The Art of Tribal Tattoo
Tattooing is an ancient practice that has found a new legion of fans that are making tattoos modern art, enhancing the skin inherited at birth with astonishing decorations applied to men and women, sometimes covering all the body’s skin surface. Tattoos are no longer seen as a mark of secluded or isolated individuals, although this approach remains in some cultures and in the mind of older people.
Because tattoos are every day becoming more sophisticated, they are considered today as personal expressions of uniqueness, allowing people to enjoy their freedom, contrary to the obscure times of slavery, when tattoos were used to distinguish the free men from the slaves, although tattoos were not only the distinction of slaves.
Even before people associated them with people who had a questionable reputation or background, tattoos were widely worn by tribes of different cultures to identify one from the other, but also representing the hierarchies of their members. Many tribes and ancient civilizations believed that wearing specific tattoos would provide them with special powers or wisdom.
Native American tribes wore tattoos to mark the persons belonging to the different groups and as religious and magical emblems, able to invoke the spirits and the forces of nature. Even today, tribal traditions survive and have been spread to the young Americans nationwide, who are fascinated with motifs based on the native culture.
Tribal tattoos have never been seen negatively. On the contrary, tribal tattoos serve their original function: supply humans with the need to belong. Wearing tattoos, people belonging to different groups can be identified, as an example, students or sports teams, who like the way tattoos look on them and the way in which it makes them feel as a unit where each one is an important part.
Although such groups can choose from other type of tattoos, tribal designs are the preferred symbol because of their merit alone. Ancient related tattoos are usually artistic and beautiful representations of powerful forces that people do not necessarily need to believe in. However, those who wear them do not deny a sort of spiritual connection with traditional beliefs.
Tattoos have the charm of centuries and centuries of traditions widespread in modern times, but archaeological research has found evidence of tattooing practices traced back at least 30000 years ago. Carvings dated 15000 years BC show tattooed figures. Although tattooing as not seen as art until about 4200 BC in Egypt, where not only engraved objects have been found but also mummies were found showing off tattoos.
