Multi.Colored—tattooed people, tattoo dreams

Mark your calendars for Sunday, October 12. The History Channel will be rerunning “Ancient Ink.”

Host Craig Reynolds travels around the world to document traditional methods and styles of tattooing, and has himself tattooed in traditional ways by several artists.

The final artist is Zulu, of Zulu Tattoo in Los Angeles. My daughter and I each got two tattoos in Zulu’s shop, although not by the master himself, who is in such great demand (and quite rightly so) that one has to make an appointment months in advance.

Here is the link to information on the History Channel web site.

photo credit: dalbera

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Not long ago, I recorded a show on the History Channel called “Ancient Ink.” I finally got around to watching it yesterday. The host traveled around the world, featuring various traditional styles and methods of tattooing. A Maori artist amplified the tat on his back, a Japanese artist tattooed his leg in traditional style, and he showcased other people getting traditional tattoos (for example, a Polynesian body suit and an Inuit tattoo done by sewing the ink into the skin). He finished up at Zulu Tattoo in Los Angeles, which is where my daughter and I got inked (although we weren’t lucky enough to get inked by Zulu himself, who is so popular that one has to wait months for an appointment, and for good reason).

Naturally, the effect on me was to get me thinking about more ink.

But that’s not what got me to thinking tonight. There was the obligatory segment on tattoo removal,although it was focused on the removal of gang tattoos. I’ve had laser resurfacing done on my face (in a less than successful procedure to get rid of my eye bags) and the plastic surgeon put me under general anaesthesia for that. I know what it feels like afterwards, and I certainly wouldn’t want to go through it with just numbing cream on my skin.

Tonight on Los Angeles’ Channel 5 news, the “health and beauty” segment also talked about tattoo removal, and this time the patient was a woman in her 30s who was having a teenage indiscretion erased. The reporter, Marta Waller, revealed that she also had had a tattoo done on her foot as part of a past story on tattoo parlors, and is currently in the process of having it removed. And she agreed, removal is very painful.

I wonder why a reporter would go that far in quest of a story, if she wasn’t really committed to keeping it? Did she plan all along on having it removed, not treating it as a permanent thing? Was it just one of those things that sounded like a good idea at the time, and she regretted it later? She didn’t go into it.

At least the host of the “Ancient Ink” show got his new tattoos for good, spiritual, personal reasons, and I doubt he’ll be the host of a show on getting rid of tattoos any time soon.

Meanwhile… I’m definitely thinking about my own next trip to the tattoo parlor.
photo credit: riviera 2005

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All the early examples of tattooing that we have been able to find were composed of simple dots and lines. Even the ancient Egyptians, who had richly symbolic writing, did not put hierogyliphic or other graphic designs on the body. They did mark figurines with graphic designs. No one yet has explained why figurines would be decorated in different ways from the people they were created to represent. (It was common for small figurines known as ushabti to be placed in tombs for the symbolic purpose of serving the deceased in the afterlife.)

A few mummies have been found with patterns of dots and dashes tattooed into the skin. Since the number of tattooed mummies we have found so far is small, no real conclusion can be drawn about the reason for the designs. But since the best-known mummified tattooed person was a priestess, it has been assumed that the tattoos served some ritual purpose. So far, no tattooed male Egyptian mummies have been found.

Archaeologist Flinders Petrie found implements that could possibly have been used to create tattoos, and later archaeologists have compared those instruments to those still in use in that area of Africa, particularly in Nubia. It has been speculated that the Egyptians adopted the practice of tattooing from the Nubians.

Smithsonian Magazine did an article recently about the history of tattoos, and if you’d like further information on ancient tattoos you can read that article here.

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Nobody knows, of course, when and where tattooing got its start. I think it’s reasonable to assume that some cave dweller or other got poked with a burnt stick, and found that afterwards the black mark left in the skin by the ashes didn’t go away.

It’s pretty clear that human ancestors liked to decorate themselves, and it would be a lot easier to poke a few burnt, sharpened sticks into your skin than to make other kinds of nonpermanent adornment. I can’t imagine what it would have been like to try to make a hole in a shell, much less the incredible amount of work it would have taken to make beads.

Magical, medicinal markings

The “iceman,” the oldest human body ever found, has tattoos–dots and lines in various places on his skin. Investigation has shown that those dots and lines are over places where he had problems with his bones. Whether the tattoos were thought to be medicinal in their own right, or just marked the places where what passed for a “physician” in those days to concentrate his or her treatment, of course, is unknown.

Many other more recent ancient human bodies have tattooed marks of various kinds. Some have elaborate designs, some just simple dots or chevrons. It is clear that permanent marks on the skin were significant and important in the ancient world. Long before people had written languages, they had meaningful symbols, and they had the desire to mark themselves in meaningful ways. Paint would wash off. Tattoos wouldn’t.

Is the urge to decorate our bodies part of our ancient heritage? Something that no overlay of more recent belief systems can overrule? Are more recent body modifications like circumcision simply another manifestation of our biology rather than the theology they ostensibly represent?

Food for thought.

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