A tattoo is a form of body modification made by inserting tattoo ink, dyes, and/or pigments, either indelible or temporary, into the dermis layer of the skin to form a design. Tattoo artists create these designs using several tattooing processes and techniques, including hand-tapped traditional tattoos and modern tattoo machines. The history of tattooing goes back to Neolithic times, practiced across the globe by many cultures, and the symbolism and impact of tattoos varies in different places and cultures.
Tattoos may be decorative (with no specific meaning), symbolic (with a specific meaning to the wearer), pictorial (a depiction of a specific person or item), or textual (words or pictographs from written languages). Many tattoos serve as rites of passage, marks of status and rank, symbols of religious and spiritual devotion, decorations for bravery, marks of fertility, pledges of love, amulets and talismans, protection, and as punishment, like the marks of outcasts, slaves and convicts. Extensive decorative tattooing has also been part of the work of performance artists such as tattooed ladies.
Although tattoo art has existed at least since the first known tattooed person, Ötzi, lived around the year 3330 BC, the way society perceives tattoos has varied immensely throughout history. In the 20th century, tattoo art throughout most of the world was associated with a limited selection of specific "rugged" lifestyles, notably sailors and prisoners. In the 21st century, people choose to be tattooed for artistic, cosmetic, sentimental/memorial, religious, and spiritual reasons, or to symbolize their belonging to or identification with particular groups, including criminal gangs (see criminal tattoos) or a particular ethnic group or law-abiding subculture. Tattoos may show how a person feels about a relative (commonly a parent or child) or about an unrelated person.[1]
Tattoos can also be used for functional purposes, such as identification, permanent makeup, and medical purposes.
The word tattoo, or tattow in the 18th century, is a loanword from the Samoan word tatau, meaning "to strike",[2][3] from Proto-Oceanic *sau₃ referring to a wingbone from a flying fox used as an instrument for the tattooing process.[4] The Oxford English Dictionary gives the etymology of tattoo as "In 18th c. tattaow, tattow. From Polynesian (Samoan, Tahitian, Tongan, etc.) tatau. In Marquesan, tatu." Before the importation of the Polynesian word, the practice of tattooing had been described in the West as painting, scarring, or staining.[5]
The etymology of the body modification term is not to be confused with the origins of the word for the military drumbeat or performance. In this case, the English word tattoo is derived from the Dutch word taptoe.[6]
Copyrighted tattoo designs that are mass-produced and sent to tattoo artists are known as "flash".[7] Flash sheets are prominently displayed in many tattoo parlors for the purpose of providing both inspiration and ready-made tattoo images to customers.
The Japanese word irezumi means "insertion of ink" and can mean tattoos using tebori, the traditional Japanese hand method, a Western-style machine or any method of tattooing using insertion of ink. The most common word used for traditional Japanese tattoo designs is horimono.[8] Japanese may use the word Western tattoo as a loan word meaning any non-Japanese styles of tattooing.[citation needed]
British anthropologist Ling Roth in 1900 described four methods of skin marking and suggested they be differentiated under the names "tatu", "moko", "cicatrix" and "keloid".[9] The first is by pricking that leaves the skin smooth as found in places including the Pacific Islands. The second is a tattoo combined with chiseling to leave furrows in the skin as found in places including New Zealand. The third is scarification using a knife or chisel as found in places including West Africa. The fourth and the last is scarification by irritating and re-opening a preexisting wound, and re-scarification to form a raised scar as found in places including Tasmania, Australia,[clarification needed] Melanesia and Central Africa.[10]
The American Academy of Dermatology distinguishes five types of tattoos: traumatic tattoos that result from injuries, such as asphalt from road injuries or pencil lead; amateur tattoos; professional tattoos, both via traditional methods and modern tattoo machines; cosmetic tattoos, also known as "permanent makeup"; and medical tattoos.[11]
A traumatic tattoo occurs when a substance such as asphalt or gunpowder is rubbed into a wound as the result of some kind of accident or trauma.[12] When this involves carbon, dermatologists may call the mark a carbon stain instead of a tattoo.[13]: 47 Coal miners could develop characteristic marks owing to coal dust getting into wounds.[14] These are particularly difficult to remove as they tend to be spread across several layers of skin, and scarring or permanent discoloration can be almost unavoidable depending on the location.[citation needed] An amalgam tattoo is when amalgam particles are implanted in to the soft tissues of the mouth, usually the gums, during dental filling placement or removal.[15] Another example of such accidental tattoos is the result of a deliberate or accidental stabbing with a pencil or pen, leaving graphite or ink beneath the skin.
