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73-647: A beachcomber is a person who practices beachcombing . Beachcomber or Beachcombers may also refer to: Beachcombing Despite these general definitions, beachcombing and beachcomber are words with multiple, but related, meanings that have evolved over time. The first appearance of the word "beachcombers" in print was in Richard Henry Dana Jr. 's Two Years Before the Mast (1840) and later referenced in Herman Melville 's Omoo (1847). It described

146-507: A flying fox used as an instrument for the tattooing process. The Oxford English Dictionary gives the etymology of tattoo as "In 18th c. tattaow, tattow. From Polynesian (Samoan, Tahitian , Tongan , etc.) tatau. In Marquesan , tatu." Before the importation of the Polynesian word, the practice of tattooing had been described in the West as painting, scarring, or staining. The etymology of

219-516: A pagan practice in AD ;787. These markings can potentially provide a wealth of information about an individual. Simple visual examinations, as well as more advanced digital recognition technologies, are employed to assist in identifying or providing clues about suspects or victims of crimes. Tattoos are sometimes used by forensic pathologists to help them identify burned, putrefied, or mutilated bodies. As tattoo pigment lies encapsulated deep in

292-559: A barbaric practice associated with the Yue peoples of southeastern and southern China. Tattoos were often referred to in literature depicting bandits and folk heroes. As late as the Qing dynasty , it was common practice to tattoo characters such as 囚 ("Prisoner") on convicted criminals' faces. Although relatively rare during most periods of Chinese history, slaves were also sometimes marked to display ownership. However, tattoos seem to have remained

365-449: A beachcombing option is one of the earliest activities separating anatomically modern human Homo sapiens from the ancestral subspecies of Homo erectus . Many modern beachcombers follow the "drift lines" or "tide lines" on the beach and are interested in the (mostly natural) objects that the sea casts up. For these people, "beachcombing" is the recreational activity of looking for and finding various curiosities that have washed in with

438-738: A crewman on a Navy frigate , without fear of repercussions. Some beachcombers traded between local tribes, and between tribes and visiting ships. Charles Savage led a small group of beachcombers as mercenaries in the service of the Bau Island chieftain Naulivou and quickly showed their worth in fights with his enemies. Some lived on the rewards for deserters, or found replacement crewmen either through persuasion or through shanghaiing . Many, such as David Whippy , also served as mediators between hostile native tribes as well as between natives and visiting ships. Whippy deserted his ship in 1820 and lived among

511-536: A keen interest in tattoos with Banks writing about them extensively and Parkinson is believed to have gotten a tattoo himself in Tahiti . Banks was a highly regarded member of the English aristocracy who had acquired his position with Cook by co-financing the expedition with ten thousand pounds, a very large sum at the time. In turn, Cook brought back with him a tattooed Raiatean man, Omai , whom he presented to King George and

584-553: A largely non-commercial enterprise during the convict period in Australia. For example, James Ross in the Hobart Almanac of 1833 describes how the convicts on board ship commonly spent time tattooing themselves with gunpowder. Out of a study of 10,180 convict records that were transported to then Van Diemen's Land (now Tasmania) between 1823 and 1853 about 37% of all men and about 15% of all women arrived with tattoos, making Australia at

657-453: A look akin to traditional makeup. A growing trend in the US and UK is to place artistic tattoos over the surgical scars of a mastectomy . "More women are choosing not to reconstruct after a mastectomy and tissue instead... The mastectomy tattoo or areola tattoo will become just another option for post cancer patients and a truly personal way of regaining control over post cancer bodies..." However,

730-438: A part of southern culture. Marco Polo wrote of Quanzhou , "Many come hither from Upper India to have their bodies painted with the needle in the way we have elsewhere described, there being many adepts at this craft in the city". At least three of the main characters – Lu Zhishen , Shi Jin (史進), and Yan Ching (燕青) – in the classic novel Water Margin are described as having tattoos covering nearly all of their bodies. Wu Song

803-449: A person feels about a relative (commonly a parent or child) or about an unrelated person. Tattoos can also be used for functional purposes, such as identification, permanent makeup , and medical purposes . The word tattoo , or tattow in the 18th century, is a loanword from the Samoan word tatau , meaning "to strike", from Proto-Oceanic * sau ₃ referring to a wingbone from

