Tattoo history: 4 tattoo milleniums.
It is hard to tell when a man first applied a drawing to his skin. But it's well known that tattoo history is at least 4000 years long. The most ancient tattoos are found during archeological dig of Egyptian pyramids. Mummys aged about 4000 years had distinctive drawings on their skin. However, tattoo appeared at a much more ancient time - in primeval times. It was used not only as a decoration but also as a tribe sign, a totem, it told about social status of its owner, and more than that, it was considered to have some magical powers. The reasons of tattoo rise are quite unclear. Some say, it's a logical progress from natural skin injuries accidentally got by Stone Age people. Wounds and bleedings combined in quaint scars, distinguishing their owner as a brave warrior and successful hunter. With time, primeval families grew into small orgamized communities, and the skin was covered with some specific marks that were important within some definite social group. This was the end of the Ice Age...
The historical roots of tattoo are deep, and its geography is not less impressive. Different tattoo types were practiced by white skin nations all over the world, while black skin nations used scarting instead. Everybody went in for tattoos - different tribes of Europe and Asia, North and South America indians, and, of course, Oceania nations. It's the Indonesian and Polynesian tribes where tattoo practice is constantly maintained across the generations, they are the best anthropologic proof of social importance of tattoos. There's hardly a single aspect of their life that is not related to tattoo, from birth to death - and, of course, there's no such part of a body that was not touched by a local artist.
Face is always visible. Therefore it's first to be decorated. Maori tribes of New Zealand wear moco - mask-like tattoos on their faces. These astonishing combinations of patterns serve as constant combat coloration as well as signs of courage and social status of their owners. According to local traditions, if a deceased warrior had a moco on his face, he was paid a highest honour - his head was cut off and kept as a tribe relic. At the same time, bodies of unpainted warriors were left for wild animals. Moco samples are so individual that they were often used as personal signatures or as a substitute for fingerprints. In the beginning of 19th century, Maori thoroughly outlined a copy of their moco mask on the paper while signing documents for selling their land to English missionaires. Japanese Ainu native women tattooed their faces to designate their marital status. Patterns on cheeks, lips and eyelids wer eused to determine whether a woman was married and how many children she had. The same with other nations, abundance of patterns over the woman body described her endurance and fertility. At some locations, situation with women tattoos reached its extreme - on Nukuro atoll, children born by untattooed women were killed at once.
Tattoo is also connected to so-called "transitional" rites, whether this is a young man's initiation or moving of a soul from this life to the other world. For example, Diaq tribes from Borneo island believed that in Apo-kezio, the local heaven, everything gets new qualities, opposite to those on earth: light becomes dark, sweet becomes bitter etc., so innovative and prudent Diaqi natives covered themselves with the darkest tattoos. Having transformed after death, tattoos became bright and shining, and this light was enough to help their owner through the dark abyss between the earth and Apo-kezio.
Besides, different nations gave different magic powers to tattoos: children were kept safe from parent anger, adults were protected in combat and during the hunting, olders were kept safe from diseases. However, tattoo magic was not only used by "savages". In Chukuzen, Japanese province of Edo period (1603-1867) bandits were tattooed with horizontal line going across the forehead as a punishment for the first cime; second crime was punished by another line across the forehead, and third one caused another one. It resulted in an "Inu" hieroglyph, which means "a dog". In ancient China, tattoo on a face was one of the Five Classical Punishments. This was also the way to mark slaves and soldiers, making it difficult for them to escape and simplifying their identification. Greeks and Romans used tattoo for these purposes, and Spanish conquistadors followed this practice in Mexico and Nicaragua. In the 20th century, during the World War 1, deserters in UK were marked with "D" tattoo, concentration camp prisoners in Germany were marked with their numbers - which was also a practice in Soviet gulag camps...
In the ancient Europe, tattoos were widely used by Greeks and Gauls, Brits and Frakians, Germans and Slavs. Pra-slavonians, ancient ancestors of the Russians, used clay stamps or special presses for tattooing. These presses with pattern elements allowed to decorate all body with a solid rombic and meander pattern, which was extremely necessary in magic rituals of the ancient fertility cult.
Unfortunately, tattoo traditions were ruthlessly fought as part of pagan cults as Christianity was spreading, and finally nearly rendered extinct. The Old Testament clearly tells "not to cut your body in the honour of dead, and not to puncture characters on yourself". This prohibition was so strong that tattoo was not practiced by Europeans ever before 18th century. However, ironically, when christian missionaires set forth to faraway countries to turn the heathen in their religion, sailors from their ships used to make some formidable tattoos in the memory of their voyages. The ruefully known captain, James Cook, played the most important role in European tattoo renaissance. Having returned from his voyage in 1769, he brought from Tahiti not only the word "tattoo" but also "the Great Omahi", a completely tattooed Polynesian, who became a sensation - the first live tattoo gallery. Soon, every self esteeming show, fair or a vagrant circus had this "noble savage" in their show. By the end of 19th century, aborigine fashion fell down, and Europeans and Americans themselves took their place in fairs. For example, some lady Viola showed off the portraits of six US presidenrs, Charlie Chapplin and manu other celebrities, delighting crowds of 20th century already... The residents liked staring at tattooed circus actors, however, they were not eager to tattoo themselves at all. It was a privilege of sailors, miners, smelters and other similar "labour unions" that used tattoos as symbols of brotherhood, solidarity and dedication to traditions. Modern tattoo popularity in the West owns much to those. Along with this, they are responsible for creative stagnation in the late 19th and early 20th century. Poor imagination and doubtful taste of main customers led to limiting tattoo varieties to naval topics, obscene sentimentality and banal aphorisms. Sadly, the facts remain: civilization rendered ancient art to the level of cheap consumption. Lack of demand for worthy artwork dimmed the enthusiasm of tattoo specialists, destroyed their motives for creativity and new stylic arts.
Anyway it's 1891 when O'Reilly from US invented an electric tattoo machine that substituted various custom-made instruments. But even the technical progress could not move the process from stagnation. During the whole first half of 20th century Europe and USA wore the same set of simple popular drawings. And it's only up to a strong growth of youth culture in 50s and 60s that a new generation of tattoo masters came up, with creative ambitions and daring experiments that led tattoo to the state of art level once again. They widely used traditional images of other cultures - Far East, Ploynesia, american indians - creating stunning hybrids, new styles, schools and directions.
This is how a new, modern stage began in the long-lasting tattoo history, and it is really worth a dedicated, more detailed story. |