A well-known example is the Nazi practice of forcibly tattooing concentration camp inmates with identification numbers during the Holocaust as part of the Nazis' identification system, beginning in fall 1941.[16] The SS introduced the practice at Auschwitz concentration camp in order to identify the bodies of registered prisoners in the concentration camps. During registration, guards would tattoo each prisoner with a number, usually on the left forearm, but sometimes on the chest[17] or stomach.[18] Of the Nazi concentration camps, only Auschwitz put tattoos on inmates.[19] Prisoners found with tattoos in Mauthausen concentration camp[17] and Buchenwald concentration camp[18] upon liberation were presumably transported from Auschwitz by death march. The tattoo was the prisoner's camp number, sometimes with a special symbol added: some Jews had a triangle, and Romani had the letter "Z" (from German Zigeuner for 'Gypsy'). In May 1944, Jewish men received the letters "A" or "B" to indicate a particular series of numbers.
As early as the Zhou, Chinese authorities would employ facial tattoos as a punishment for certain crimes or to mark prisoners or slaves.
During the Roman Empire, gladiators and slaves were tattooed: exported slaves were tattooed with the words "tax paid", and it was a common practice to tattoo "fugitive" (denoted by the letters "FUG") on the foreheads of runaway slaves.[20] Owing to the Biblical strictures against the practice,[21] Emperor Constantine I banned tattooing the face around AD 330, and the Second Council of Nicaea banned all body markings as a pagan practice in AD 787.[22]
These markings can potentially provide a wealth of information about an individual. Simple visual examinations, as well as more advanced digital recognition technologies, are employed to assist in identifying or providing clues about suspects or victims of crimes. [23]
Tattoos are sometimes used by forensic pathologists to help them identify burned, putrefied, or mutilated bodies. As tattoo pigment lies encapsulated deep in the skin, tattoos are not easily destroyed even when the skin is burned.[24]
Pets, show animals, thoroughbred horses, and livestock are sometimes tattooed with animal identification marks. Ear tattoos are a method of identification for beef cattle.[25] Tattooing with a 'slap mark' on the shoulder or on the ear is the standard identification method in commercial pig farming. Branding is used for similar reasons and is often performed without anesthesia, but is different from tattooing as no ink or dye is inserted during the process, the mark instead being caused by permanent scarring of the skin.[26] Pet dogs and cats are sometimes tattooed with a serial number (usually in the ear, or on the inner thigh) via which their owners can be identified. However, the use of a microchip has become an increasingly popular choice and since 2016 is a legal requirement for all 8.5 million pet dogs in the UK.[27] In Australia, desexed cats and dogs are marked with a tattoo on the inside of the ear.[28]
Permanent makeup is the use of tattoos to create long-lasting eyebrows, lips (liner and/or lip blushing), eyes (permanent eyeliner), and even moles definition. Natural colors are used to mimic eyebrows and freckles, while diverse pigments for lips and eyeliner for a look akin to traditional makeup.[29]
A growing trend[when?] in the US and UK is to place artistic tattoos over the surgical scars of a mastectomy. "More women are choosing not to reconstruct after a mastectomy and tissue instead... The mastectomy tattoo or areola tattoo will become just another option for post cancer patients and a truly personal way of regaining control over post cancer bodies..."[30] However, the tattooing of nipples on reconstructed breasts remains in high demand.[31]
Medical tattoos are used to ensure instruments are properly located for repeated application of radiotherapy and for the areola in some forms of breast reconstruction. Tattooing has also been used to convey medical information about the wearer (e.g., blood group, medical condition, etc.). Alzheimer patients may be tattooed with their names, so they may be easily identified if they go missing.[32] Additionally, tattoos are used in skin tones to cover vitiligo, a skin pigmentation disorder.[33]
