Tattoos are one of the most popular forms of body modification today, but they weren’t always so commonplace. The long and fascinating history of tattoos isn’t well known—even among tattoo artists and enthusiasts! So, if you’ve ever wondered about the origins, evolution, and cultural significance of this 5,000-year-old art, you’re hardly alone.
The Origins and Meaning of the Word “Tattoo”
The modern word “tattoo” derives from one of two sources. Either from the Marquesan (Polynesian) word “tatu;” which means both “to puncture” and “a mark made on the skin,” or from the Tahitian/Samoan word “tatau,” which means “to mark something.” The roots of “tatu” may also have come from “ta,” a Marquesan word that means “to strike something.”
The English word “tattoo” first appeared in 1769 in the writings of James Cook. Cook was an explorer and Captain of the Royal Navy, who defined the word as “pigment designs in the skin.” He encountered many indigenous peoples in New Zealand, Australia, and Hawaii during his expeditions across the Pacific Ocean. Cook’s word “tattoo” is most likely a phonetic transcription of “tatu” or “tatau,” the terms these peoples used to describe the elaborate and beautiful designs they proudly displayed on their bodies. Therefore, the word “tattoo” stuck and has remained unchanged in English ever since. Today, “tattoo” can refer to the designs themselves, the creation of such designs, or convey other meanings.
History of Tattoos
The story of tattooing’s origins and evolution spans 5,000 years of global history and have always carried deep cultural, spiritual, and personal significance.
~3300 B.C.E.
Our friend Ötzi the Iceman (and most likely many other members of his Bronze Age tribe) sported the first tattoos on record. Researchers discovered the mummified Ötzi in the Alps between Italy and Austria in 1991. They believe that his dotted tattoos were used primarily for healing.
Around the same time, people in modern-day Japan painted or engraved facial tattoos on clay figurines, placed in tombs alongside their dead. The markings likely have religious or magical significance, while the figurines represented surviving members of the community who symbolically accompanied the dead into the afterlife. Japan’s earliest tattoo evidence originates from these figurines—but it’s not clear if the Japanese tattooed their own bodies in addition to the figurines.
~2300 B.C.E.
The Chinchorro civilization— located on the coast straddling the arid Atacama Desert in present-day Chile and Peru—practiced mummification long before their more famous Egyptian counterparts. One well-preserved Chinchorro mummy has a line of dots tattooed on his upper lip, providing the oldest direct evidence of tattooing in the Americas.
~2160-1994 B.C.E.
Only women who held positions of religious significance were allowed to get tattoos during the early dynasties of Ancient Egypt. The earliest known example is Amunet, a priestess of the goddess Hathor. Her mummified body showed that she decorated herself with many dots and dashes, forming abstract geometric patterns on her thighs, arms, breasts, shoulders, and abdomen. Scholars believe that these tattoos may have served as medicinal, spiritual, or fertility aids.
Scholars also believe that Egyptians were responsible for spreading the practice of tattooing across Europe and Asia. This is due to their frequent contact with civilizations in modern-day Greece, Iran, and the Arabian Peninsula.
~2000 B.C.E.
Tattooed mummies thought to date back to 2,000 B.C.E. were discovered in Xinjiang, Western China, and at Pazyryk on the Ukok Plateau. Tarim Mummies found in Xinjiang may be of Western Asian/European heritage, whereas Pazyryk Mummies are of Siberian descent. This suggests that tattoos are common among Europeans and Asians during this period (or perhaps earlier).
~1200-400 B.C.E.
The Celtic people inhabited most of Central and Western Europe, reaching the British Isles and Ireland around 500 B.C.E.
Tattoos were a fundamental part of the Celtic culture. They were made from a blue dye derived from woad plants. Common motifs in Celtic body art were spirals, knots, and braids, meant to symbolize the interconnection of all life.
~600 B.C.E.
Although Greeks likely saw Egyptian tattoos far earlier, textual evidence indicates tattooing didn’t become a common practice in Greece until around this time. However, Greeks used tattoos as a mark of barbarity and shame. According to the historian Herodotus (c. 484-425 B.C.E. ), Greeks learned the practice from the Persians and used it to identify criminals, defeated enemies, and enslaved people.
~500-300 B.C.E.
Roman writers, including Virgil and Seneca, describe the tattooing of criminals and enslaved people during this time, drawing inspiration from the Greeks. Tattoos were referred to by the Romans as “stigma,” a term that carries the punitive connotation of the practice to modern English. As a result of the associated social stigma, Greek and Roman physicians also devised various methods for removing tattoos.
~50-27 B.C.E.
Tattooing was common and well documented during the Late Roman Republic and Early Roman Empire (est. 27 B.C.E. ). For example, in Julius Caesar’s “The Gallic War,” he describes the tattoos of the Picts, a tribal people his armies encountered during their campaigns. Also, according to Ephesus, the phrase “tax paid” was tattooed on enslaved people exported to Asia during the Early Empire.
