Everything indicates that the practice of marking the body is as old as humanity itself. But, as it is impossible to find bodies from such remote eras with preserved skin, we have to rely on more recent samples. This is the case of female Egyptian mummies, such as that of Amunet, who would have lived between 2160 and 1994 BC and has traces and dots inscribed in the abdominal region – an indication that tattoos, in Ancient Egypt, could be related to fertility cults . A much older record was detected in the famous Iceman, a mummy about 5,300 years old discovered in 1991 in the Alps. The blue lines on his body could be the oldest trace of a tattoo ever found – or, alternatively, scars from some medicinal treatment adopted by Stone Age peoples. Even with so many uncertainties, scholars agree that, in the early days of humanity, tattoos must have emerged in an attempt to preserve body paint.
“One of the objectives would be to allow the individual to record their own history, carrying it on their skin in their constant displacements”, says the plastic artist Célia Maria Antonacci Ramos, from the State University of Santa Catarina (Udesc), author of the book Theories of Tattooing . The practice spread across all continents, with different purposes: religious rituals, identification of social groups, marking of prisoners and slaves (as tattoos were used in the Roman Empire), ornamentation and even camouflage. In the West, the technique fell into disuse with Christianity, which prohibited it – after all, it is written in Leviticus, a book of the Old Testament: “Do not make incisions in the body because of a dead person and do not make tattoos”. The tradition was only rediscovered in 1769, when the English navigator James Cook carried out his expedition to Polynesia and recorded the custom in his logbook: “Men and women paint their bodies. In their language, they call it tatau.
They inject black pigment under the skin in such a way that the line becomes indelible”. One hundred years later, Charles Darwin would claim that no nation was ignorant of the art of tattooing. In fact, from American Indians to Eskimos, from Malaysia to Tunisia, most people on the planet practiced or had practiced some form of tattooing. With the invention of the electric tattoo machine in 1891, the habit spread even further across Europe and the United States. By the end of the 20th century, designer fur, until then an almost exclusive feature of sailors and convicts, had become one of the most enduring youth fashions.
universal art There have always been tattooed people in different parts of the planet
TAHITI
According to the mythology of the region, it was the gods who taught men the art of tattooing – which, therefore, must be performed strictly following a special liturgy. Men, for example, are allowed to tattoo their entire body, while women can only mark their face, arms and legs. In Polynesia in general, tattoos are often used as a symbol of social class.
JAPAN
The engraving on the right, from the 19th century, shows Japanese tattooed on the arm. The country was one of those that most developed the technique: sessions can last for years until the drawings cover the whole body, with the exception of the hands and feet. The practice, however, became associated with the mafia organization Yakuza. Another local curiosity is the kakoushibori, a kind of hidden tattoo, with chemicals such as zinc oxide that make the design appear only in certain situations: when the person is drunk, after sex or a hot bath.
INDIA
Another country where tattooing is an ancient tradition, India has also developed the so-called mehndi, body painting with the natural pigment of henna. But, in this case, the drawings last a maximum of one week – which is why the technique is usually used almost exclusively for decorative purposes, for special occasions such as weddings.
NEW ZEALAND
The spiral designs typical of Maori tattoos, as New Zealand natives are called, were intended to distinguish members of different social classes. Each spiral symbolized a hierarchical level. The practice was only allowed to free men: slaves could not tattoo themselves. After Maori leaders died, their families kept the tattooed head at home as a relic. The image on the left shows one of these chiefs, pictured at the age of 98 in 1923.
AFRICA
Tattoos with colors and elaborate strokes are less common in dark-skinned people. In African tribes, a common practice is scarification, which consists of producing scars from incisions in the skin. Some people use it for therapeutic purposes, to introduce medication directly into the body. The practice is also verified in rites of passage. In some tribes in Sudan, for example, women are subjected to three scarification processes: at 10 years old they mark their breasts, at their first menstruation it is the breasts’ turn and, after pregnancy, their arms, legs and arms are marked. back
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