Body Arts

What is a Tattoo ?

Getting a tattoo can be a wonderful experience or a nerveracking experience. The best way to make your first tattoo a good experience is to understand what is going on during the procedure.
We will go over the history of tattooing and its social significance. You will learn how tattoos work and what is being used to create them.

 

The Beginning of Tattoos
Tattooing is probably one of the few professions that has been around longer than prostitution. Tattooing has had the same amount of persecution, if not more. Evidence of tattoo implements has been found in Europe, and dates back between 10,000 and 30,000 B.C.E. If your parents or grandparents want to give you grief for getting a tattoo, you can remind them that further back in the family tree, by a few thousand years, your ancestors were most likely getting tattooed by the campfire. That probably won’t dissuade them, but at least you tried.

We will talk about the origins of tattooing. You will see how the designs of today are based on what tribes have done in the past. You will learn how tattooing developed into what it is today so that when you are ready for your tattoo, it will mean something more than just a permanent sticker would.

The South Pacific; Polynesia
The Polynesian Islands are located in the South Pacific. They stretch from Hawaii to Easter Island to New Zealand. The tattooing in Polynesia is considered the most beautiful and mastered of ancient tattooing. The people of the Polynesian Islands are known for having large tattoos, often covering their faces. Unfortunately, due to western globalization in the nineteenth century, tattooing was banned on many islands. This led to the loss of many tattooing
traditions and designs.
The Marquesian Islands lie 1,200 miles west of Peru. The ancient Marquesians developed an ornate style of tattooing that can cover most of the body. The designs are geometric patterns and images, which fit well to the body.

Borneo
Borneo is the third-largest island in the world after Greenland and New Guinea. It is perhaps because of its size that Borneo has been left mostly untouched by the Western world. The inland tribes who have little or no contact with the outside world have had their traditional way of life preserved. Many of their tattoo designs are hundreds of years old and are still tattooed today.

Maori
The Maori are the native people of New Zealand. The Maori are famous for the Moko, a facial tattoo. This beautiful tattoo is a representation of its wearer. The Moko portrays the individual’s social status and is, in a sense, the wearer’s signature. These tattoos are “carved” into the face of the wearer, leaving a ridge-like scar. A good example of the Moko can be seen in the film Once Were Warriors, directed by Lee Tamahori.

Hawaii
The traditional tattooing in Hawaii is called “Kakau.” Not only were tattoos for decorating the body, but they were also used for physical and spiritual protection. The designs also portrayed an individual’s social status.

Samoa
Tatau is the Samoan word for tattoo. The word tatau is actually the origin of the western word tattoo. The Samoan tattoo is very important in portraying social class. It is a very elaborate affair when the son of a chief is tattooed. The Samoan tattoo usually covers the lower torso down to the knee, like a pair of shorts. The process of getting this tattoo would usually begin at the start of puberty, marking the beginning of adulthood.

Africa
Most of African-body modification relies on scarification. Scarification is purposefully creating a scar in the skin for decoration or scarring the skin to make a pattern or design. Ancient Egypt, however, had its own form of tattooing. Egyptologists have found written records dealing with tattoos and works of art seemingly decorated with tattoos. A female body from the XI Dynasty was found in 1891 bearing many lines and dashes, which formed abstract geometric patterns. These tattoos were probably used for certain religious rituals.

North and South America
Tattooing was an important cultural part of the tribes of the Americas. As with the Polynesian tribes, tattooing among
American tribes came to represent social status as well as marks of victory over an enemy. Tattooing was also used in the ritual of beginning adulthood. Unfortunately, most of the indigenous societies were destroyed and their traditions banned and lost.

Some examples of traditional tattooing found in North America are:
- The Iroquois were tattooed to show social status. The larger and more ornate the tattoo, the higher the status an individual had.
- The Haida of the northwest were tattooed with designs that represented family heritage. These designs were of animals, similar to the popular totem-pole designs.
-  The women of the Inuit people in the northwest had their chins tattooed to represent their marital status.
Much of the evidence of tattooing in South America is found in the writings of the conquistadors, the Spanish explorers, between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries. The Spanish had never seen tattooing before and, being devout Catholics, considered it the work of the devil. The Spanish thought it was bad enough that the natives worshipped “demonic” statues, but were disgusted when they saw the natives had managed to print these images on their bodies.

In Mayan society, the wealthy were elaborately tattooed to show their social status. A good example of this can be seen in Mel Gibson’s Apocolypto. Unfortunately, the conquistadors destroyed much of the indigenous culture of South and Central America.

Japan
Japanese tattooing has had an enormous influence on modern tattooing. Sailors would come back from Japan with intricate dragons and other Japanese designs. Western tattooists copied these designs or had the designs tattooed on them when they were in the Navy. It can be said that the old western style of tattooing came together with Japanese tattooing to create the modern tattoo design.
Many western tattooists specialize in Japanese-style tattooing. Some western tattooists have even learned the traditional “hand poke” technique of Japanese tattooing.

Ainu
The Ainu are a tribal group of people who live mainly on the island of Hokkaido, the second-largest island located in northern Japan. The Ainu have inhabited Japan for over ten thousand years and many have integrated into modern Japanese society. The Ainu woman would have their arms, mouths, and sometimes their foreheads tattooed. This would usually occur at the start of puberty.

Criminal Markings
In the seventh century, the rulers of Japan came to adopt their attitude toward tattooing from the Chinese. Tattooing was considered barbaric and only used as a form of punishment. In 720 C.E., an emperor sentenced a man to be tattooed as a worse form of punishment than to be put to death. The Japanese had perfected a system of tattoo markings for criminals to show their crime. This put the criminals in the lowest social class and ostracized the criminal from his or her friends and family.
By the end of the seventeenth century, decorative tattooing began to become popular again. Penal tattoos were then covered up with other designs. This is perhaps the start of tattoos in Japan being fully connected with organized crime. At the same time that tattooing was becoming popular, tattooing as a punishment started to be replaced with other forms of punishment.

Japanese Prints as Influence
By the eighteenth century, tattooing started to draw influence from wood-block prints of images called “ukiyoe,” or “pictures of the floating world.” One of the most famous and influential ukiyoe artists was Kuniyoshi (1798–1861). Kuniyoshi illustrated one of the most popular stories of the time, the Suikoden. The Suikoden originated in China and is a story of 108 outlaws who defied the corrupt rulers of China. Many of them were tattooed. These characters were very popular for over a century, and the illustrations of the tattooed warriors are still a major influence on tattooing today.
Some of the original clients of Japanese tattooists were firefighters. They would bare their tattoos as a sign of courage while battling fires. The yakuza, or Japanese mafia, kept the tradition of tattooing as well. To this day, many bodysuits in Japan are on yakuza.

 

---