing to ease the pain.
Lines without end
Kolam designs are made with continuous lines looping around a grid of dots. A 1937 study connected these threshold drawings with South Indian tattoo labyrinths, such as the pavitram. The study is historically important, though its broad comparative claims reflect the theories of its time.
Continuity and change
The Hindu reported in 2018 on practitioners near Madurai who said few people now asked for hand tattoos. Electric machines and commercial ink have replaced the old recipe at temple fairs. Contemporary studio artists sometimes return to kolam geometry through research, which can revive the image while leaving the Korathi practitioners themselves unrecorded.