Thursday, August 13, 2020 – Tattoos

Mary Reed
Aug 13, 2020
14 min read

In the early glow of dawn, my eyes must be deceiving me. But no, they DO see a young, muscular, bare-chested man with tattoos on my regular walking path! Having multiple tattoos does seem to be popular with young men these days. The only tattoos I have had were temporary henna ones when I was on vacation in Mexico. I have no desire for anything permanent. I like variety too much to be saddled with the same design for the rest of my life. And I do think beautiful, clear skin is attractive. But I have known people with tattoos who were very proud of them. Nick Wheeler — the son of a guy I went to high school with — is the lead guitarist and backing vocalist for the rock band All-American Rejects that has sold over 10 million albums worldwide. He got a multi-color tattoo on his bicep of the Sesame Street characters. According to his father, it took three days to complete. I do have a lot of respect for the talent and creativity of tattoo artists. Turns out, tattoos have been around for a long time.

History

Preserved tattoos on ancient mummified human remains reveal that tattooing has been practiced throughout the world for many centuries. In 2015, scientific re-assessment of the age of the two oldest known tattooed mummies identified Ötzi or the Iceman as the oldest example then known. This body, with 61 tattoos, was found embedded in glacial ice in the Alps, and was dated to 3250 BCE. In 2018, the oldest figurative tattoos in the world were discovered on two mummies from Egypt which are dated between 3351 and 3017 BCE.

Ancient tattooing was most widely practiced among the Austronesian people. It was one of the early technologies developed by the Proto-Austronesians in Taiwan and coastal South China prior to at least 1500 BCE, before the Austronesian expansion into the islands of the Indo-Pacific. It may have originally been associated with headhunting. Tattooing traditions — including facial tattooing — can be found among all Austronesian subgroups, including Taiwanese Aborigines, Islander Southeast Asians, Micronesians, Polynesians and th Malagasy people. Austronesians used the characteristic hafted skin-puncturing technique, using a small mallet and a piercing implement made from citrus thorns, fish bone, bone and oyster shells.

Ancient tattooing traditions have also been documented among Papuans and Malanesians, with their use of distinctive obsidian skin piercers. Some archeological sites with these implements are associated with the Austronesian migration into Papua New Guinea and Melanesia. But other sites are older than the Austronesian expansion — being dated to around 1650 to 2000 BCE — suggesting that there was a preexisting tattooing tradition in the region.

Europe

In 1565, French sailors abducted from Canada an Inuit woman with facial tattoos and her daughter. They put them on public display in Antwerp, the Netherlands, drawing crowds for money. Sir Martin Frobisher, an English privateer, also abducted an Inuit man from Baffin Island, putting him on display in London before he died from European diseases. Frobisher returned to Baffin Island and abducted a man, a woman and a child, also taking them back to London for public display. They also died from illness shortly afterwards.

Perhaps the most famous tattooed "curiosity" in Europe — prior to the voyages of Captain Cook — was the "Painted Prince," a slave named "Jeoly" from Mindanao, Philippines. He was initially bought with his mother (who died shortly afterwards) from a slave trader in Miangas Island in 1690 by the English explorer William Dampier. Dampier described Jeoly's intricate tattoos in his journals:

He was painted all down the Breast, between his Shoulders behind; on his Thighs (mostly) before; and the Form of several broad Rings, or Bracelets around his Arms and Legs. I cannot liken the Drawings to any Figure of Animals, or the like; but they were very curious, full of great variety of Lines, Flourishes, Chequered-Work, &c. keeping a very graceful Proportion, and appearing very artificial, even to Wonder, especially that upon and between his Shoulder-blades […] I understood that the Painting was done in the same manner, as the Jerusalem Cross is made in Mens Arms, by pricking the Skin, and rubbing in a Pigment.

— William Dampier, “A New Voyage Around the World” (1697)

Jeoly told Dampier that he was the son of a rajah in Mindanao and told him that gold abounded in his island. These were likely embellishments told by Jeoly to convince Dampier to free him. He also mentions that the men and women of Mindanao were also tattooed similarly, and that his tattoos were done by one of his five wives. He is believed to be a Visayan pintado, if he indeed came from Mindanao. Other authors have also identified him as Palauan due to the pattern of his tattoos and his account that he was tattooed by women — Visayan tattooists were male from the few surviving records; while Palauan tattooists were female — although this would conflict with his own admission that he originally came from Mindanao.

Dampier brought Jeoly with him to London, intending him to be a puppet prince for the British venture into the Spice Islands. He promised Jeoly that he would be paid well and allowed to return home. He invented a fictional backstory for him, renaming him "Prince Giolo" and claiming that he was the son and heir of the "King of Gilolo." Instead of being from Mindanao, Dampier now claimed that he was only shipwrecked in Mindanao with his mother and sister, whereupon he was captured and sold to slavery. Dampier also claimed that Jeoly's tattoos were created from an "herbal paint" that rendered him invulnerable to snake venom and that the "royal" tattooing process was done naked in a room of venomous snakes.