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876-463: A population of Europeans who lived in South Pacific islands, "combing" the beach and nearby water for flotsam, jetsam , or anything else they could use or trade. When a beachcomber became totally dependent upon coastal fishing for his sustenance, or abandoned his original culture and set of values ("went native"), then the term "beachcomber" was synonymous with a criminal, a drifter , or a bum. While

949-525: A preexisting wound, and re-scarification to form a raised scar as found in places including Tasmania, Australia, Melanesia and Central Africa. The American Academy of Dermatology distinguishes five types of tattoos: traumatic tattoos that result from injuries, such as asphalt from road injuries or pencil lead; amateur tattoos; professional tattoos, both via traditional methods and modern tattoo machines; cosmetic tattoos, also known as " permanent makeup "; and medical tattoos . A traumatic tattoo occurs when

1022-851: A shared cultural heritage such as the tradition of tattooing. While the Gebelein man was buried in Egypt, most discoveries of tattooed individuals from this region are from Ancient Nubia. In Nubia, the earliest identified human remains with tattoos are dated to the C-Group period, which lasted from 2345-1500 BCE and contemporaneous with the First Intermediate period through the Second Intermediate period in Ancient Egypt. During this C-Group period, only women have been found with tattoos, suggesting that tattooing

1095-596: A skin pigmentation disorder. SS blood group tattoos ( German : Blutgruppentätowierung ) were worn by members of the Waffen-SS in Nazi Germany during World War II to identify the individual's blood type . After the war, the tattoo was taken to be prima facie , if not perfect, evidence of being part of the Waffen-SS, leading to potential arrest and prosecution. This led a number of ex-Waffen-SS to shoot themselves through

1168-489: A substance such as asphalt or gunpowder is rubbed into a wound as the result of some kind of accident or trauma. When this involves carbon , dermatologists may call the mark a carbon stain instead of a tattoo. Coal miners could develop characteristic marks owing to coal dust getting into wounds. These are particularly difficult to remove as they tend to be spread across several layers of skin, and scarring or permanent discoloration can be almost unavoidable depending on

1241-499: A tattoo. In September 2006, the Pew Research Center conducted a telephone survey that found that 36% of Americans ages 18–25, 40% of those 26–40 and 10% of those 41–64 had a tattoo. They concluded that Generation X and Millennials express themselves through their appearance, and tattoos are a popular form of self-expression. In January 2008, a survey conducted online by Harris Interactive estimated that 14% of all adults in

1314-659: A total of 61 tattoos, which may have been a form of acupuncture used to relieve pain. Radiological examination of Ötzi's bones showed "age-conditioned or strain-induced degeneration" corresponding to many tattooed areas, including osteochondrosis and slight spondylosis in the lumbar spine and wear-and-tear degeneration in the knee and especially in the ankle joints. If so, this is at least 2,000 years before acupuncture's previously known earliest use in China ( c.  100 BCE ). Preserved tattoos on ancient mummified human remains reveal that tattooing has been practiced throughout

1387-598: A while, in the South Sea islands of Polynesia . If another beachcomber was ready to take his place in order to get home, the captain might let the disgruntled crewman go; otherwise, the captain would offer the natives a reward to find and return the deserter , and deduct the reward, plus interest, from the deserter's pay. In other words, the deserter, if caught, would end up working the entire voyage for no pay at all, or even return home in debt to his employers. In Typee , Melville deserted, not once but twice, before signing on as

1460-643: A wide variety of images, such as abstract chains of “sss” or depictions of gods and goddesses. In Nubia, a female mummy from Aksha dated to the 4th century BCE contains a tattoo of the Egyptian deity Bes on her thigh. Bes , a dwarfed god, is often associated with fertility and childbirth, and was a popular image tattooed onto women both in Egypt and Nubia, as seen in both iconographic examples, such as tomb paintings, and on human remains. No ancient tattoo instruments or tools have been confidently identified at archaeological excavations in either Egypt or Sudan, due to

