TATTOOINO is the name usually given to the custom. common among many uncivilised tribes, of marking the skin by punctures or incisions, and introducing into them coloured fluids, so as to produce an indelible stain. It is mentioned in Captain Cook's account of the South Sea islanders under the name tattowing ; and, with trifling dif ference in the orthography, the same name is applied by English writers to similar practices among other people. The word " tattoo" appears to be formed by a reduplication of a Polynesian verb " ta," meaning to strike, and therefore to allude to the method of performing the operation, and, if this supposition be correct, it Ims a curious resemblance to the English word tattoo, meaning a particular beat of the drum.
From a passage in the book of Leviticus, chap. six., v. 28, in which the Israelites are forbidden to make any cuttings in their flesh for the dead, or to print any marks upon their bodies, it has been supposed that some custom resembling tattooing was practised in the time of 'Moses. It is also an Oriental custom, and among people whose prox imity to the Hebrews affords a reason for the prohibition contained in the text referred to. " The Bedouin Arabs, and those inhabitants of towns who are in any way allied to them," observes the editor of the Pictorial Bible,' on the passage in Leviticus, "are scarcely less fond of such decorations than any islanders of the Pacific Ocean. This is particularly the case among the females, who, in general, have their legs and arms, their front from the neck to the waist, and even their chins, lips, and other prominent parts of the face marked with blue stains in the form of flowers, circles, bands, stars, and various fanciful figures. They have no figures of living objects, such being forbidden by their religion; neither do they associate any superstitions with them, so far as we are able to ascertain." The works of ancieut writers contain many notices of the practice of tattooing, as practised by several barbarous races. As to the Britons, Cesar merely mentions their custom of staining their bodies with vitrum, or woad; but Solinus and Isidore describe a process exactly resembling the modern mode of tattooing. Ilerodottts says, that amoug the Thracian to be tattooed or marked (kTfxacti) was an emblem of rank, and the want of it indicated meanness of descent (v. 6). The extended use of clothing at a later period rendered such ornaments superfluous, and led to the decline and subsequent abandonment of the practice. It appears, however, to have been continued during the whole of time Anglo-Saxon period, and is among the English vices reprobated by William of 31almeshury after the Norman conquest Several other ancient notices on the subject arc collected by Lafitau, in his Mceurs des Sauvages Amdriqu ;tines.'
In modern times the custom of tattooing has been found in most of the islands of the Pacific) Ocean, and among many of the aboriginal tribes of Africa and America, as well as, on a limited scale, as before stated, in the East. It is also practised by the Tunguses on the banks of the Amur, as stated by Atkinson in his' Travels in the Regions of the Upper and Lower Amoor.' Much curious information on the various kinds of tattooing is collected in the volume on the New Zealanders,' in the Library of Entertaining Knowledge.' Of the character of the patterns a better idea will be conveyed by the annexed bust of Shungie, a New Zealand chief, copied from an engraving in the ' Missionary Register ' for 1816, than by the most lengthened description.
The process of tattooing as practised, or rather as it was formerly practised, in other islands of the South Sea, was less painful than that followed in New Zealand ; for, according to the account of Captain Cook, in some cases the punctures could hardly be said to draw blood ; while in New Zealand, having taken a piece of charcoal, and rubbed it upon a stone with a little water, so as to produce a thick liquid, the operators dipped into it an instrument made of bone, with a sharp edge like a chisel, and shaped in the fashion of a garden-hoe. They then applied the instrument to the skin, and struck it twice or thrice with a piece of wood, thereby making it cut into the flesh as a knife would have done, and causing a great deal of blood to flow, which they kept wiping off with the side of the hand, in order to see whether the im pression was made sufficiently clear. If not, they applied the cutting instrument again to the same place. The instruments used, as described by Captain Cook, were edged with small teeth, somewhat resembling those of a fine comb ; and, as in the case of New Zealand, the colouring tincture was introduced at the same operation as that by which the skin was punctured ; the substance employed in some places being a kind of lamp-black. Ou the brown skins of the natives, the marks made with this substance appear black ; but on the skin of a Europeau they are of a fine blue colour. Lafitau speaks of powdered charcoal as the colouring-matter commonly used by the American Indians ; and states that it was introduced by a process subsequent to that of cutting or puncturing the akin. This insertion of the colour appears to have been the most painful part of the operation of tattooing as practised among them.