~0 C.E.
Polynesians are known for creating some of the most intricate and skillfully designed tattoos in the ancient world. Sources estimate that tattooing emerged in the Polynesian cultures of the South Pacific around 2000 years ago, although it’s entirely possible it existed earlier. Tattoos were used during important rites of passage and indicated social rank and affiliation similar to other ancient societies. These tattoos carried significant personal, social, and spiritual meanings.
However, people did not choose what tattoo they received. Instead, tattoo masters—those with extensive knowledge of both the technical and artistic aspects of tattooing—chose for them. The tattoo master customized each design according to the recipient’s specific attributes, personality, status, and achievements. Though tattoo designs and locations varied between Polynesian groups, tattooing techniques and motifs were similar throughout the South Pacific. These designs included linear, curvilinear, and geometrical patterns incorporating triangles and circles. Other shapes were common, as were basic representations of natural and manmade objects.
Pe’a and Moko
In Samoa, men received tattoos called pe’a to signify their passage into manhood and their commitment to serving their extended familial clan. Pe’a were large—covering the thighs, buttocks, lower back, and lower abdomen — and a prerequisite for any man who wished to receive the title of chief, matai. Samoan women were also ritually tattooed with less extensive geometrical designs, typically applied to the hands, thighs, and legs.
The tattoo style that originated in Samoa spread to New Zealand, Hawaii, and other South Pacific regions. The Maori of New Zealand developed their own tattooing tradition called moko, often created using woodcarving techniques. Artists used tattooing chisels, called uhi, to cut designs into the skin up to one-eighth of an inch. Then, they applied pigment by rubbing it over the wounds or using a serrated uhi.
Moko — especially full-face moko — we’re hyper-personalized tattoos. It allowed their wearers to communicate their lineage, regional or tribal affiliation, social rank, achievements, and even occupation. Moko could be worn anywhere on the body but was most common on men’s lower bodies and faces. Women generally wore their moko on their arms, abdomen, and thighs.
The Hawaiian tradition of tattooing is called kakau—the least ritualized and regimented of any of the Polynesian cultures. Hawaiians wore tattoos to show distinction, decoration, and both physical and spiritual well-being. Men most often adorned their faces, torsos, arms, and legs. Hawaiian women were most often tattooed with natural designs from their wrists to their fingers and occasionally even on their tongues.
For more information about the incredible history of Polynesian tattooing, check out Skin Stories from PBS and Pacific Islanders in Communications.
297
The first direct evidence of tattooing in Japan comes from a complied Chinese dynastic history. It states that the Japanese admired tattoos primarily for their beauty rather than their spiritual, medical, or magical properties. Japanese tattoo artists, called Hori, were absolute masters of their craft. Their use of beautiful colors, creative designs and technical approaches made them unique to other known tattooing traditions.
However, over the course of hundreds of years, tattoos again became a punishment for criminals. By the 1600s, criminal gangs called Yakuza embraced the association, often covering their entire bodies with tattoos, identifying them as outlaws.
306-337
Following his conversion to Christianity, Roman Emperor Constantine banned tattooing. The emperor based his prohibition on a passage from Leviticus: “Ye shall not make any cuttings on your flesh for the dead, nor print any marks upon you.”
Constantine viewed tattooing as a desecration, since Christians believed that humans were created in God’s image. Therefore, he forbade the practice, aside from marking enslaved people. However, by this time, tattooing had become commonplace in the Roman military, stigmatizing many soldiers and veterans.
~450
In 2005, archaeologists uncovered a burial chamber in Peru containing the mummified remains of a Moche woman now known as the “Lady of Cao.” She, who died around 450 C.E., bore many stylized animal tattoos on her arms, including spiders, crabs, cats, and snakes.
570-632
Attitudes about tattooing began to change with the rise of Islam in North Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. Although the Prophet Muhammad and the Qur’an doesn’t explicitly forbid tattooing, strict interpretations of the text view it as unholy. Like Christianity, some Islamic scholars believed that tattooing was a vain and unholy desecration of God’s creation. Despite these interpretations, evidence indicates that tattooing endured in many Islamic communities across the region, particularly in North Africa.
1100
The Chimú people (~1100-1470 C.E.) who lived in modern-day Peru, were among some of the most elaborately tattooed populations in South America. Carrying on the mummification traditions of the earlier Chinchorro and Moche people of the region, the Chimú mummies preserved evidence of their tattoos. These intricate, elaborate tattoos featured stylized plant and animal designs, anthropomorphic beings, hunting tools, and weapons, and complex geometric patterns.