1533-414: Is a form of body modification made by inserting tattoo ink , dyes, and/or pigments , either indelible or temporary, into the dermis layer of the skin to form a design. Tattoo artists create these designs using several tattooing processes and techniques , including hand-tapped traditional tattoos and modern tattoo machines . The history of tattooing goes back to Neolithic times, practiced across

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1606-470: Is a legal requirement for all 8.5 million pet dogs in the UK. In Australia, desexed cats and dogs are marked with a tattoo on the inside of the ear . Permanent makeup is the use of tattoos to create long-lasting eyebrows, lips (liner and/or lip blushing), eyes (permanent eyeliner), and even moles definition. Natural colors are used to mimic eyebrows and freckles, while diverse pigments for lips and eyeliner for

1679-422: Is often performed without anesthesia, but is different from tattooing as no ink or dye is inserted during the process, the mark instead being caused by permanent scarring of the skin. Pet dogs and cats are sometimes tattooed with a serial number (usually in the ear, or on the inner thigh) via which their owners can be identified. However, the use of a microchip has become an increasingly popular choice and since 2016

1752-562: Is that branding was used by European authorities for marking criminals throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The practice was also used by British authorities to mark army deserters and military personnel court-martialed in Australia. In nineteenth century Australia tattoos were generally the result of personal rather than official decisions but British authorities started to record tattoos along with scars and other bodily markings to describe and manage convicts assigned for transportation. The practice of tattooing appears to have been

1825-453: The Deir el-Bahari site. He speculated that the tattoos and other scarifications observed on the bodies may have served a medicinal or therapeutic purpose: "The examination of these scars, some white, others blue, leaves in no doubt that they are not, in essence, ornament, but an established treatment for a condition of the pelvis, very probably chronic pelvic peritonitis ." Ötzi the iceman had

1898-475: The Malagasy people . Austronesians used the characteristic hafted skin-puncturing technique, using a small mallet and a piercing implement made from Citrus thorns, fish bone, bone, and oyster shells. Ancient tattooing traditions have also been documented among Papuans and Melanesians , with their use of distinctive obsidian skin piercers. Some archeological sites with these implements are associated with

1971-582: The Roman Empire , gladiators and slaves were tattooed: exported slaves were tattooed with the words "tax paid", and it was a common practice to tattoo "fugitive" (denoted by the letters "FUG") on the foreheads of runaway slaves. Owing to the Biblical strictures against the practice, Emperor Constantine I banned tattooing the face around AD 330, and the Second Council of Nicaea banned all body markings as

2044-719: The Yoruba , Fulani and Hausa people of Nigeria ; Native Americans of the Pre-Columbian Americas ; people of Rapa Nui ; Picts of Iron Age Britain ; and Paleo-Balkan peoples ( Illyrians and Thracians , as well as Daunians in Apulia ), a tradition that has been preserved in the western Balkans by Albanians ( Albanian traditional tattooing ), Catholics in Bosnia and Herzegovina ( Sicanje ), and women of some Vlach communities. The earliest figural tattoos were identified on

2117-457: The cannibal Fijis for the rest of his life. The Fijis would sometimes capture the crew of a stranded ship for ransom, and eat them if they resisted. Whippy would try to rescue them but sometimes found only roasted bones. Ultimately he became American consul to Fiji, and left many descendants among the islands. There had always been a small number of castaways in the South Pacific since

2190-657: The naturally mummified human remains of a male buried within a shallow grave from Gebelein in upper Egypt , and radiocarbon dated to around 3351-3017 BCE. The male mummy, named the “Gebelein man”, had two overlapping tattoos on his right forearm, one depicting a bovine , and the other depicting another horned animal, perhaps a barbary sheep or another bovine. The Gebelein man was approximately 18-21 years of age when he died, suggesting that he received his tattoos at an early age. The cultures of Ancient Egypt and Ancient Nubia , located in modern day Sudan , while diverse and multifaceted within their own rights, often have roots in

2263-475: The penal colonies there. It is estimated that in 1850 there were over 2,000 beachcombers throughout Polynesia and Micronesia . The Polynesia and Melanesia communities were usually receptive to beachcombers and castaways who were absorbed into the local community, usually by formal adoption or by marriage, with the beachcombers and castaways often being considered a status symbol of the local chief. Beachcombers who returned to Europe conveyed tattoo styles of

