TATTOOING, the custom of marking the skin with figures of various kinds by means of slight incisions or punctures and a coloring matter. The word itself is Tahitian (ta, "a mark"), but the practice is very widely spread, being uni versal in the South Sea Islands, and also found among the North and South American Indians, the Dyaks, the Bur mese, Chinese, and Japanese, and com mon enough still among civilized sailors. It is expressly forbidden in Scripture (Lev. xix: 28), from which it is to be concluded that it was common among the neighboring nations. Undoubtedly the main cause of its origin was the desire to attract the admiration of the opposite sex, but this fundamental hu man desire does not of course exclude motives for tattooing for religious or other ceremonial purposes, or for mere ornament apart from sexual considera tions. Among the Polynesians the op eration is attended with circumstances of ceremony, and the figures represented are often religious in signification or symbolic of rank, not seldom the totem or special tribal badge. The New Zea landers were distinguished by elaborate tattooing of the face, and many of their heads are preserved in European mu seums.
Whatever may be the case elsewhere, its origin in Japan, where it reached its greatest perfection, is neither ceremonial nor symbolical, but merely cosmetic. Its end is to take the part of a garment or decoration, those parts of the body only being tattooed which are usually cov ered, and only in the cases of such work men as runners, grooms, bearers, who work in a half-nude state. The head,
neck, hands, and feet are never tattooed, and it is found among the lower classes alone, and very seldom among women, and these only the dissolute. The usual objects illustrated are large dragons, lions, battle scenes, beautiful women, his torical incidents, flowers—never obscene pictures. The colors employed are black, which appears blue, derived from In dian ink, and various shades of red, de rived from cinnabar. The artist uses in his work exceedingly fine sharp sewing needles, fixed firmly 4, 8, 12, 20, or 40 together, and, arranged in rows in a piece of wood. A skilful artist can cover the whole back or breast and belly of a grown man in a day. Among the Ainos again the tattooing is done on the exposed parts of the body, and largely practiced by women. The Igorrotos in the mountainous region above Luzon tat too elaborately, but in series of lines and curves. Tattooing has often been em ployed as a badge of brotherhood in some cause, and more often still as a means of identification for slaves and criminals. The so-called branding of the letters D. and B. C. on military deserters and incorrigible characters, only given up in 1879, was merely tattooing with needles and India ink. The war paint of the ancient Briton and Red Indian braves still survives in the paint-striped face of the circus clown. Among the lower-class criminal population of Eu rope the practice of tattooing is still common, but almost exclusively among males.