TATTOO  RITUALS by Frank Allen Photographs by Ken Kawaguchi Frank Welcomes your inquires and comments Click on photos to see details ! Check out Frank's Book 'Celtic Taoism'

Tattooing is one of peoples' oldest art forms, coming somewhere between scratching in the dirt and cave painting. All it took was a few klutzes to fall in the fire and land on a charred, pointed stick, and someone else to notice that a mark was left when healing took place. It was more complex than scratching in the dirt, but simpler than mixing paints and making brushes for painting on cave walls. Sharpen a stick, char it in a fire, stick holes in your skin and you have art. Early man didn't perceive tattooing as only art. Due to three major factors; Pain, Permanence, and the release of the sacred life force, Blood; early people gave tattooing a mystical or magical significance. Tattooing to bring a person into a relationship, with a God, a magic power or future state was an idea with wide geographical distribution. Early tattooing was used to symbolize the fertility of the earth and of womankind, preservation of life after death, the sacredness of chieftainship and other cultural factors.

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There is little archaeological evidence of cave people tattooing. Unfortunately, skin does not preserve very well. A few Paleolithic artifacts have been found, that are classified as tattoo artist tools. Other than that, we have positive archaeological evidence to show that tattoos were applied to female figurines and human beings, in Egypt, between 4000 and 2000 B.C.E. Also, Libyon figures from the tomb of Seti [1330 B.C.E.] show tattoo markings on the arms and legs. We know that all primitive people use some form of body marking, {tattooing, scarification, or just body paint}, up until the time which they become civilized. By looking at some of the later primitive peoples, we can learn the esoteric meanings of our ancestors' tattoos.
 

Primitive people usually believe that the spirit is an exact replica of the human body. This matches many modern occultist beliefs of the astral body. In both cases, spirit and astral, this allows you to use the proper tattoos as a rite de passage in the spirit world. The people of Borneo, especially the Kayans, believe that not only would their tattoos get them into the proper spirit world, but could also be used as a further qualification, for obtaining certain profitable occupations in the spirit world.         Clan markings are another common ritual tattoo. Not only can you recognize your friends quickly, even in the frenzy of battle, but more importantly, your people are connected even beyond death. The Wu Tang Physical Culture Association is one of the modern groups that are trying to revive the clan tattoo.

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Family and marriage tattoos are used in much the same manner as clan markings. Marriage tattoos have been particularly popular, to insure that you can find your lawful spouse or spouses in the afterlife, even if you have passed through the veil, many years apart. Ancient Ainu marriage rites state that a woman who marries without first being tattooed, in the proper manner, commits a great sin and when she dies; she will go straight to Gehenna.

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Modern people still tattoo to continue relationships with deceased loved ones, even if they do it on a subconcious level. You can see gravestones with spouses, parents, children, and friends names on them, sunken ships on surviving sailors, and symbols of battles lost on returning soldiers. All of these are modern examples of tattooing to connect the living to the dead.         Tattooing as a rite of adulthood. or passage into puberty is another common tattoo ritual. The idea is: if a girl can't take the pain of tattooing, she is un-marriageable, because she will never be able to deal with the pain of child birth. If a boy can't deal with the pain of his puberty tattoos, he is considered to be a bad risk as a warrior, and could become an outcast.

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Since the dawn of tattooing, people have been marking themselves with the signs of their totem animals. On the outer level of meaning, they are trying to gain the strengths and abilities of the totem animal. On a more inner and mystical level, totem animals mean that the bearer has a close and mysterious relationship with this animal spirit as his guardian. Totem animal tattoos often double as clan or group markings. Moderen dragon, tiger, and eagle tattoos often subconsciously fall into this category. My snake tattoos are examples of conscious totem markings.

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       Love charms are still a much-used magical tattoo. A girl or boy friend's name, with hearts and roses, etc., are modern love charms, meant to make the relationship endure. Primitive love charms were often much more complex than that. The dye for a Burmese love charm tattoo is mixed with vermilion and a magic drug which was concocted from such things as the skins of trout and spotted lizard, with certain herbs and vegetable ingredients. The tattoo magician needs only to tattoo a small triangle, containing a few dots, for the spell to work. A Burmese girl will be tattooed on a part of her body that is always covered with clothing, so that no one will think that she is an old maid, who is looking for a husband.

       Some primitive tribes use tattooing as a rite of social status. The Maori, of New Zealand use tattooing primarily for this purpose. To the Maori, a person's Moko designs enhanced their prestige and show transition from one social status to another. At its highest level, Moko designs proclaimed the sacredness of chieftanship.
 

Tattooing for health purposes has been a widespread practice in the Orient and South Pacific. The Tibetians learned to tattoo, from their southern neighbors, the Shans. The Tibetians quickly decided that tattooing a sacred mantra on a moving part of the body was akin to mantra wheels and mantra flags, which created the same effect, as chanting the mantra for the same amount of time, that the mantra is in motion. This helps the tattoo wearer to achieve inner as well as outer balance and harmony. The Tibetians also tattoo on certain acupuncture points and with medicinal herbs in the dyes, to obtain certain medical effects. In the 1970's, Richard Tyler, a.k.a., The Rev. Relytor, revived ritual Tibetian tattooing, in his Uranian Phalanstery, on the Lower East Side of New York City. The Rev. was in communication with the Dalai Lama's doctors and recieved medical dye additives from them. Unfortunatly, The Rev. passed away in 1983.