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2336-525: The Austronesian migration into Papua New Guinea and Melanesia . But other sites are older than the Austronesian expansion, being dated to around 1650 to 2000 BCE, suggesting that there was a preexisting tattooing tradition in the region. Among other ethnolinguistic groups, tattooing was also practiced among the Ainu people of Japan; some Austroasians of Indochina ; Berber women of Tamazgha (North Africa);

2409-606: The English Court. On subsequent voyages other crew members, from officers, such as American John Ledyard, to ordinary seamen, were tattooed. The first documented professional tattooist in Britain was Sutherland Macdonald , who operated out of a salon in London beginning in 1894. In Britain, tattooing was still largely associated with sailors and the lower or even criminal class, but by the 1870s had become fashionable among some members of

2482-552: The Floating World ); eco-educator Dr. Deacon Ritterbush ( A Beachcomber’s Odyssey ); sea glass experts Richard LaMotte ( Pure Sea Glass ) and C.S. Lambert ( Sea Glass Chronicles ); geologist Margaret Carruthers ( Beach Stones ); shell specialists Chuck and Debbie Robinson ( The Art of Shelling ), and zoologist Dr. Blair Witherington and Dawn Witherington, ( Florida's Living Beaches: A Guide for the Curious Beachcomber ). Along

2555-839: The Holocaust as part of the Nazis' identification system , beginning in fall 1941. The SS introduced the practice at Auschwitz concentration camp in order to identify the bodies of registered prisoners in the concentration camps. During registration, guards would tattoo each prisoner with a number, usually on the left forearm, but sometimes on the chest or stomach. Of the Nazi concentration camps, only Auschwitz put tattoos on inmates. Prisoners found with tattoos in Mauthausen concentration camp and Buchenwald concentration camp upon liberation were presumably transported from Auschwitz by death march . The tattoo

2628-481: The Indigenous peoples of Australia, now only really found in parts of Arnhem Land . Each "deliberately placed scar tells a story of pain, endurance, identity, status, beauty, courage, sorrow or grief." Barramoyokjarlukkugarr walang bolhminy now bolitj. They put it on the wound and then it comes up as an adornment scar. ( Bob Burruwal , Rembarrnga , Arnhem Land) The European history of the use of tattoo in Australia

2701-545: The Pacific islands. The social and commercial role of beachcombers ended when missionaries arrived, and with the growth of a commercial community with European ( palagi ) traders, resident on each island, who were the representatives of trading companies. Many beachcombers made the transition to becoming island traders. In Uruguay , a similar term has been naturalized into the Spanish form Bichicome. According to folk etymology,

2774-545: The U.S. was established in the early 1870s by a German immigrant, Martin Hildebrandt . He had served as a Union soldier in the Civil War and tattooed many other soldiers. Soon after the Civil War, tattoos became fashionable among upper-class young adults. This trend lasted until the beginning of World War I. The invention of the electric tattoo machine caused popularity of tattoos among the wealthy to drop off. The machine made

2847-526: The U.S.; in 1980, there were more than 5,000 self-proclaimed tattoo artists, appearing in response to sudden demand. Many studies have been done of the tattooed population and society's view of tattoos. In June 2006, the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology published the results of a telephone survey of 2004: it found that 36% of Americans ages 18–29, 24% of those 30–40, and 15% of those 41–51 had

2920-500: The United States have a tattoo, slightly down from 2003, when 16% had a tattoo. Among age groups, 9% of those ages 18–24, 32% of those 25–29, 25% of those 30–39 and 12% of those 40–49 have tattoos, as do 8% of those 50–64. Men are slightly more likely to have a tattoo than women. Since the 1970s, tattoos have become a mainstream part of Western fashion, common both for men and women, and among all economic classes and to age groups from

2993-475: The arm with a gun, removing the tattoo and leaving scars like the ones resulting from pox inoculation, making the removal less obvious. Tattoos were probably also used in ancient medicine as part of the treatment of the patient. In 1898, Daniel Fouquet, a medical doctor, wrote an article on "medical tattooing" practices in Ancient Egypt , in which he describes the tattooed markings on the female mummies found at