1254-1324
While archaeological evidence indicates tattooing among China’s ethnic minorities existed long before Marco Polo’s journey to Quanzhou at this time, it is one of the first detailed reports of a highly developed tattoo culture in the country. Polo stated there were so many skilled and reputable tattoo artists in Quanzhou that people from northern India and beyond came to get tattooed.
1500s
Early Spanish conquistadors like Hernán Cortés first encountered the Mayas on the Yucatan Peninsula in modern-day Mexico. In Maya culture, tattoos were a way to display courage and worship their idols.
Tattooing had been so effectively suppressed in Christian Europe that Spaniards believed it to be the work of the devil. They were horrified to find that tattooing was widely practiced throughout Central America. As in Europe, they sought to eradicate the practice.
1644-1912
Tattooing faces of criminals and enslaved people became a common practice in China during the Great Qing Dynasty.
1768-1779
Captain James Cook and his crew explored the South Pacific, encountering many tattooed people in the region. The explorer and his crew sailed on three expeditions, landing on Hawaii, New Zealand, Tahiti, Kiribati, Fiji, and Easter Island. Thanks to this, the word “tattoo” came into the English language. As a result of their expeditions, getting tattoos became a widespread practice among European sailors, many of whom returned with Polynesian-style tattoos of their own. Over the following decades, tattoos would become increasingly common among Western European and North American sailors.
1797
The London Missionary Society dispatched its first missionaries to Polynesia during this time. These missionaries used force and persuasion to convert indigenous peoples to follow European-style political, social, and religious norms. These norms included the stigmatization of tattoos.
These missions would provide basic education and medical care but may have restricted this to people without tattoos. While some indigenous people willingly abandoned their tattooing traditions, many others fought to protect them. Over time, sustained resistance forced most missionaries to relax their prohibitions on tattooing.
1861
For nearly 100 years, European sailors collected tattoos like souvenirs from their travels. However, in this year, Maurice Berchon, a French Navy surgeon, published a study outlining the dangers and complications of tattooing. As a result, the French Navy and Army banned tattoos amongst all soldiers and officers.
1862
The Prince of Wales — eventually King Edward VII — got a cross tattooed on his arm while visiting Jerusalem, despite the conservative social mores of the Victorian Era. This set off a tattooing trend among the English aristocracy.
1882
King Edward VII’s sons got tattoos, following in their father’s footsteps. The Duke of Clarence and the Duke of York were tattooed by Hori Chiyo, a Japanese master tattoo artist.
1891
Fifteen years after Thomas Edison invented the electric pen, American Sam O’Reilly created the first rotary tattoo machine. Although his patent wasn’t filed until 1891, there is evidence he had built and used his machine for years prior. Just weeks after O’Reilly received his patent in the U.S., Londoner Thomas Riley completed the first single-coil tattoo machine. These two devices formed the basic structure for all future tattoo machines.
~1900
Upper-class Americans became fascinated with tattooing around the turn of the century. In turn, many sideshows and carnivals to included people with Japanese-style full-body tattoos among their attractions.
1950
Public fascination with tattooing decreased significantly after the traumas of two World Wars and the Great Depression. Again, being seen with a tattoo was considered deviant and improper. Yet, tattoos remained popular among soldiers, sailors, and in countercultural movements, solidifying their unseemly associations in the public mind.
2000
Nearly 150 years after coil and rotary tattoo machines were first invented, tattooist Carson Hill created the first pneumatic tattoo machine, powered by air compressors. Pneumatic tattoo machines are autoclavable and lightweight, aren’t significantly popular among tattoo artists.
Present
Today, tattooing is not only a viable career but a highly regarded art form. Documentaries, museums, and even reality T.V. shows celebrate the technical skill, artistic expression, and cultural importance of tattoos and tattooing. Rarely seen as a sign of shame or immorality, tattoos are considered common and acceptable forms of expression, commemoration, and spirituality.
The History of Tattoos in Native America
Around the same time the indigenous people in the South Pacific began developing tattooing, the indigenous peoples of North America were doing the same. Like their counterparts in Polynesia, North American tribes:
- Used sharpened bone, rock, and other natural objects to etch designs into their skin.
- Filled the wounds with soot or natural dyes making them permanent.
- Included geometric patterns, like lines and simple shapes.
- Used pictographic representations of objects found in nature.
The particular styles, motifs, patterns, and images used varied from region to region and even from tribe to tribe, allowing individuals to express their identity and affiliations through their body markings.
Native Tattooing Social Norms
Tattooing played an important role in the social, cultural, and spiritual life of native groups throughout North America, especially among native women. Women used tattoos for a variety of social norms:
- Beauty enhancement
- Marking of age
- Marriage eligibility
- Puberty onset
- Tribal rank
In plains tribes, tattooing was more common for men. It was a rite of passage into adulthood for them, often performed after the boys participated in their first successful hunt or battle.