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Another common practice in tattooing for health was the tattooing of a god on the afflicted person, to fight the illness for them. In India, the Monkey God, Hanuman, can be tattooed on a recurring dislocating shoulder, to relieve the pain. Ainu women tattoo marks to assume the appearance of their goddess, so that evil demons of disease will mistake them for the goddess, and flee.         An offshoot of tattooing for health is tattooing to preserve youth. Maori girls tattooed their lips and chin, for this reason. When an old Ainu lady's eyesight is failing, she can re-tattoo her mouth and hands, for better vision.

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Tattoos for general good luck are seen world-wide. A man in Burma who desires good luck will tattoo a parrot on his shoulder. In Thailand, a scroll representing Buddha in an attitude of meditation is considered a charm for good luck. In this charm, a right handed scroll is masculine and a left handed scroll is feminine. Today, in the West, you can see dice, spades, and Lady Luck tattoos, which are worn to bring good luck. My first tattoo is a lucky spade that I got during my first month in the Army. It was the Vietnam era, and a young soldier needed all the luck that he could get.

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       Primitive people often got tattooed before an ordeal or dangerous enterprise. My lucky spade, from my Army days, falls into this category. In ancient Burma, a theif, who was planning to rob a pagoda, first got a magical tattoo to protect him during this enterprise. This charm was dedicated to the god who watched over his robber's craft and was known as the "a-hpee-say". While the tattoo was in progress the thief had to chant his spell. It went like this: "Steal gold from the pagodas-fine bright gold. Refine it in the fire-repeat the magic words in the house-on the lonely path-before the lucky star at the pagodas-repeat them a thousand times, save one-consecrate the water-draw the circle of the flying galohn. Put under the left arm, then under the right arm. No harm will befall the safe and invulnerable."

       From South America to the South Pacific, primitive people have taboos involved with their tattooing rituals. Usually the person being tattooed is kept in a seperate place, fed a special diet, and does many preparation rituals, with only members of their own sex.
 

The Hawaiians are prominent among people who have specific tattoo gods. In Hawaii, the images of the tattoo gods are kept in the temples of tattoo priests. Each tattoo session begins with a prayer to the tattoo gods that the operation might not cause death, that the wounds might heal soon, and that the designs might be handsome. Many modern American tattooist will tell you, "When you should get a tattoo, the tattoo god will tell you that it is time."

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In the 1970's, American tattooing discovered primitive, tribal tattoos. People wanted simple designs with meaning and they began copying designs, primarily from Borneo, Japan, and the islands of the South Pacific. In the 1980's, people of European stock began looking for tribal tattoos of their own origins, Mike McCabe, of New York City and Micky Sharpz Lewis, in England, answered the call with Celtic design tattoos. They were followed by Pat Fish, from California and, eventually, by a horde of young tattooists who copied their style.

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The ancient Celts didn't believe in written record keeping, consequently, there is little evidence of their tattooing remaining. Most modern Celtic designs are taken from the Irish Illuminated Manuscripts, of the 6th and 7th centuries. This is a much later time period than the height of Celtic tattooing. Designs from ancient stone and metal work are more likely to be from the same time period as Celtic tattooing.

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       In recent years, a few scholars have mentioned Celtic tattooing in their work. In CELTIC BRITAIN, Charles Thomas writes, "A suggestion is that the Picts painted or tattooed their faces, bodies and exposed limbs and that by so doing they were maintaining in the far north a custom of great antiquity and former wide occurence. In Scotland, tattooing may have been a pre-Celtic, pre-Iron Age inheritance; yet there appears to be tattooed cheeks on Gaulish coins, and we know of Caesar's remarks about the painted bodies, of the British tribes, while one post-Roman Irish source refers to tattooed shins - by far the most likely meanings would be those concerning the status or rank, the group affiliation and the occupation of anyone bearing such marks." In CELTIC ART, I.M. Stead says, "All the Britons dye their bodies with woad, which produces a blue color and this gives them a more terrifying appearance in battle! " Caesar's obversation is expanded by Herodian: 'they mark their bodies with various figures of all kinds of animals and wear no clothes for fear of concealing these figures.' Herodian was mistaken in thinking that they wore no clothes, although they might well have stripped for battle. The leaves of woad were an important source of blue dye until the first half of the present century, and the Britons evidently used it to paint or tattoo their bodies. No Briton's skin has ever been found tattooed or painted or plain, but the body of an Iron Age warrior, completely preserved in Siberia's permafrost gives some idea of the scope of what might have been a common British art form, now completely lost. In his 1925 book, THE HISTORY OF TATTOOING AND IT'S SIGNIFICANCE, W.D. Hambly wrote, "It seems clear that the Picts tattooed by puncture and that animals were the chief subject portrayed. The forms of beast, birds, and fish which the Cruithnae, or Picts tattooed on their bodies may have been totem marks. Certain marks on faces of Gualish coins seem to be tattoo marks. Tattooing by puncture was possibly known among such Gualish tribes as Ambiani, Baiocasses and Caletes. The markings of Picts is historically important in showing the advances of tattoo by puncture to an extreme northly point of Great Britian before the Christian era."

