Praise for Ink & Blade “Ravenna sets an ambitious scope and executes it masterfully. Ink & Blade delves into the ancient art of tattooing, enriching carefully researched academic knowledge with lived expertise and wisdom. The result is a deeply human book that doesn’t shy away from complex topics such as dynamics of power, identity, sacredness, and body sovereignty. Ink & Blade will have a treasured place on my bookshelf, and book purists will have to forgive the numerous marginalia and underlined text that will mark (how fitting) my copy.”
—Nataša Ilinčić, illustrator, author, and anthropologist
“An intriguing blend of history, spirituality, and magic woven around the subject of tattooing. From practical details to divine implications, this book is an ideal resource for anyone looking to learn more about tattooing in general or anyone who wants to make tattooing a sacred practice in their own life. Highly recommended and an essential resource for those who view tattoos as more than just ink in skin.”
—Morgan Daimler, author of The Wild Hunt and The Morrigan
“Part academic text, part ritual manual, Ravenna’s deep reverence and respect for the subject matter shines through every page. I have never read a book quite like this before, and I found it fascinating. This is a must-read for anyone interested in tattoo history or ritual and magic.”
—River Devora, co-founder, House of Apples
“Morpheus’s work offers a fascinating look at the history of tattooing and ritual across cultures of the ancient world. It blends rich historical detail with meaningful insights into the traditions behind body art and fantastic tips on how to bring ritual into modern practice. Engaging, well-researched, and thoughtfully written, it’s an excellent read for anyone interested in the history of tattooing or curious about creating a sacred experience in modern times.”
—Stevie Varin, tattoo artist and medievalist
This book is dedicated to the ancestors of the craft of tattooing: those who have wielded the needle and the blade down the many generations, by whose dedication and skill this art comes down to us.
running head
IN&K
BLADE
iii
© Trevor Tarin
Morpheus Ravenna (pronouns: sí/hir) is a genderfluid tattoo artist, sorcerer, and writer residing in the East Bay Area of California. Sí specializes in ritual tattooing as well as Celtic and medieval styles, creating artworks and sorcerous crafts in a variety of media inspired by history, myth, and the otherworld. Sí is a witch, animist, and dedicant of the Morrígan, serving as priest in the Coru Cathubodua Priesthood. Sí also enjoys medieval reenactment in the Society for Creative Anachronism. Morpheus is the author of The Magic of the Otherworld and The Book of the Great Queen, and sí can be reached at BansheeArts.com.
INK & BLADE
The History & Sacred Rites of Tattoo Art M O R P H E U S R AV E N N A
Ink & Blade: The History & Sacred Rites of Tattoo Art Copyright © 2027 by Morpheus Ravenna. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever, including internet usage, without written permission from Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd., except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner for the purpose of training artificial intelligence technologies or systems.
first edition
First Printing, 2027 Book design by Rebecca Zins Cover design by Kevin R. Brown Illustrations by Morpheus Ravenna Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Ravenna, Morpheus, author. Title: Ink and blade : the history & sacred rites of tattoo art / Morpheus Ravenna. Description: First edition. | Woodbury, Minnesota : Llewellyn, [2027] | Includes bibliographical references. | Summary: “This book explores the history of tattooing as a sacred art and offers new perspectives and rituals for bringing the sacred back into contemporary tattoo practices for both artists and tattoo enthusiasts”—Provided by publisher. Identifiers: LCCN 2026039407 (print) | LCCN 2026039408 (ebook) | ISBN 9780738779737 trade paperback | ISBN 9780738779935 ebook Subjects: LCSH: Tattooing—History Classification: LCC GT2345 .R384 2027 (print) | LCC GT2345 (ebook) LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2026039407 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2026039408 Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd. does not participate in, endorse, or have any authority or responsibility concerning private business transactions between our authors and the public. All mail addressed to the author is forwarded but the publisher cannot, unless specifically instructed by the author, give out an address or phone number. Any internet references contained in this work are current at publication time, but the publisher cannot guarantee that a specific location will continue to be maintained. Please refer to the publisher’s website for links to authors’ websites and other sources. Llewellyn Publications A Division of Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd. 2143 Wooddale Drive Woodbury, MN 55125-2989 www.llewellyn.com Printed in the United States of America GPSR Representation: UPI-2M PLUS d.o.o., Medulicéva 20, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia matt.parsons@upi2mbooks.hr