Dampier initially toured around with Jeoly, showing his tattoos to crowds. Despite pretending to care for the "prince," Dampier eventually sold Jeoly to the Blue Boar Inn in Fleet Street. Jeoly was displayed as a sideshow by the inn, with his likeness printed on playbills and flyers advertising his "exquisitely painted" body. By this time, Jeoly had contracted smallpox and was very ill. He was later brought to the University of Oxford for examination, but he died shortly afterwards at around 30 years of age in the summer of 1692. His tattooed skin was preserved and was displayed in the Anatomy School of Oxford for a time, although it was lost prior to the 20th century.

It is commonly held that the modern popularity of tattooing stems from Captain James Cook's three voyages to the South Pacific in the late 18th century. Certainly, Cook's voyages and the dissemination of the texts and images from them brought more awareness about tattooing and imported the word "tattow" into Western languages. On Cook's first voyage in 1768, his science officer and expedition botanist, Sir Joseph Banks, as well as artist Sydney Parkinson and many others of the crew, returned to England with a keen interest in tattoos, with Banks writing about them extensively. Parkinson is believed to have gotten a tattoo himself in Tahiti. Banks was a highly regarded member of the English aristocracy that had acquired his position with Cook by co-financing the expedition with 10,000 pounds, a very large sum at the time. In turn, Cook brought back with him a tattooed Raiatean man — Omai — whom he presented to King George and the English court. On subsequent voyages other crew members, from officers such as American John Ledyard to ordinary seamen, were tattooed.

The first documented professional tattooist in Britain was Sutherland Macdonald, who operated out of a salon in London beginning in 1894. In Britain, tattooing was still largely associated with sailors and the lower or even criminal class, but by the 1870s had become fashionable among some members of the upper classes, including royalty, and in its upmarket form it could be an expensive and sometimes painful process. A marked class division on the acceptability of the practice continued for some time in Britain. Recently, a trend has arisen marketed as “stick and poke” tattooing; simple designs are tattooed either on oneself or by another person using do-it-yourself kits that usually contain needles, ink and often sample designs.

America

As most tattoos in the United States were done by Polynesian and Japanese amateurs, tattoo artists were in great demand in port cities all over the world, especially by European and American sailors. The first recorded professional tattoo artist in the U.S. was a German immigrant, Martin Hildebrandt. He opened a shop in New York City in 1846 and quickly became popular during the American Civil War among soldiers and sailors of both Union and Confederate militaries.

Hildebrandt began traveling from camp to camp to tattoo soldiers, increasing his popularity and also giving birth to the tradition of getting tattoos while being an American serviceman. Soon after the Civil War, tattoos became fashionable among upper-class young adults. This trend lasted until the beginning of World War I. The invention of the electric tattoo machine caused popularity of tattoos among the wealthy to drop off. The machine made the tattooing procedure both much easier and cheaper, thus, eliminating the status symbol tattoos previously held, as they were now affordable for all socioeconomic classes. The status symbol of a tattoo shifted from a representation of wealth to a mark typically seen on rebels and criminals. Despite this change, tattoos remained popular among military servicemen, a tradition that continues today.

In 1975, there were only 40 tattoo artists in the country; in 1980, there were more than 5,000 self-proclaimed tattoo artists, appearing in response to booming popularity in the skin mural trade. Many studies have been done of the tattooed population and society's view of tattoos. In June 2006, the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology published the results of a telephone survey of 2004. It found that 36% of Americans ages 18–29, 24% of those 30–40 and 15% of those 41–51 had a tattoo. In September 2006, the Pew Research Center conducted a telephone survey that found that 36% of Americans ages 18–25, 40% of those 26–40 and 10% of those 41–64 had a tattoo. They concluded that Generation X and Millennials express themselves through their appearance, and tattoos are a popular form of self-expression. In January 2008, a survey conducted online by Harris Interactive estimated that 14% of all adults in the United States have a tattoo, slightly down from 2003, when 16% had a tattoo. Among age groups, 9% of those ages 18–24, 32% of those 25–29, 25% of those 30–39 and 12% of those 40–49 have tattoos, as do 8% of those 50–64. Men are slightly more likely to have a tattoo than women.

Richmond, Virginia has been cited as one of the most tattooed cities in the United States. That distinction led the Valentine Richmond History Center to create an online exhibit titled "History, Ink: The Tattoo Archive Project." The introduction to the exhibit notes, "In the past, Western culture associated tattoos with those individuals who lived on the edge of society; however, today they are recognized as a legitimate art form and widely accepted in mainstream culture."