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3066-483: The arrival and exposure of rare finds. They also practice eco-conservation and do not kill mollusks for their shells, dig holes in the sand, or gouge cliff faces for fossils or reefs for coral specimens. Many beachcombers serve as excellent stewards of the seashore, working with government agencies to monitor shore erosion, dumping and pollution, and reef and cliff damage, etc. Recognized beachcomb experts today include oceanographer Curtis Ebbesmeyer ( Flotsametrics and

3139-609: The body modification term is not to be confused with the origins of the word for the military drumbeat or performance. In this case, the English word tattoo is derived from the Dutch word taptoe . Copyrighted tattoo designs that are mass-produced and sent to tattoo artists are known as " flash ". Flash sheets are prominently displayed in many tattoo parlors for the purpose of providing both inspiration and ready-made tattoo images to customers. The Japanese word irezumi means "insertion of ink" and can mean tattoos using tebori ,

3212-571: The city of Antwerp in modern-day Belgium . The mother was tattooed while the child was unmarked. In Antwerp, the two were put on display at a local tavern at least until 1567, with handbills promoting the event being distributed in the city. In 1577, English privateer Martin Frobisher captured two Inuit and brought them back to England for display. One of the Inuit was a tattooed woman from Baffin Island , who

3285-535: The coast of British Columbia in Canada, beachcombing or log salvage is the occupation of retrieving stray logs from the sea for resale to the lumber industry. It has been an activity since the 1880s and is still carried out under licence from the province. Both the recreational and utilitarian aspects of beachcombing or “ wrecking ” were celebrated in the film The Wrecking Season , an award-winning film that portrays playwright Nick Darke ’s passion for beachcombing on

3358-485: The coast of Cornwall , UK . A popular Canadian family television drama, The Beachcombers , focused on a two-man business salvaging logs from beaches in late-twentieth-century British Columbia . In the James Bond film On Her Majesty's Secret Service , Bond gets two weeks leave, and when Moneypenny asks him where he is off to, he replies: "just some place to laze about. Beachcombing". Tattoo A tattoo

3431-479: The collector. (However, this usually does not include the great bulk of marine debris , most of which is neither useful nor decorative.) Edmund James Banfield is an example of the modern beachcomber in his residence on Dunk Island in the early twentieth century where he studied and wrote about the vegetation, bird and sea life of the island. Sophisticated recreational beachcombers use knowledge of how storms, geography, ocean currents, and seasonal events determine

3504-555: The earliest Spanish explorers, but the numbers increased dramatically in the early 19th century with the beginning of the whaling era circa 1819. It is estimated that 75% of beachcombers were sailors, particularly whalemen, who had jumped ship. They were predominantly British but with an increasing number of Americans, particularly in Hawaii and the Carolines. Perhaps 20% were English convicts who had been transported to Australia and escaped from

3577-564: The globe by many cultures, and the symbolism and impact of tattoos varies in different places and cultures. Tattoos may be decorative (with no specific meaning), symbolic (with a specific meaning to the wearer), pictorial (a depiction of a specific person or item), or textual (words or pictographs from written languages). Many tattoos serve as rites of passage , marks of status and rank, symbols of religious and spiritual devotion, decorations for bravery, marks of fertility , pledges of love, amulets and talismans, protection, and as punishment, like

3650-459: The intention to make money, he continued to exploit his "friend" by exhibiting him in a human zoo, where Jeoly died three months later. Jeoly's dead body was afterwards skinned, and his skinless body was disposed, while the tattooed skin was sold and displayed at Oxford. It is commonly held that the modern popularity of tattooing stems from Captain James Cook 's three voyages to the South Pacific in

3723-406: The late 18th century. Certainly, Cook's voyages and the dissemination of the texts and images from them brought more awareness about tattooing (and, as noted above, imported the word "tattow" into Western languages). On Cook's first voyage in 1768, his science officer and expedition botanist, Sir Joseph Banks , as well as artist Sydney Parkinson and many others of the crew, returned to England with

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3796-425: The later teen years to middle age. For many young Americans, the tattoo has taken on a decidedly different meaning than for previous generations. The tattoo has undergone "dramatic redefinition" and has shifted from a form of deviance to an acceptable form of expression. As of 1 November 2006, Oklahoma became the last state to legalize tattooing, having banned it since 1963. Scarring was practised widely amongst

