An ancient art becomes mainstream: The acceptance of tattoo art helps remove former stigma

Pacific Publishing Company ^ | July 26, 2006 | Dennis Wilken

[SunkenCiv]

According to the University of Pennsylvania's Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, tattooing has been practiced since the days of the ancient Egyptians, although the pharaohs and their gang must have called it some other word. Tatau is a Tahitian word, and ta-tu the Marquesan word that Captain Cook's sailors brought back from their 18th-century travels to Polynesia, where tattooing held great cultural significance on most of the far flung islands of the South Pacific. Sailors became the first segment of western populations to go for tattoos in a big way. Veterans of overseas wars and convicts followed.

[SunkenCiv]

Simple tattoos in surviving tribal cultures often are there to show tribal affinities; the more sophisticated the tattoo, the higher in status the person has risen. The tattoo isn't responsible for the higher status, it's the other way around. :')

[Fred Nerks]

...body-marking, painting, tattooing, or scarification (cutting or burning) of the body for ritual, esthetic, medicinal, magic, or religious purposes. Evidence from prehistoric burials, rock carvings, and paintings indicates that body-marking existed in ancient times; ethnographic studies show that it is still practiced today. Markings may indicate religious dedication or alliance with a particular god; they may also serve as protection against some evil such as a disease, as identification with a certain group, such as the tribe, or as evidence of personal rank or status within the group. Among examples of the widespread custom of painting the body are the red ocher found in prehistoric burial sites, the blue woad of the ancient Britons, kohl used in Asia to enhance the beauty of the eyes, the use of henna on the fingernails in the Middle East, and the war paint of some Native Americans. The tattoo is an extension of the practice. Scarification was used in ancient times as a property mark for slaves and more recently in Europe and elsewhere, until the latter part of the 19th cent., for the identification of criminals. Besides being employed for magical or ritual purposes, scarification has also been used for its supposed curative powers. The forms used in Africa include stretched lips and earlobes, filed teeth, and flattened skulls.

http://www.answers.com/topic/body-marking

Mursi Woman with Lip Plate OMO VALLEY, ETHIOPIA

(Fascinating subject...but I have never met a mature person with a tattoo who didn't wish it would simply wash off!)

[ironmaidenPR2717]

I truly do appreciate well-done body art. Many in the Christian community are also using letters/words in Hebrew as an opening to share the gospel. I had a biker tat as a 20-something that I had changed into a discreet dolphin when I got older. (I always say, it started out as a guppy but, like me, its grown).

Tattoos used to be a sort of "in-your-face-I'm-a-wild-thing" kind of declaration. I had a mastectomy in '92 and chose not to have reconstruction - haven't got around to decorating that blank space with an interesting, tasteful tat yet for hubby's eyes only, but only because of the expense - and I'm 56.

That being said, once tattoos started appearing on grossly overweight, stringy-haired, middle-aged, female couch potatoes, they ceased being a statement of "I'm wild and fun" and simply became a method that homely people use to try to make themselves look more interesting.

I hate to sound cruel, but once a "statement" filters down to the lowest common denominator, the truly "young, wild, & hot" will look for other extreme ways to express their individuality. And so goes the cycle. I remember when having more than one earring per ear was considered extreme.