Tattoos: Their Culture and Their History

 (Global Perspective)

The art of tattooing has taken place as long ago as the ancient centuries and has been practices and appreciated all around the world by many different cultures. Tattooing back long ago, and still continued today, was very important for many cultures and had great meaning and symbolism. The Egyptians used tattooing on the dead as a sort this of passport to the "world after",  African tradition is that a special type of tattooing putting charcoal in razor cuts was used to show social rank, and tribal tattooing has existed for hundreds of years in the Polynesia backgrounds, such as the Samoa and Philippines. All around the world tattooing has very different meanings and there are different reasons behind each cultures specific type of tattooing. Now, tattooing was much more excepted worldwide in the old days, but the traditions and art form are strongly working their way back into many cultures, especially the American culture. America has become very primitive and strict on tattooing. An example of this is in a video I saw earlier today about tattoos in the military and R. Lee Ermey's opinion on this topic. Ermey says, "You know I think it has gotten a little bit ridiculous... I think its a     traditional Navy and Marine Corps thing... just because a kid has tattoos doesn't mean he can't fight... those are usually the once that do fight.". From watching this video I have learned that America has gone from "tradition to unreasonable condition". Back in the old days, around the 1940's up to the 1960's and even 70's, in America tattooing, as stated above, for a sailor in the navy was a huge thing and a wide spread tradition. An example of this comes from a story, "Skin and Bones: Tattoos in the Life of the American Sailor", that says, "...shows the art's many functions (identification, decoration, group bonding, superstitious "protection") and the many forms it took (numbers, personal icons, political symbols, talismans)."(go.galegroup.com) This means that tattoos to sailors represented stories, experience, friendship, it was pretty much used to symbolize their ranking. Now just as America had its tradition, the Samoa have always been well known for their creative and traditional style of tattooing, which has died down a little but still stays strong throughout most of the country. The Samoa's had a universal custom of tattooing the butt and thighs with thick black lines, sometimes even different symbols. This tradition was strongly followed but not just men but also women. It was actually from the Samoa that one of the first forms of the word "tattoo" was discovered, spelled as "tattow". As you can see tattooing has been a great tradition for many centuries throughout all different types of cultures. The art of tattooing has a great history worldwide has placed a very important and honorable role in many cultures. (477)

Citation:
Givens, Ron. "Tattoo traditions bared." American History 44.4 (2009): 13. Academic OneFile. Web. 17 Nov. 2011.