Traditional Body art-Body art in the western culture
Introduction
Body art can be defined in many ways. It can mean the way people dress, but in general people perceive it as Body tattoos, Piercings and other practices to modify the Body. You can separate the term Body art in lots of categories like:
· Tattoos
· Piercings
· Scarification
· Branding
· Implants
So the term Body art spans a big area, that´s why I will mostly focus on the most known categories, the piercing and the tattoo.
Body tattoo
It is not really sure if the word for “tattoo” is deduced to the Samoan word “tatau”, which means “to fit in”, or to the also Polynesian word “ta-ta-tau”, which is ought to describe the sound of tattooing and which can mean “to hit right”.
Its meanings and reasons at an earlier time:
Tattooing is one of the eldest ways of Body modification. This was proven by a lot of mummies, which were found all over the world. Archaeologists found in Europe a tattooed mummy of a man, which was preserved in ice. Almost everybody knows this mummy by the name “Ötzi”. He had more than 50 tattoos. It is believed, that the humans in the new Stone Age got tattoos to assuage pain, when they got an injury. There were also mummies found in Egypt, which were tattooed, but this time they were women, which surprised the discoverers, because they were the first tattooed mummies of women. They thought that those women were the dancers or the concubines of the Pharaoh, but later they found another feminine mummy with tattoos, which turned out to be the famous high priestess, Amunet. The archaeologists noticed that the women wore mostly their tattoos on Body parts, which were associated with birth and copiousness, like the stomach and the underbelly, but also the thighs on the inner sides. Some chinaware, which was found in China and Japan, show tattooed people. Most of the illustrated women on it were mostly tattooed at those body parts, which are associated with fecundity.
In Africa, the tattoo had more functions, than spiritual and superstitious reasons. The Nubians in South Africa used it to enhance their beauty. The women had a design of dots, which were conjunct by lines, so it looked like a pearl necklace around their belly. Men had geometric figures instead of it.
Every culture had its own way of tattooing certain body parts. The Inuit for example used the suturation. This happened with a sooty strand, which was pulled along under the skin. Some Siberian cultures used this technique too. The Maori in New Sea land used wooden instruments to carve the ink into the skin. The Samoans used a hatchet, which looked a bit like a comb, made out of bones to hammer the ink into the skin. The inhabitants of Tahiti utilized bones and shark teeth for tattooing. The Japanese use a long wooden stick, which is called “Hari”, to pluck ink into the skin.
There were certain Body parts, which had a meaning, when they were tattooed. A tattoo in the face shall identify someone. It makes someone easier to notice, if he/she conforms to the own tribe or to another one. Face tattoos were a remark for the social status, which should be recognizable for everyone, because a poor woman was not allowed to get married with a man from a higher social status. In North America women had tattoos, like little lines on their chin to show if they were married or not. The most known Face tattoo is the “Moko” of the Maori tribe, which has almost the same meaning of a passport to us, because every tattoo was individual according to the bearer’s life. It told the persons story, but it also was ought to accentuate face parts, which were found beautiful, and qualities of the person, who was wearing the tattoo. In the maorian culture, just the peers were allowed to wear tattoos. The Moko had also military purposes, for example to mask the warriors, but also to frighten their enemies.
Generally the Maori used a black ink for their body tattoos and for the face; they used a much blacker one, which was made of burned wood. The face tattoo, also called the Moko, was made by cutting the designs, which were spirals all over the face. Because of the Moko´s round forms, they fit almost on every body part, that´s why it became later very popular among the western culture.
The Maori start to get their first Moko tattoo at the end of their adolescence as a sign for the change over from a child to an adult. It takes many years until the Moko is finished.
The Mohave or the Mojave from America were also wearing face tattoos. It was for social and religious reasons, but also for pain relief and therapeutic reasons. They believed, that just people with face tattoos are allowed to get to the land of the dead after they die and people, who weren´t tattooed would get to hell, which they used to call the “rat hole”. The women of the Mohave were also tattooed with dots and lines. These marks showed, if a woman was an adult, and if she was able to marry. Every family in the tribe had its own marks. So a man was not allowed to marry women, who were wearing marks on their chin, which looked the same like the marks of his mother or sister.
Other social tattoos show, if a man is marketable, by measurements, which symbolized his currency by a band with shells on it. The length of the band depended on the man’s wealth. The Pima in the south west of North America used also social tattoos. After a wedding the bridegroom and his bride got a tattoo on their eyelids to show that they belong to each other. It was also believed that the tattoo shall conserve the man´s youth and protect his face against crinkles. The reason for the women was that she never shall look at other men.
