Age Of Tattoos
...have been passed from country to country and from generation to generation all the way to the present day to the present day.
The word “tattoo” dates back to 1769, when a Captain James Cook ran across South Sea islanders bearing marks on their skin. Captain Cook reportedly wrote: “They stained their bodies by indenting or pricking the skin with a small instrument made of bone, cut into short teeth; which indenting they fill up with a dark-blue or black mixture prepared from the smoke [soot] of an oily nut. This operation, which is called by the natives ‘tattaw’, leaves an indelible mark on the skin. It is usually performed when they are about 10 or 12 years of age, and on different parts of the body.” The word “tattoo”, spelled “tattau” is a Tahitian word meaning to mark.
Tattoos are a permanent mark on the skin and date back to the Stone Age when a frozen body of a hunter, estimated to being 5,300 years old was found in the Alps. A tattoo of a cross was still visible on his knee. Mummies that have been found in China, Japan, and Russia have been found to have tattoos covering parts of their bodies.
There were many different reasons for getting tattoos. Answers can be found in ‘The History of Tattooing’, compiled by Katherine Krcmarik, a graduate art student from the University of Michigan. She says “the practice of tattooing means different things in different cultures.” Professor Konrad Spindler of Innsbruck University in Austria thinks the tattoo on the frozen body of the hunter was applied to cure pain. In 4000 B.C. Egyptian women used tattoos as amulets around their stomachs and thighs to protect their unborn children. Tattoos were given to young girls, reason being that if a girls could not take the pain of getting a tattoo, than she was un-marriageable, because she would never be able to handle the pain of childbirth. If a boy...
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