SS blood group tattoos (‹See Tfd›German: Blutgruppentätowierung) were worn by members of the Waffen-SS in Nazi Germany during World War II to identify the individual's blood type. After the war, the tattoo was taken to be prima facie, if not perfect, evidence of being part of the Waffen-SS, leading to potential arrest and prosecution. This led a number of ex-Waffen-SS to shoot themselves through the arm with a gun, removing the tattoo and leaving scars like the ones resulting from pox inoculation, making the removal less obvious.[34]
Tattoos were probably also used in ancient medicine as part of the treatment of the patient. In 1898, Daniel Fouquet, a medical doctor, wrote an article on "medical tattooing" practices in Ancient Egypt, in which he describes the tattooed markings on the female mummies found at the Deir el-Bahari site. He speculated that the tattoos and other scarifications observed on the bodies may have served a medicinal or therapeutic purpose: "The examination of these scars, some white, others blue, leaves in no doubt that they are not, in essence, ornament, but an established treatment for a condition of the pelvis, very probably chronic pelvic peritonitis."[35]
Ötzi the iceman had a total of 61 tattoos, which may have been a form of acupuncture used to relieve pain.[36] Radiological examination of Ötzi's bones showed "age-conditioned or strain-induced degeneration" corresponding to many tattooed areas, including osteochondrosis and slight spondylosis in the lumbar spine and wear-and-tear degeneration in the knee and especially in the ankle joints.[37] If so, this is at least 2,000 years before acupuncture's previously known earliest use in China (c. 100 BCE).
Preserved tattoos on ancient mummified human remains reveal that tattooing has been practiced throughout the world for thousands of years.[38] In 2015, scientific re-assessment of the age of the two oldest known tattooed mummies identified Ötzi 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.[38][39] In 2018, the oldest figurative tattoos in the world were discovered on two mummies from Egypt which are dated between 3351 and 3017 BCE.[40]
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.[41][42] It may have originally been associated with headhunting.[43] Tattooing traditions, including facial tattooing, can be found among all Austronesian subgroups, including Taiwanese indigenous peoples, Islander Southeast Asians, Micronesians, Polynesians, and the 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.[2][42][44]
Ancient tattooing traditions have also been documented among Papuans and Melanesians, 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.[42]
Among other ethnolinguistic groups, tattooing was also practiced among the Ainu people of Japan; some Austroasians of Indochina; Berber women of Tamazgha (North Africa);[45] the Yoruba, Fulani and Hausa people of Nigeria;[46] Native Americans of the Pre-Columbian Americas;[47] people of Rapa Nui;[48] Picts of Iron Age Britain;[49] and Paleo-Balkan peoples (Illyrians and Thracians, as well as Daunians in Apulia), a tradition that has been preserved in the western Balkans by Albanians (Albanian traditional tattooing), Catholics in Bosnia and Herzegovina (Sicanje), and women of some Vlach communities.[50][51]
Cemeteries throughout the Tarim Basin (Xinjiang of western China) including the sites of Qäwrighul, Yanghai, Shengjindian, Zaghunluq, and Qizilchoqa have revealed several tattooed mummies with Western Asian/Indo-European physical traits and cultural materials. These date from between 2100 and 550 BC.[38]
In ancient China, tattoos were considered a barbaric practice associated with the Yue peoples of southeastern and southern China. Tattoos were often referred to in literature depicting bandits and folk heroes. As late as the Qing dynasty,[when?] it was common practice to tattoo characters such as 囚 ("Prisoner") on