Humans in the new Stone Age used tattoos for pain relief, to cure diseases or to protect their selves against them. The tribe of the Ojibwas, who lived near at Lake Michigan in North America, had tattoos on their temples, their forehead and their cheeks as a support against tooth- and headache. The Miwok from the south west used tattoos just for pain relief. There for they used some ash of a healing plant, which they rubbed in the wounds by puncturing the hurting body part until blood leaked.
The Aztecs and Maya on Yucatan used thorns and pricks of cactuses to get the ink under their skin. The Spanish conquerors were shocked, because of the tattoos, and called this tradition the devils work. The Inca believed that whatever they tattooed on their body, its energy would flow into their body. So if someone got a tattoo, which looked like the design of a leopard pelt, he believed that the qualities of a wild cat would flow over to his body. There are some tribes in the Amazonas, who still practice tattooing in a ritual and traditional way.
The Japanese used Tattoos while the Edo period (1603-1868) for punishment. Mostly they had it on their upper arm or on their face, so that everyone could see quickly, if someone has committed a crime. There were also some people who started to get tattoos, because they wanted to be seen as tough.
Tattoos had also aesthetic reasons, for example the beauty mark tattoo in Japan, which was seen as an erotic signal, which allowed the men while handshaking to touch the women’s little carve between the index finger and the thumb. Tattoos were also used as an alternative to clothes, when they were doing a job like a rickshaw driver, who wasn´t able to wear many clothes because of the heat. The most people, who had a tattoo in the Edo period, were from the lower status of the society and most of them had physical irksome jobs. More people from the lower status started to get tattoos. That´s why the government of the Edo period enacted many tattoo prohibitions, which didn´t have a real effect. At this time the famous Japanese gang Yakuza started to get more known. They had everywhere on their bodies tattoos, which also caused that tattoos are associated with criminals. The Japanese tattoo became a real genre of art in the tattoo scene.
The tattoo is made in general for aesthetic reasons. It is used as a jewellery and it is ought to boost the wearer´s attractiveness for the other gender. It shall also highlight certain body parts.
Some cultures used the tattoo as a symbol for maturity. When a child gets to the end of the puberty, he got a tattoo as a sign for readiness for life. Africans tattoo their new born baby on its face, which disclosed its name.
Pregnant women got tattoos as a security for a safe birth and a healthy child. The Hawaiian women got a tattoo on their tongue as a sign for grief, when their husband died.
Most of the tattoos, which had therapeutic reasons, were ought to help against rheumatism, headache and eye diseases. Those tattoos with a healing effect weren´t really big and eye-catching. Mostly they were little dots, lines and crosses.
Tattoos were also ought to banish criminals and delinquents like in Japan. Inmates of penal colonies in the 19th And 20th century had tattoos, which branded them. In the ancient world the Romans and Greeks used tattoos to mark slaves, prisoners of war and criminals. Prisoners of war had the sign of their home tattooed, and criminals got a sign, which described their commitment.
The inmates of the concentration camps had numbers tattooed on their arm, which caused the lost of identity and personality, which had been the Nazi´s ambition in fact.
Soldiers of the Second World War had tattoos of their blood group, as a security, if the soldier needs blood preservation, because of an injury. This tattoo is still used by higher military positions and in the foreign legion.
The way from the ethnic cultures into the western culture:
The tattoo was brought to europe by discoverers, who were fascinated by this practice. In Europe the peers started to get tattoos, but also other people, who took the shot and started to earn money by showing their tattoos. While the industrialization many people went to carnivals to forget the routine life. When they got there, they believed that they were in a dream, because of the people, who affect the auditorium, by their strange looks, which was sometimes caused by a disease. There were also tattooed women and the presenters loved it to invent a little story to that girl. For example, she got kidnapped by a man, who had hidden her in the forest and tattooed her. 1911 there was a law, which prohibited showing tattooed women at carnivals.
The first tattooed man, who earned his money by showing his tattoos on carnivals, was John Rutherford. 1816 he was in New Zealand and got caught by the Maori, who held him captive for 6 years. They started to tattoo him and they wanted to finish it in one night, so he could get married to the chief´s daughter. Then he became the chief and 1828 he managed to get on a ship and come back to England, where he released a biography “The great white chief John Rutherford”. He earned a lot of money on carnivals by showing his tattoos and telling the story about them. In fact he didn´t get caught by the Maori, he just stayed there for a while and got some tattoos too, because of his interest in it.
The American Phineas Taylor Barnum noticed an opportunity in tattoos to earn a lot of money. His first employee was the Greek, Georgius Constantinus, who got his 388 tattoos in Birma. He had his first entry in 1869 and it was said, that he had the most beautiful tattoos. The most of them showed animals and humans, and they spanned all over his body.