3869-514: The location. An amalgam tattoo is when amalgam particles are implanted in to the soft tissues of the mouth, usually the gums, during dental filling placement or removal. Another example of such accidental tattoos is the result of a deliberate or accidental stabbing with a pencil or pen, leaving graphite or ink beneath the skin. A well-known example is the Nazi practice of forcibly tattooing concentration camp inmates with identification numbers during

3942-403: The marks of outcasts, slaves and convicts. Extensive decorative tattooing has also been part of the work of performance artists such as tattooed ladies . Although tattoo art has existed at least since the first known tattooed person, Ötzi , lived around the year 3330 BCE, the way society perceives tattoos has varied immensely throughout history. In the 20th century, tattoo art throughout most of

4015-499: The names "tatu", " moko ", " cicatrix " and " keloid ". The first is by pricking that leaves the skin smooth as found in places including the Pacific Islands. The second is a tattoo combined with chiseling to leave furrows in the skin as found in places including New Zealand. The third is scarification using a knife or chisel as found in places including West Africa. The fourth and the last is scarification by irritating and re-opening

4088-631: The perishable nature of the tools and their possibility for misidentification. However, tattoos during this period were created with metal needles or awls, tools typically associated with the work of domestic women. Cemeteries throughout the Tarim Basin ( Xinjiang of western China) including the sites of Qäwrighul , Yanghai , Shengjindian , Zaghunluq, and Qizilchoqa have revealed several tattooed mummies with Western Asian/Indo-European physical traits and cultural materials. These date from between 2100 and 550 BC. In ancient China, tattoos were considered

4161-503: The sense of temporarily unemployed sailor, hanging about in the port and living from hand to mouth; nowadays it means a vagabond or a hobo. In archaeology the beachcombing lifestyle is associated with coastal shell- middens that sometimes accumulate over many hundreds if not thousands of years. Evidence at Klasies River Caves in South Africa , and Gulf of Zula in Eritrea , show that

4234-423: The skin, tattoos are not easily destroyed even when the skin is burned. Pets, show animals, thoroughbred horses, and livestock are sometimes tattooed with animal identification marks. Ear tattoos are a method of identification for beef cattle . Tattooing with a 'slap mark' on the shoulder or on the ear is the standard identification method in commercial pig farming. Branding is used for similar reasons and

4307-541: The tattooing of nipples on reconstructed breasts remains in high demand. Medical tattoos are used to ensure instruments are properly located for repeated application of radiotherapy and for the areola in some forms of breast reconstruction. Tattooing has also been used to convey medical information about the wearer (e.g., blood group, medical condition, etc.). Alzheimer patients may be tattooed with their names, so they may be easily identified if they go missing. Additionally, tattoos are used in skin tones to cover vitiligo ,

4380-448: The tattooing procedure both much easier and cheaper, thus, eliminating the status symbol tattoos previously held, as they were now affordable for all socioeconomic classes. The status symbol of a tattoo shifted from a representation of wealth to a mark typically seen on rebels and criminals. Despite this change, tattoos remained popular among military servicemen, a tradition that continues today. In 1975, there were only 40 tattoo artists in

4453-413: The tide: seashells of every kind, fossils , pottery shards ( sea pottery ), historical artifacts, sea beans ( drift seeds ), sea glass (beach glass), driftwood , and messages in bottles . Items such as lumber, plastics, and all manner of things that have been lost or discarded by seagoing vessels will be collected by some beachcombers, as long as the items are either decorative or useful in some way to

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4526-536: The time of the American Revolution , tattoos were already common among American sailors (see sailor tattoos ). Tattoos were listed in protection papers , an identity certificate issued to prevent impressment into the British Royal Navy . Because protection papers were proof of American citizenship, Black sailors used them to show that they were freemen. The first recorded professional tattoo shop in

4599-433: The traditional Japanese hand method, a Western-style machine or any method of tattooing using insertion of ink. The most common word used for traditional Japanese tattoo designs is horimono . Japanese may use the word Western tattoo as a loan word meaning any non-Japanese styles of tattooing. British anthropologist Ling Roth in 1900 described four methods of skin marking and suggested they be differentiated under

