Tattoos and Six Things You May Not Know About Them

Tattooing has a long and fascinating history that very few people know about, even fervent tattoo wearers and tattoo artists alike. For example, the word ‘tattoo’ originates from the Tahitian word ‘tattau’, meaning to mark; a Canadian tattoo artist had almost 5,000 different tattoos on his body and, in the early 1990s a five thousand year old male body with tattoos was found on a mountain between Austria and Italy. Here are five more things you may not know about the fascinating history of tattoos:

* In the middle to late 1800s to the mid-20th century, every circus employed several people with tattoos across their entire body. Some were exhibited as ‘freaks’ in sideshows, others worked as performing clowns or jugglers.

* Tattoos can have specific meanings or reasons. They can depict status and rank, for example, such as to distinguish people as slaves and convicts. They have been used as punishment or to prove undying love. Throughout history they have served as symbols of good luck and fertility.

* Tattoos are also used for cosmetic purposes, to create permanent eyeliner, for example, and to add non-fading colour to eyebrows and lips.

* George Orwell noted that coal miners could develop ‘tattoos’ as a result of coal dust entering cuts or wounds. Much the same happens with gunpowder and asphalt and other fine powder substances.

* Charles Darwin, when serving on HMS Beagle, wrote about meeting natives bearing tattoos in the Pacific Islands. Darwin declared that surely no country on earth was immune to the practice of tattooing. How right he was!
 

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