The Uncertain Origin of Tattoos
Tattoo is a word coming after the Polynesian term tau tau, tatu or tatau, term used to describe the ancestral technique of changing the skin in appearance by means or a mark or strike. More than a technique, tattooing is considered an art, particularly in Japan where the traditional method involves insertion of ink (irezumi) for kanji designs. Tattoos are widely accepted nowadays, despite they were for many centuries seen as marks imposed to secluded groups or underdeveloped civilizations, although this appreciation began to change in the late 1980s, having the young generations as the most loyal followers. Originally intended as a permanent body art technique, today it is possible to create temporary tattoos, either by using special pigments that are deprived of color after a few days, or as external applications such as stickers and transfers. Originally, tattoos were meant to be permanent, but today they can be reverted to “transitory marks” by using modern removal technologies.
It is hard to determine when and where tattooing was first practiced, but historical reference depicts Tahitian tattoos existing in French Polynesia since the origin of the mankind. In Japan, indigenous people wore facial tattoos for tribal reasons. Because tattoos were associated for a long time with cannibals and uncivilized people, it is more than likely that tattooing was born in Polynesia, from where the tattooing art was exported to Borneo, Philippines, Borneo, Japan, China and Africa.
However, tattoos have been found in North America, South America, and Mesoamerica indigenous civilizations, as well in some European tribes, particularly in the Celtic culture. In fact, tribal tattoos worn are still worn North of England. The Colonization of many countries in different continents, brought another meaning to tattoo, associating people wearing them with criminality or slavery, since a mark on the skin was the distinction of outlaws or people who were “property” of the Landlords.
Even today, the negative associations are dishonorable in cultures like the Japanese, where people with visible tattoos are banned from gyms, spas or international resorts, perhaps because tattoos are still considered the mark of Yakusa, the Japanese Mafia, and something similar occurs in Hong Kong with the Triad tattoos. In the United States, tattoos were widely worn by criminal gangs from the 1920s to the 1940s, serving to differentiate their members from each other, but sailors adopted tattoos even before, the reason that started to change the mind of people.
Wearing a tattoo never made a sailor or fisherman a criminal, nor the American and British soldier during the World War II, who demonstrated their patriotism tattooing their skin, adding most of the times, a memory of their beloved ones waiting for them at home. From fine needles to micro-pigmentation techniques, today wearing a tattoo is an artistic manifestation, identifying well-defined groups of ordinary people with the desire to be original, or having a specific reason for wearing tattoos.