The first tattooed woman, who also took the shot, and started to earn money by showing her tattoos, was Irene Woodward, who was also called “La belle Irene”. She was much known in Europe and like every tattoo performer; she had also her own story, that her father tattooed her all over the body to frighten the Native Americans. In fact this was senseless, because tattooed women were more attractive to them. Irene had 400 different pictures on her body of stars, flowers and the sun. 1891 more people started to get tattoos, when Samuel O` Reilly invented the forerunner of the today´s modern tattoo machine. He got his idea from the “Automatic printing pen”, which was invented by Thomas Alva Edison. Today´s tattoo machines are of course better and you reach a better result with them, but finally they are based on the invention of Samuel O´Reilly. Tattoo machines are mostly called “gun” today.
1938 The government prohibited the exhibition of strange looking people on carnivals and all the performers of carnivals lost their job. Most of them went into exile, while Hitler´s coming into power. At this time there were 30 professional tattooists in Germany, who were sent to concentration camps. After the Second World War there were just a few of tattoo artists. The American government prohibited tattoos for 50 years, and the tattoo prohibition in Japan of the year 1872 was overruled in 1948.
While the Hippie-movement in the sixties the body tattoo experienced a revival. Most of the Hippies wanted to shock the civic generation, which accrued after the Second World War. The tattoo wearer just wanted to show, that he is not willing to bear an adapted life. In the seventies the body tattoo was seen in America as an own art form. In the eighties Bikers and Punks started to get tattoos. Bikers had mostly religious pictures tattooed, like pictures of Maria and Jesus, but also some bible quotes. Most of their tattoos were in black, because the majority of bikers got their tattoos in prison. Punks used pictures, which were showing their music icons and expressing their political attitude. Their tattoos were in colour. Both groups were wearing their tattoos on body parts, which were good to see, like their arms and Punks tattooed also their head and face.
The meaning of tattoos changed some kind of way, because before it was not important, which meaning it had to the wearer of the tattoo. It was more important for religious and superstitious reasons. The ethnic cultures tattooed their bodies to show, which tribe they are conforming to, but today people get tattoos to express their “non-conformism” and to stand out from the crowd. Today it tells the wearer´s story and his past. Some people get tattoos as a symbol, which shall him remember at an event or a traumatic one. The Majority still uses tattoos for aesthetic values to high light certain body parts for example.
Special meanings and functions today:
Since 1990 the body tattoo got more accepted by the society, because people began to see it as a youth movement, which also included piercings and brandings. Because of the influence through the media the tattoo established. Lot of people started to see more artists in the TV with tattoos on, that´s why the tattoo and the piercing got popular with the youth. Tattoos are still seen as a code among criminal groups, like the Russian one “Thief in law”. Their tattoos show, which status of a thief he is, but it also tells about detentions in jail. A lot of these thieves avoid getting new tattoos or they also remove some of their old ones, because they don´t want to be conspicuous in the high society, in which they are moving because of their acquired wealth.
Prisoners all over the world have to get tattoos to be accepted by the others. It became usual in prisons, that the inmates form groups, like the skinheads, “The cribz” or “18K”. These are gangs, which are much known in ghettos. “You need to be in a gang, if you want to survive this for more years. You need someone, who stands behind you.”- said an inmate of the state prison of Utah in a documentary, called “Hell Jail”.
There are three typical jail tattoos. The first is the tear, which almost every inmate has. Mostly it is the first tattoo, which inmates get, when they get into jail. It stands for a longer imprisonment, but it´s not sure how many years it stands for. It is also believed that most of the younger inmates get the tear tattoo, because they want to be seen as cool. Another tattoo, which also resides under the eye, is the “pander dot”. Panderers identify each other by this tattoo, which is mostly under their left eye and it looks like a beauty mark. A lot of people, who don´t know about these “codes”, get those tattoos, without knowing what it stands for. The cobweb tattoo appertains to the most famous jail tattoos. It is pretty simple and the inmates have the cobweb tattoo almost everywhere, on their arms, on their back hands, their elbows and on their neck. It also symbolizes a longer imprisonment, but also that this person himself had been in a cobweb too for a certain time.
The three dots, which are made by three heated screws, between the thumb and the index finger have two meanings. It shows that the person had been in prison, but it also stands for the three monkeys, which don´t see anything, don´t talk anything and don´t hear anything. This shall also indicate to other inmates, that the wearer of this tattoo would never betray the others.