Since the 1970s, tattoos have become a mainstream part of Western fashion, common among both genders, to all economic classes and to age groups from the later teen years to middle age. For many young Americans, the tattoo has taken on a decidedly different meaning than for previous generations. The tattoo has undergone "dramatic redefinition" and has shifted from a form of deviance to an acceptable form of expression.

As of November 1, 2006, Oklahoma became the last state to legalize tattooing, having banned it since 1963.

Australia

Branding was used by European authorities for marking criminals throughout the 17th and 18th centuries. The practice was also used by British authorities to mark army deserters and military personnel court-martialed in Australia. In 19th century Australia, tattoos were generally the result of personal rather than official decisions, but British authorities started to record tattoos along with scars and other bodily markings to describe and manage convicts assigned for transportation. The practice of tattooing appears to have been a largely noncommercial enterprise during the convict period in Australia. For example, James Ross in the Hobart Almanac of 1833 describes how the convicts on board ship commonly spent time tattooing themselves with gunpowder.

By the beginning of the 20th century, there were tattoo studios in Australia but they do not appear to have been numerous. For example, the Sydney tattoo studio of Fred Harris was touted as being the only tattoo studio in Sydney between 1916 and 1943. Tattoo designs often reflected the culture of the day, and in 1923, Harris's small parlor experienced an increase in the number of women getting tattoos. Another popular trend was for women to have their legs tattooed so the designs could be seen through their stockings.

By 1937 Harris was one of Sydney's best-known tattoo artists and was inking around 2,000 tattoos a year in his shop. Sailors provided most of the canvases for his work, but among the more popular tattoos in 1938 were Australian flags and kangaroos for sailors of the visiting American Fleet.

Dayak people, one of the native groups of Borneo

Historical associations

Among Austronesian societies, tattoos had various function. Among men, they were strongly linked to the widespread practice of head-hunting raids. In head-hunting societies, like the Ifugao and Dayak people, tattoos were records of how many heads the warriors had taken in battle and were part of the initiation rites into adulthood. The number, design, and location of tattoos, therefore, were indicative of a warrior's status and prowess. They were also regarded as magical wards against various dangers like evil spirits and illnesses. Among the Visayans of the precolonial Philippines, tattoos were worn by the tumao nobility and the timawa warrior class as permanent records of their participation and conduct in maritime raids known as mangayaw. In Austronesian women, like the facial tattoos among the women of the Tayal and Māori people, they were indicators of status, skill and beauty.

The government of Meiji, Japan had outlawed tattoos in the 19th century, a prohibition that stood for 70 years before being repealed in 1948. As of June 6, 2012, all new tattoos were forbidden for employees of the city of Osaka. Existing tattoos are required to be covered with proper clothing. The regulations were added to Osaka's ethical codes, and employees with tattoos were encouraged to have them removed. This was done because of the strong connection of tattoos with the yakuza — or Japanese organized crime — after an Osaka official in February 2012 threatened a schoolchild by showing his tattoo.

The picture to the right is an 1888 Japanese woodblock print of a prostitute biting her handkerchief in pain as her arm is tattooed. Based on historical practice, the tattoo is likely the name of her lover.

Tattoos had negative connotations in historical China, where criminals often had been marked by tattooing. The association of tattoos with criminals was transmitted from China to influence Japan. Today, tattoos have remained a taboo in Chinese society.

The Romans tattooed criminals and slaves, and in the 19th century released U.S. convicts, Australian convicts and British army deserters were identified by tattoos. Prisoners in Nazi concentration camps were tattooed with an identification number. Today, many prison inmates still tattoo themselves as an indication of time spent in prison.

Native Americans also used tattoos to represent their tribe. Catholic Croats of Bosnia used religious Christian tattooing — especially of children and women — for protection against conversion to Islam during the Ottoman rule in the Balkans.

Modern associations

Tattoos are strongly empirically associated with deviance, personality disorders and criminality. Although the general acceptance of tattoos is on the rise in Western society, they still carry a heavy stigma among certain social groups. Tattoos are generally considered an important part of the culture of the Russian mafia.

Current cultural understandings of tattoos in Europe and North America have been greatly influenced by longstanding stereotypes based on deviant social groups in the 19th and 20th centuries. Particularly in North America, tattoos have been associated with stereotypes, folklore and racism. Not until the 1960s and 1970s did people associate tattoos with such societal outcasts as bikers and prisoners. Today, in the United States many prisoners and criminal gangs use distinctive tattoos to indicate facts about their criminal behavior, prison sentences and organizational affiliation. A teardrop tattoo, for example, can be symbolic of murder or each tear represents the death of a friend. At the same time, members of the U.S. military have an equally well-established and longstanding history of tattooing to indicate military units, battles, kills, etc., an association that remains widespread among older Americans. In Japan, tattoos are associated with yakuza or organized criminal groups, but there are non-yakuza groups such as Fukushi Masaichi’s tattoo association that sought to preserve the skins of dead Japanese who have extensive tattoos.

