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A tattoo is an adornment for the skin. Tattoo is a kind of design or motif which is designed on the fore skin in such a way that it looks attractive and elegant. Though tattoos are mistaken to be of permanent as well as temporary kinds but it is not so in the actual case, because a tattoo is a permanent mark or design which is made on the skin by insertion of inks of various colors into the skin in order to change the pigment for fashion, decoration and for other reasons. Tattoos on the skin of human beings are a kind of decorative body alteration, whereas tattoos on animals are usually used as an identification mark. Tattooing has always been practiced all over the world. The indigenous people of Japan which are known as Ainu have always been wearing tattoos as a traditional mark on their faces. Today the Maori people of New Zealand and the Berbers of Tamazgha can be easily seen wearing facial tattoos. Tattooing was prevalent among the people of Polynesia and among some tribal groups of Philippines, Mentawai islands, Borneo, Africa, South America, North America, Europe, Mesoamerica, Cambodia, Japan, China and New Zealand. The art of tattooing has always been popular around the world despite the taboos surrounding it.
Tattooing was a Eurasian practice since Neolithic times. Otzi the Iceman was found in the valley of Otz in Alps which dated from the 4th to 5th millennium BC. It had around 57 carbon tattoos which consisted of simple lines and dots on his lower spine, behind the left knee and over his right ankle. The other mummies which had tattoos dated from the end of 2nd millennium BC and were discovered at Pazyryk which is situated on the Ukok Plateau. Tattooing in Japan is believed to date back to the era of Paleolithic which is somewhere ten thousand years from now. There have been many other cultures that had there own tattooing traditions which ranged from rubbing the cuts to other wounds with the ashes to hand pricking of the skin in order to insert inks and dyes. Tattoos are made by the insertion of colored substances in the surface of the skin. The first tattoos were created accidentally. A person had a wound and he tried to rub the wound with ashes and soot of fire. After the wound was healed it was discovered that a black mark remained on the skin and evidently was permanent. Tattoos have been helping as marks of status and rank, rites of passage, symbols of spiritual and religious devotion, sexual lures, decorations of bravery, pledges of love, pledges of punishments, marks of fertility, talismans and amulets, marks of protection and as the symbols of convicts, outcasts and slaves. The marking and impact of tattoos differs in different cultures and places and often with unintended results. Tattoos also show how a human being feels about another human being. Nowadays people want to get tattoos for sentimental or memorial, cosmetic, magical as well as religious purposes. Hence tattooing now is a fashion adornment and people wear them to make fashion statements. |