Tattoos in jail show also, which gang the bearer is belonging to and also his position in the hierarchy. It is very important for the prisoners to know that, especially for themselves, but also for the officers. They control constantly the inmate’s tattoos to see if someone has changed over to another gang. So they are able to avoid trouble among the inmates. It is sure, that inmates are not allowed to tattoo each other or themselves. Many of them still get tattoos to rebel against the prison rules. Of course it is dangerous, because most of the tattooists in jail tinker tattoo machines with a spoon as the handhold, paper-clips, and pieces of a wire as the needle, a motor from a walkman and a closure of a can for the up and down movement of the needle. Because they have no real colours to tattoo, they use primitive colours, which can cause an infection.
There are some other tattoo motives like animals, pin-ups and pictures of persons, who were important for the wearer. Those tattoos tell about the inmates desires, like to break out, but also about their past.
Piercings
The word piercing describes the action of penetrating certain body parts. It originates from the French word “perkier” and from the Latin word “pertundere”.
History and its meaning at an earlier time:
In the western culture it is accepted among the women to pierce their ear laps. Some people thought, that it was not important to go to the jewellery or to a doctor, so they pierced their children´s earlaps in a very early age, because the child shall not remember that trauma. Some of them used a pin, which they disinfected by heating it with a candle, and a potatoes, which they put behind the earlap while piercing.
Other cultures used to pierce different body parts. The Hippies, who travelled a lot through India, Portuguesa and Turkey, got the piercings on different body parts to know. They started to get piercings too. The most famous one at this time was the nosetril piercing, which is known for 4000 years. Cultures of the east brought this piercing to India. Since then it is used as a lucky charm for women, which shall facilitate birth. In the ayurvedic medicine it is believed that the piercing in the left ala of the nose is aligned with the women´s sexual organs.
Another movement is important for the history of piercings. The “modern Primitives” from sixties and fifties engaged a lot in body modification. Their leader, Fakir Musafar, busied his self with that topic. He also tried the practices of piercing, which he had seen in different cultures, on himself out to sample their spiritual experiences. Doug Malloy was a big admirer of Fakir Musafa, who also had been interested in piercings. He got to the piercing by the Homosexual and fetish scene. He started with Jim Ward a piercing business, called “The Gauntlet”. Malloy was the piercer and Ward assembled the jewellery. First he used gold, but because of the increasing gold prices, he started to use high quality steel. Later he replaced it by the material Niobium. Ward and Malloy used the same practices to pierce, which are still utilized today. Later the first panel for piercing friends was founded, which released every quarter of the year a magazine called “PFIQ- Piercing Fans International Quarterly”. Fakir Musafar engaged in it too. When “the Gauntlet” had to declare bankruptcy because of a bad management in 1998, the publication of the magazine PFIQ had to be stopped too.
Ward, Malloy and Musafar released the normative act “modern Primitives”, which shall introduce the piercing from ethnic cultures to the western culture. They wanted to find a story, a meaning and reason behind almost every piercing. Malloy focused more on the types of piercings, which are usual in the homosexual scene of the nineties. It is not sure, if the histories, which Malloy is telling in this act, are true, because it is hard to find proves for piercings from an earlier time, because of the decay of dead bodies the piercing drop out, that´s why it is hard to find proves, where the different types of piercings are coming from.
The Apadravya piercing is used in the Kamasutra in south India. It is a piercing through the bell-end of the penis. If it is pierced vertical, you call it Apadravya, and if it is pierced horizontal, you call it Ampallang. This apportionment comes from Doug Malloy. It was thought to put rings on it or to put stimulant materials in it. In some parts of India people put certain things on the piercing temporarily while having sex. Every tribe had of course his own word for this type of piercings. In Sulawesi they called it “Kambi” or “Kambiong”, the tribes on the Philippines.
The Kenyah from Borneo use to call it “Aja”, the Kayan from Borneo call it “Uttang” or “Oettang”. In South Borneo it is known as “Kaleng”, “Palang” or Ampallang.
The first discovery of a bronze mask had piercings in its ear laps. It is assumed, that this mask is from the Celtic culture 600 before Common Era. It was found in Austria in Hallstadt.
The Maya and the Aztecs from Central America used the practice of piercing of certain body parts a lot. Mostly they pierced their earlap and some of the Mesoamerican cultures used to stretch their ear lap too, but they pierced also the septum and stretched it too. A piercing stood for the ending of a certain period of life, like the puberty. It also showed which rank someone had in the tribe. It was also important for the tribes, so they could distinguish, if a person was from his tribe or not. The tribes of Central America used also the Labret Piercing, which mostly was stretched by clay plates. Some put instead of a plate and hook-shaped sticks of metal, gold or nacre.
