Why we tattoo

Aaron Deter-Wolf for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

This is a difficult question to answer.

Thousands of cultures from all across the globe tattooed themselves historically, and the practice dates back to at least 6,000 BC. Consequently there’s a lot of variation in why different groups have tattooed. Many historic and Indigenous cultures included tattooing in their rites of passage, and so the marks signaled things like adulthood and marriageability. However, different designs, rituals, tools, and even the composition of pigments all carried meanings and symbolism that contributed to why tattooing took place.

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Tattoo designs often varied by region, clan, and/or tribe within a single culture, and so demonstrated an individual’s origin and group membership. For example, the patterns tattooed on the faces of women from Burma’s Chin State are unique to the different tribes. For some groups tattoos had to be earned through specific deeds or actions. The Kalinga of the Philippines tattooed incrementally as a man accumulated war honors such as killing an enemy or severing their head. In other cases, tattoos could also be earned by virtue of an individual’s lineage and the accomplishments of their relatives or ancestors. Therefore the presence of specific designs and the extent of tattooing on an individual’s body reflected their rank and social status. In these cases, more ink typically indicated greater importance.

Culture, therapy, punishment

In addition to social motivations, various cultures also used tattoos as a means to harness otherworldly powers. This includes bestowing tattooed individuals with the abilities of particular animals or mystical forces, and protecting against spiritual possession and physical dangers. The sak yant tradition of Southeast Asia is a fantastic example of how tattoos can be used to channel spiritual power, and I’d direct your readers to the work of Cedrick Arnold and particularly his film Yantra: Sacred Ink to see this process in action.

In some cultures tattooing was used for therapeutic or medicinal treatments. For example, Lars Krutak has documented instances from the American Arctic, Papua New Guinea, and Borneo where tattoos were used to treat ailments such as heart trouble and joint pain. Lars and others have suggested that the 5,300-year-old tattoos on Ötzi the Iceman may also have served medicinal or therapeutic purposes.

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Finally, tattooing has also been used as a form of punishment. The ancient Greeks and Romans were among several cultures that used tattooing to mark slaves, criminals, and prisoners. Other examples include the U.S. and British military tattooing deserters during the 19^th century, and the use of tattoos by the Nazis during World War II to register and dehumanize prisoners at the Auschwitz complex.

Of course, the reasons mentioned above for the most part don’t address why people become tattooed in our modern global culture. In 2007 there was a study published in the journal Body Image in which the authors conducted a literature survey in order to come up with a set of ten “motivational categories” for becoming tattooed and pierced. These were: (1) Beauty/Art/Fashion, (2) Individuality, (3) Personal Narrative, (4) Physical Endurance, (5) Group Affiliation and Commitment, (6) Resistance, (7) Spirituality and Cultural Tradition, (8) Addiction, (9) Sexual Motivations, and (10) No Specific Reason – including impulse and being under the influence. These categories aren’t perfect (my own tattoos, for example, fall somewhere in between the first three), but they do reflect the wide spectrum of motivations for modern tattooing.

Aaron Deter-Wolf is a Prehistoric Archaeologist for the Tennessee Division of Archaeology and an adjunct professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Middle Tennessee State University, where he teaches the Anthropology of Tattooing. In 2013 he co-edited the volume Drawing with Great Needles: Ancient Tattoo Traditions of North America You can follow his research at http://tdoa.academia.edu/AaronDeterWolf.

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