“Tattoos have a power and magic all their own. They decorate the body but they also enhance the soul.”
― Michelle Delio
After decades of remaining a blank canvas, I finally have ink.
I was never opposed to tattoos - my best friend, her boyfriend and his sister all have several - but I never found anything I wanted to put permanently on my body, either. But just recently, a local artist joined with a cancer charity and offered ribbon tats for five dollars plus whatever you wanted to donate. Having lost my mother to ovarian cancer, and had various forms of it touch many others in my life, I finally found something meaningful to put on my skin. So I and a group of friends - including a recent breast cancer survivor - all descended on the place to get our ribbons.
And that's made me spend the weeking thinking about tattoos - peeling away the modern, cosmetic clutter and looking at the history of their cultural and spiritual significance.
Read on . . .
“Show me a man with a tattoo and I'll show you a man with an interesting past.”
― Jack London
The permanent marking of skin is world-wide, and stretches back before the written word. Otzi, the famous 5,000-year-old "ice man" whose body was recovered in the Alps, was decorated with a network of lines that, perhaps significantly, align with modern acupuncture points. Clay figures in Japan - likely representations of the dead - bearing the markings of facial tattoos have been found in tombs dating from 3,000 BC . . . and older. Some mummies in Egypt have borne body art, including a priestess of Hathor from the Eleventh Dynasty (circa 2,000 BC) who was adorned with geometric patterns of lines and dots.
The word itself comes from the Polynesian word tatau - a word that originated (depending on which tribe you ask) with the Samoans, the Fijians or the Underworld. Tatau is a combination of two other words - ta ("strike" or "tap") and tau ("to reach the end"). From Polynesia the word and the concept spread - carried on the flesh of sailors - into Europe and America after body art in the native cultures (with a few exceptions) had been banished by Jewish, Christian and Islamic traditions.
"The world is divided into two kinds of people: those who have tattoos, and those who are afraid of people with tattoos." - unknown
A Ngati chief from New Zealand, c. 1880.
While the mystical and cultural meanings have varied from place to place and era to era, one common use of them across the world has been to mark warriors. The ferocious Picts were tattooed with blue dye from the woad plant. Their name actually means "Painted People". Iroquois men tattooed marks on their faces and thighs to track enemies they'd killed and battles they'd won. The Hurons were said to tattoo themselves to be feared in battle.
The facial tattoos of the Maori (Moko) were thought to make men fierce in battle. Tongan warriors were tattooed for the same reason - indeed, warriors across the South Pacific decorated their skin with trophies, tokens of power or protective wards. Kayan tribesmen of Indonesia were tattooed on their hands and thighs according to detailed rules as to whether they took an enemies head or just aided in a kill, etc. Bontoc tribesmen of the Phillipines could only be tattooed in someone in their ato (political group) had taken a head. And while there's no direct evidence for tattooing among the Vikings that I know of, the Arab traveller ibn Fadlan, travelling through Northern Europe around 1100 AD described them as "rude, dirty and covered with pictures".
"A man without tattoos is invisible to the Gods." - Iban proverb
But it wasn't all about warfare. Tattoos have a long pedigree as religious and magical adornment. The aforementioned priestess of Hathor was decorated for ritualistic reasons. Incas put images of their idols on their skin. The Hindu deity Hanuman was (and still is) a popular adornment on arms and legs to promote strength. The hand tattoos of many tribes in Borneo were meant to light a path through the darkness for the soul after death. The Souix believed that a warrior without tattoos would be turned away from the lodges of the afterlife, and wander the earth as a ghost. Despite the general disdain of Christian authorities for body art, many Crusaders had the Jerusalem Cross tattooed on their arms as a souvenier, and pilgrims in the Holy Land were known to get tattoos, as well.