At some rituals they pierced body parts, like the tongue, the cheeks and the ears or the labret for a blood sacrifice. The wound stayed for a while open and its blood was caught by a bowl. The blood sacrifices are to be the Nutrition of their gods. The blood sacrifice was also used for the lavation of the body.
The labret piercing is one of the eldest and most known practices. A lot of cultures pierce their upper or under lip and then they stretch it with plates. The women of the Maskonde tribe in Africa, Tansania, stretch their upper lip mostly for aesthetic values. The Sara women in Chad use plates too to stretch their labret, and it is ought to argue the slave traders out of stealing the women. The Suma, who live in Ethiopia, used the body modification too, because of their fear of the deprivation of their women. The girls of the Suma tribe get their first plate of clay or wood in the age of 20 years before the marriage. They are allowed to take it off, when they are sleeping or when there are no men around. Those women get prepared for this ritual since they are children. Therefore they pulled out the four front teeth of the lower jaw. Because of the plate in the lip, they have a different way to eat. They put their food on the plate and then they flap it, so the food falls into their mouth. The amplitude of the plate became an important beauty feature. They have also a kind of competition, where the girl, who wins, gets married and the family of the girl gets a lot of money. Mostly they paid with their brute and a girl with a big plate in the lip was worth for 60 cows. It is important to mention, that the girl had to say yes too, so the bride groom could marry her.
Indigene cultures in Brazil use pegs instead of plates. They were worn not just from women also from men. The Cayapo tribe for example wears those pegs in their lips to affect fear to their enemies. Because of their self-concept in the oral descent of the history and the traditions, it was usual that a member with a bigger plate was taken more seriously. They thought that the bigger lip stands for the will of saying something. The Cayapo start to modify their lips since their birth.
The first people, who started to pierce their ear lap, lived in the Renaissance. The first woman, who wore jewellery on their earlap, was Eleonore from Austria. She wore earrings at her marriage in 1529. Because conceitedness was a sin, they accepted jewellery on ear laps for women and girls, because it would make the eyes more beautiful. On some paintings you can see men from the 17. and the 18. Century wearing earrings.
In general the earring was common among sailors and craftsmen. Handcrafter got their earring after finishing the device as a ritual for their membership.
Carpenter for example got their earring by piercing their left earlap with a nail. After that they put a golden ring in it. The golden earring of sailors stood for their only possession and it was ought to pay the mortician, if the wearer of it dies far away from home.
In summary the piercing was used for aesthetic values and erotica, like in the Kamasutra, the Indian “love book”, which describes sexual practices and it is often seen as a kind of a teach book of love. It was also utilized to show their conformism to a certain tribe, but also as a mark for readiness for life and maturity, but also as a protection against diseases especially for women.
Today piercings are mostly for aesthetic values to conform to a group or to stand out from the crowd.
The meanings of piercings and the reasons for it today:
There are many reasons for piercings. Mostly people get piercings for aesthetic values. Many young people get piercings, because they want to belong to a certain group. Some people use the piercing to express their individuality, which was shown by a survey in 2001, and to stand out from the crowd. There are no really meanings behind piercings anymore, because many people get a certain type of piercing which is mostly caused by a new trend. Some get also piercings to commemorate a special event or also to overcome a traumatic a one. Some sexual abuse survivors get a piercing to “reclaim their body parts”. A lot of people get piercings for aesthetic value to high light certain body parts. A navel piercing shows that a woman is happy with her stomach and its shape and condition. There are some people, who can´t stop piercing because they want to increase their sexual pleasure. It is believed that genital and nipple piercings would breed more sexual satisfaction. There are also “play piercings”, which people can put on temporarily just for the time while they are having sex.
In general the piercing is a feature of the youth, because mostly young people modify their body by piercing. The earlier spiritual and religious meaning is very rare among today´s society. There are just a few people in the western culture, who practice a Hindi religion like the Buddhism, wear piercings for spiritual and religious reasons.
Piercing was very important at some festival of Native Americans, where they mostly used to execute the Sun Dance ceremony. At these ceremonies they pierce especially for the pain, because they try to get into a trance condition. Today these ceremonies are set up like a festival.
The piercing movement of Musafar “modern Primitives” pierced also to reconnect themselves. It can mean the binding to a society but also against it since the punk movement.
Bibliography
Internet:
http://www.freetattoodesigns.org/maori-tattoos.html
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodypiercing
Literature:
"Alles über Tattoos" Gabriele Hofmann
"Body Modification" Alana Abendroth
Documentary
"Hölle-Gefängnis" at RTL Crime
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