Men in native tribes in the Southwest and Great Plains heavily tattooed, especially their warriors. Meant to intimidate enemies, some groups believed their tattoos would even endow them with supernatural powers or strength. It was common for an individual to get a tattoo of the animal whose strength they most wanted to emulate.
Existing documentation of Native American tattooing culture is primarily based on evidence from the East and Southeast, where indigenous groups were in contact with Europeans from the 1600s onward. John Smith, the famed English explorer of the American Eastern seaboard, noted in his journals that many of the natives they encountered were decorated with tattoos on their faces, hands, chests, and legs.
Tattooing was an important mode of personal expression and identification for Eastern native groups. Native boys from the Creek, Seminole, and all the members of the Iroquois Confederacy had their manitou, or guardian spirit, tattooed on them after achieving manhood status and added to their collection over time to commemorate new achievements.
Christian Influence on Tattoo Culture
Unfortunately, European contact and the expansion of settler-colonial power decimated indigenous populations. By the time the United States was established, Christian missionaries and their disapproval of tattooing spread throughout the continent. Indigenous tattooing traditions were severely damaged by the destruction and suppression of the indigenous peoples and their culture. However, despite the suppression attempts of Christan settlers, Indigenous tattoo culture has experienced a revival in recent decades. Newer indigenous generations now seek to reclaim their ancient cultural practices and knowledge.
Tattoo popularity soared among American sailors, similar to Europe. However, in the 1800s, its popularity expanded beyond this group. In England, tattoos became an object of aristocratic style and fascination. Notably, however, the practice was much more prevalent among American women than British ones. The New York World estimated that up to 75% of New York City’s female socialites had tattoos. Butterflies, flowers, and even dragons were considered trendy for women at the time.
Tattoo Machines, The Military, and a Nifty Way to Remember
Tattoo culture flourished after the invention of electric tattoo machines. The late 1800s and early 1900s saw the proliferation of fully tattooed men and women as sideshow attractions, such as John O’Reilly, “the tattooed Irishman.” During this time, New York City became the center of the new tattooing subculture. In 1870, Martin Hildebrandt opened the first tattoo parlor in the U.S., and Sam O’Reilly, the inventor of the rotary tattoo machine, also operated a tattoo shop in the city. Then, in 1939, Mildred Hull opened her Tattoo Emporium in lower Manhattan, making her the nation’s first female tattoo shop owner. As the tattooing subculture expanded along society’s fringes, it became less popular in the mainstream.
When the Social Security system was established in the 1930’s, many people decided to get their social security numbers tattooed on them instead of relying on their memory. In the 1940s, legendary tattoo artist Norman Keith Collins — better known as Sailor Jerry — popularized the classic American style of tattooing, which features bright, bold colors and strong lines along with frequently patriotic or militaristic subjects. Tattoos became increasingly popular among military men during World War II as both a sign of service and a symbol of strength and masculinity. Regardless, tattoos remained associated with criminality and social deviance within the mainstream throughout the 1950s and 1960s.
Tattoos Become Popular—Again
Tattoos became more socially acceptable as Baby Boomers fueled the rise of broad counter-culture movements in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Music icons like Janis Joplin inspired young people to seek tattoos that expressed their alignment with hippie culture, the anti-war movement, or other emerging subcultures. Stylistic approaches also expanded beyond the traditional Sailor Jerry school during this time, adding more subtle and intricate designs and techniques inspired by artistic traditions worldwide.
In the 1980s and 1990s, tattoos continued to gain in popularity due to celebrity influence. Punk, metal, and other underground music scenes embraced tattoos as a symbol of rebellion and social antagonism. At the same time, mainstream celebrities like Pamela Anderson sported now-cliche designs like barbed-wire armbands, expanding tattooing’s cultural reach and acceptance far beyond the underground. The rising popularity of tattoos featuring Chinese symbols, Polynesian designs, Native American motifs, yin-yang symbols, and other significant elements from different foreign cultures during the 1990s led to some of the first major discussions about cultural appropriation.
Tattoos became entirely commonplace in American culture during the 2000’s. Alongside the traditionally religious, patriotic, and nautical styles and subjects, new generations of tattoo artists expanded the technical and conceptual vocabularies of the art form to include more minimalistic, abstract, and realistic approaches. Today, tattooing is one of the most common forms of personal and artistic expression. Millennials are the most tattooed generation in American history, bringing the U.S. tattooing industry to an annual estimated worth of over $3 billion and ensuring that tattoos will continue to hold a prominent place in American art and culture for many years to come.
Into the Future
Tattooing is one of the oldest and most widespread artistic practices. New tattooing styles, techniques, and technologies continue to keep tattooing relevant in the present. Yet, the resurgence of ancient and indigenous styles pay homage to its humble roots. Tattooing has come a long way, so remember its past while looking forward to its future!