4672-557: The upper classes, including royalty, and in its upmarket form it could be an expensive and sometimes painful process. A marked class division on the acceptability of the practice continued for some time in Britain. Many Indigenous peoples of North America practice tattooing. European explorers and traders who met Native Americans noticed these tattoos and wrote about them, and a few Europeans chose to be tattooed by Native Americans. See history of tattooing in North America . By

4745-572: The vast majority of beachcombers were simply unemployed sailors, many may have chosen to live in Pacific island communities; as described by Herman Melville in Typee , or Harry Franck in the book Vagabonding Around the World . After enduring a voyage of danger and hardship, it was not uncommon for a few sailors to desert a whaling ship when it arrived in Tahiti or the Marquesas and reside, at least for

4818-506: The word traces its origins to the English term and refers to poor or lower-class people. The Spanish form also draws on the similarities to the Spanish bicho (small animal/insect) and comer (eat). Similarly, the term has entered the Greek slang through sailors, in the form "pitsikómis" (πιτσικόμης). The Russian word бич (and a rarer form бичкомбер, бичкомер) appeared not later than 1930s, in

4891-484: The world for thousands of years. In 2015, scientific re-assessment of the age of the two oldest known tattooed mummies identified Ötzi as the oldest example then known. This body, with 61 tattoos, was found embedded in glacial ice in the Alps , and was dated to 3250 BCE. In 2018, the oldest figurative tattoos in the world were discovered on two mummies from Egypt which are dated between 3351 and 3017 BCE. Ancient tattooing

4964-451: The world was associated with a limited selection of specific "rugged" lifestyles, notably sailors and prisoners. In the 21st century, people choose to be tattooed for artistic, cosmetic, sentimental/ memorial , religious , and spiritual reasons, or to symbolize their belonging to or identification with particular groups, including criminal gangs (see criminal tattoos ) or a particular ethnic group or law-abiding subculture. Tattoos may show how

5037-493: Was gendered at this time. Tattoos of this period usually consist of dotted patterns and lines, and typically were located on the abdomen, chest, arms, and/or legs. By 500 BCE, there is evidence of tattooing on men in Ancient Nubia, typically on the hands or arms, and rarely on the face. There is also more evidence of figural tattooing around this period, typically found on female human remains. These figural tattoos encompassed

5110-538: Was illustrated by the English cartographer John White . In 1691, William Dampier brought to London a Filipino man named Jeoly or Giolo from the island of Mindanao (Philippines) who had a tattooed body. Dampier exhibited Jeoly in a human zoo to make a fortune and falsely branded him as a "prince" to draw large crowds. At the time of exhibition, Jeoly was still grieving his mother, who Dampier also enslaved and had died at sea during their exploitation to Europe. Dampier claimed that he became friends with Jeoly, but with

5183-755: Was most widely practiced among the Austronesian people . It was one of the early technologies developed by the Proto-Austronesians in Taiwan and coastal South China prior to at least 1500 BCE, before the Austronesian expansion into the islands of the Indo-Pacific . It may have originally been associated with headhunting . Tattooing traditions, including facial tattooing, can be found among all Austronesian subgroups, including Taiwanese indigenous peoples , Islander Southeast Asians , Micronesians , Polynesians , and

5256-497: Was sentenced to a facial tattoo describing his crime after killing Xi Menqing (西門慶) to avenge his brother. In addition, Chinese legend claimed the mother of Yue Fei (a famous Song general) tattooed the words "Repay the Country with Pure Loyalty" ( 精忠報國 , jing zhong bao guo ) down her son's back before he left to join the army. In 1566, French sailors abducted an Inuit woman and her child in modern-day Labrador and brought her to

5329-466: Was the prisoner's camp number, sometimes with a special symbol added: some Jews had a triangle, and Romani had the letter "Z" (from German Zigeuner for 'Gypsy'). In May 1944, Jewish men received the letters "A" or "B" to indicate a particular series of numbers. As early as the Zhou , Chinese authorities would employ facial tattoos as a punishment for certain crimes or to mark prisoners or slaves. During

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