Tattooing is also common in the British Armed Forces. Depending on vocation, tattoos are accepted in many professions in America. Companies across many fields are increasingly focused on diversity and inclusion. Mainstream art galleries hold exhibitions of both conventional and custom tattoo designs, such as “Beyond Skin,” at the Museum of Croydon.

In Britain, there is evidence of women with tattoos — concealed by their clothing — throughout the 20th century, and records of women tattooists such as Jessie Knight from the 1920s. A study of "at-risk" — as defined by school absenteeism and truancy — adolescent girls showed a positive correlation between body modification and negative feelings towards the body and low self-esteem; however, the study also demonstrated that a strong motive for body modification is the search for "self and attempts to attain mastery and control over the body in an age of increasing alienation". The prevalence of women in the tattoo industry in the 21st century — along with larger numbers of women bearing tattoos — appears to be changing negative perceptions.

In “Covered in Ink” by Beverly Yuen Thompson, she interviews heavily tattooed women in Washington, Miami, Orlando, Houston, Long Beach and Seattle from 2007 to 2010 using participant observation and in-depth interviews of 70 women. Younger generations are typically more unbothered by heavily tattooed women, while the older generation — including the participant’s parents — is more likely to look down on them; some even go to the extreme of disowning their children for getting tattoos. Typically how the family reacts is an indicator of their relationship in general. Family members who weren't accepting of tattoos often wanted to scrub the images off, pour holy water on them or have them surgically removed. Families who were emotionally accepting of their family members were able to maintain close bonds after tattooing.

Types of temporary tattoos

Decal-style temporary tattoos

Decal or press-on temporary tattoos are used to decorate any part of the body. They may last for a day or for more than a week.

Metallic jewelry tattoos

Foil temporary tattoos are a variation of decal-style temporary tattoos, printed using a foil stamping technique instead of using ink. The foil design is printed as a mirror image in order to be viewed in the right direction once it is applied to the skin. Each metallic tattoo is protected by a transparent protective film.

Airbrush temporary tattoos

Although they have become more popular and usually require a greater investment, airbrush temporary tattoos are less likely to achieve the look of a permanent tattoo and may not last as long as press-on temporary tattoos. An artist sprays on airbrush tattoos using a stencil with alcohol-based cosmetic inks. Like decal tattoos, airbrush temporary tattoos also are easily removed with rubbing alcohol or baby oil.

Henna temporary tattoos

Another tattoo alternative is henna-based tattoos, which generally contain no additives. Henna is a plant-derived substance which is painted on the skin, staining it a reddish-orange-to-brown color. Because of the semi-permanent nature of henna, they lack the realistic colors typical of decal temporary tattoos. Due to the time-consuming application process, it is a relatively poor option for children. Dermatological publications report that allergic reactions to natural henna are very rare, and the product is generally considered safe for skin application. Serious problems can occur, however, from the use of henna with certain additives. The FDA and medical journals report that painted black henna temporary tattoos are especially dangerous.

Religious views

Egyptians originally used tattoos to show dedication to a god. This also showed protection. In other religions like Hinduism and Neopaganism, tattoos are accepted. Christianity remains one of the religions without a definitive answer on tattoos.

Judaism generally prohibits tattoos among its adherents based on the commandments in Leviticus 19. Jews tend to believe this commandment only applies to Jews and not to Gentiles. However, views amongst rabbis are divided, and an increasing number of young Jews are getting tattoos either for fashion or an expression of their faith.

There is no specific rule in the New Testament prohibiting tattoos, and most Christian denominations believe the laws in Leviticus are outdated, as well as believing the commandment only applied to the Israelites, not to the Gentiles. While most Christian groups tolerate tattoos, some evangelical and fundamentalist Protestant denominations believe the commandment applies today for Christians and believe it is a sin to get one.

Many Coptic Christians in Egypt have a cross tattoo on their right wrist to differentiate themselves from Muslims.

Tattoos are considered to be haram or forbidden in Sunni Islam, based on rulings from scholars and passages in the Sunni Hadith. Shia Islam does not prohibit tattooing, and many Shia Muslims — Lebanese, Iraqis, Yemenis, Iranians — have tattoos, specifically with religious themes.

Southeast Asia has a tradition of protective tattoos variously known as sak yant or yantra tattoos that include Buddhist images, prayers and symbols. Images of Buddha or other religious figures have caused controversy in some Buddhist countries when incorporated into tattoos by Westerners who do not follow traditional customs regarding respectful display of images of Buddhas or deities.

Below are some examples of tattoo artistry.