       The rise of the Christian and Moslem era brought a screeching halt to widespread tattooing, in Europe and the Midle East. In the Old Testment of the Bible, the book of Leviticus states, "Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print any marks upon you: I am the Lord." The problem, obviously, was one of religious competition. Rites of tattooing were a trade mark of the earlier religions in Palastine. Unfortunately, when the early Jews simply tried to ban the marks of their competitors, they doomed the art of tattooing through two millenia, by way of two younger and more powerful religions. This edit against tattooing gained the might of Rome and the power of Islam, because the Old Testament is revered by both the Christians and the Moslems.

       Even this powerful ban could not completely eradicate tattooing from either Europe or the Middle East. Tattooing worked its way into these religions, by way of their pilgrims. In the Middle Ages, when a person left his European village, on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, no one knew where he really went. No one else ever left the village. If the pilgram went twenty miles down the road, to Uncle Harry's cottage and came back ten years later, no one was likely to find out. The only way to prove that you had been to the Holy Land, was to return with a tattoo from the Coptic priests, who practiced this art, outside the city walls of Jeruselem. Most pilgrims got a simple tattoo, of a cross, but some of the more adventureous ones returned with images of St. George's victory over the dragon, the Virgin Mary with the infant Jesus, or Peter and the crowing cock. The designs were kept on woodblocks and the tattooing was rough, but it was the only proof available, that a pilgrim had actually visited the Holy Land.

       Moslem pilgrims visiting Mecca and Medina also recieved commemorative tattoos. These Moslem pilgrims believed that, by being cremated at death, they would be purified by fire, before entering paradise.

       When Europeans first arived in the New World, they found Native Americans as a stone age culture, complete with a rich and ancient tattooing tradition. Capt. John Smith, of Virginia, mentioned Native American tattoos in his writing in the 1600's. Most tribes celebrated adulthood with tattoo puberty rites. Simple lines and geometric patterns were used and women often had lines extending from the lower lip onto the chin. Arapaho men tattooed three dots on their own chest, to prove their manhood. The Sioux, among other tribes, believed that tattoos were necessary as a rite de passage into the spirit world. As a ghost warrior rode towards the "Many Lodges", he would encounter an old woman, who would demand to see his tattoos. If he had none to show, he and his horse were pushed off the path, and fell to earth, where they became aimlessly wandering spirits, who were eternally unsatisified. With the coming of Christianity, Native American tattooing disappeared and stories changed, until we only hear of the body painting of the American Indians.
 

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Sailors were the first to return tattooing to Europe. They were some of the last people to retain their magical ideaology of tattooing. From the 1600's to the Second World War, sailors tattooed a chicken on one foot and a pig on the other, as a charm against drowning. In the Big WWII, this was augmented with a new charm against drowning, twin propellers, on your rear end, to propel you to shore. When he had five thousand sea miles under his belt, a sailor recieved a bluebird on his chest. When he doubled the mileage, he got a second bluebird. A clothesline with skivvies and girl's stockings represented a second cruise. When a sailor crossed the equator, he could get Neptune tattooed on his leg. A hula girl tattoo meant that he had been to Honolulu, and a sailor crossed the international dateline to earn the right to wear a dragon.

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Outside the unsular life of seamen, tattooing with magical significance has had a worldly decline, since the 1850's. In the late 1800's, even the tribes of Borneo began to trade designs among themselves, until the meanings were lost. In the late 1960's, tattooing for the sake of art alone became quite popular and has been on the rise ever since. This has vastly improved the artistic quality of tattooing in the past thirty years, but unfortunately, the idea of RITUAL TATTOOING is almost lost. The effects of the sacrifices of Pain-Permanence-and Blood, that our primitive ancestors were so aware of, are slipping away.

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RESOURCES:

Fish, Pat "Native American Tattoos"   Outlaw Biker Tattoo Revue vol.2#1

Hambly, W.D. [The History of Tattooing and Its Significance] H.F.&G. Witherby                        London 1925

Stead, I.M. [Celtic Art} British Museum Publications 1985

Thomas, Charles [Celtic Britian} Thames and Hudson 1986

Vale "Uranian Tattoo Magician Richard O. Tyler" Tattootime vol.2#1

 Webb, Doc "Sailors 'n Tattoos" Tattootime vol.3#1

 AND MANY HOURS OF SPEAKING WITH AND LISTENING TO,
 TATTOO ANTHROPOLOGIST, MICHAEL MC CABE
Check out your local bookstore for Mike's book:
"New York City Tattoo: The Oral History of an Urban Art."
Published by Hardy Marks Publishing: Honolulu, HI 96835.