Traditional Hawaiian tattoos (kakau) were believed to protect spiritual well-being. The Celtic tribes that became the Britons (whose name means "People of the Designs") decorated their skin with spirals, braids and labyrinths rich with spiritual connotations. Many Native American tribes tattood animals and other symbols for spiritual or magical benefits. The Ingorot of the Phillipines thought tattooing was a deeply spiritual experience - and that the flowing blood would attract anito (spirits) who had to be kept at bay with rituals and sacrifices.
Tattoos were also believed in many locations to be curative. Pre-Islamic Arabs would use them for everything from sprains to rheumatism to headaches. The Ojibwa would use tattoos against headaches and toothaches. Older Maori women tattooed their faces and lips to help their diminishing sight. Ainu women would tattoo themselves with an image of the Goddess to ward off disease. Tibetans tatooed mantra wheels on the chakras to foster spiritual and physical health.
"Now, this may sting a little, just at first. But, don't worry, that'll go away once the searing pain kicks in." - Ethan Rayne, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
And tattooing has long been a rite of passage. Tattooing - especially with traditional methods - takes a long time and, well,
hurts. It's an
ordeal - and ordeals have marked the entry into status (adulthood, priesthood, warrior status, social rank, etc) since the dawn of time.
The Samoan pe'a - the traditional male tattoo that ran from waist to knees - took weeks to apply using traditional tools of bone or shell "combs" tapped into the skin with a mallet or stick. It was also incredibly painful . . . but when it was done, the young man was soga'imiti - i.e., a man with a tatau, a man no longer "naked".
The video below gives you an idea . . . a short bit of a pe'a application by the late tufuga ta tatau ("master tattooist") Paulo Suluape. You can see a brief image of a complete pe'a at the beginning (warning: butt nudity). Tell me a few of weeks of this wouldn't be an ordeal:
Amazonian tribesmen tattooed themselves to mark status or accomplishments, as did many Native American tribes. The Maori moko carried a wealth of information about status, lineage and allegiances. African tattoos - actually a scarification done by rubbing charcoal into a series of small cuts - also revealed information about rank, character, and political and religious status.
"You're a marked man, brother,
You're a marked man, hey,
And get right down on your knees and pray." - Mieka Pauley, "Marked Man"
But tattooing hasn't always been positive - or voluntary. Romans often tattooed criminals and slaves (the Roman word for tattoo is
stigma) with phrases of identification or insult - one popular choice was the phrase "Stop me, I'm a runaway" applied to the forehead. They learned the art from the Greeks, who had reserved it for much the same purpose - Plato had advocated tattoos for those banished from the Republic. While they had been admired in ancient times, by the Middle Ages tattoos in Japan had become the sign of criminals (down to the Yakuza of today).
Some soldiers under the Ottoman Empire were tattooed as ID in case they deserted. In English courts, first-time offenders could plead for leniency in exchange for a branding or tattooing of the thumb (so the plea could never be asked again). Two of the solders convicted in the Boston massacre avoided their sentences by taking such a mark. Even the Samoans - who held tattooing in obvious high regard - used tattoos on the nose as a mark of shame for criminals.
"You may lose your most valuable property through misfortune in various ways. You may lose your house, your wife and other treasures. But of your moko, you cannot be deprived except by death. It will be your ornament and companion until your last day." - Netana Whakaari
All these uses have grown from one fact - a tattoo is forever. Barring some modern dermatology, and a few ancient methods (trust me, you don't want to know), a tattoo is an indelible mark. It becomes a part of you, forever.
My new and forever – the teal ribbon for ovarian cancer.
That's why it should have meaning, should have a story. It's an ordeal not to be taken lightly, and an art not to be used frivolously. That's not always easy - we live in a culture today where just about everyone has gotten ink, and many for reasons that are superficial, transitory or just plain silly.
But in the end, tattooing is a deeply personal act. Your reasons are always your own, and a tattoo, even in our modern, ink-happy culture, can be as spiritual and meaningful as you choose to make it. Mine was - and if I ever get another, it will be, too.
I accept nothing less from a life-long companion.
Blessed be.