Contents Introduction • 1
PART 1 The Ancestral Journey 1: Beginnings 9 2: Africa and West Asia
19
3: Europe and the Mediterranean 4: The Eurasian Steppe World 5: Asia and the Pacific
35
55
67
6: The Arctic and the Americas 7: Encounters with Empire
87
105
8: The Advance of Monotheism
121
9: Colonialism and the Age of Sail
135
10: Modernity and Postcolonial Struggles
155
PART 2 Body Art and the Sacred 11: Self and Other
171
12: Ordeal and Initiation
183
contents 13: Cosmology and Mythic Powers
191
14: Protection and Spiritual Armor
199
15: Magical Operations
209
16: Healing and Transformation 17: Death and Mourning
221
231
PART 3 Tattoo Rituals 18: Foundational Values
243
19: Design and Planning
255
20: Spiritual Preparation
265
21: Blessing the Body 281 22: Consecrating the Workspace and Tools 23: Inking Rituals 311 24: Aftercare and Integration 25: Widening Circles
325
335
26: The Tattooist as Ritual Specialist
345
Conclusion • 363 Acknowledgments • 365 Bibliography • 367
viii
295
Introduction There is a magic moment that sometimes occurs at the completion of a new tattoo. The client stands—a little shakily at first, but relieved to be finished with the needle. They look like someone emerging from a dream, the lingering euphoria of the pain endorphins leaving them with sleepy-looking eyes and hair a little tousled. They stretch, stand, and I invite them to the mirror. They glimpse their newly tattooed self, and that’s when it happens: Awe and joy arc across their face like the sunrise cresting the horizon. An electric touch of pride lifts their posture. I can almost hear it, as if spoken aloud: This is me now. I get to wear this for the rest of my life. Sometimes they tell me, “It feels like it was always there, and you just made it visible.” Moments like this remind me how transformative a tattoo can be. I have been tattooing for fifteen years at the time of this writing, and I am continually in awe of the beauty and power of this practice. My work with clients and my own experiences getting tattooed have brought me many rewarding and enriching moments: Moments of deep surrender to the ecstatic ordeal and pain of transformation. Moments marked by the delight that springs forth when someone glimpses themselves in a new way for the first time or experiences a new ability to love their own body. Moments of relief, of power, of the rightness of feeling that a marking is just as it needs to be. I hope in this book to share some glimpses of what I love so much about this work and why I feel it is sacred.
Tattoo as a Sacred Art To say tattooing is sacred is to say it is set apart from the ordinary; the word comes from roots denoting to set apart, to dedicate, or to sacrifice 1
introduction something for a special purpose.1 In its power to transform and in the heightened intensity of experience it entails, tattooing is inherently sacred. It sets itself apart from the ordinary, even without the accoutrements of ceremony. Ancient peoples around the world understood, however, that ritual opens the doors to an even deeper domain of heightened experience and meaning. For this reason, tattooing throughout history has often been surrounded in ceremony and systems for honoring and uplifting that sacredness. This relationship to the sacred continues in many Indigenous tattooing traditions, but contemporary Western capitalist societies have largely lost touch with these roots. As a polytheist tattoo artist with a tattooing practice inspired by ritual, I am often asked for advice from people who are seeking a more spiritual tattoo experience, one that brings a heightened sense of the sacred back into the tattooing process. Spiritual seekers, animists, pagans, witches, and many others often feel at a loss as to how to access tattooing in its sacred context. They may have a felt sense that a more spiritually enriched tattoo experience is possible but struggle to find a setting and tattooist who can fulfill that vision. Instead they have to turn to regular commercial studios and try to eke out as close to a sacred space as possible in that environment. Many tattooists recognize the special nature of what they do but may lack experience or specific knowledge of how to support clients who are seeking that ritually consecrated or ancestral experience. This book is, in part, my answer to these needs.
About This Book I have three goals in writing this book. First, I hope to help recontextualize tattooing within its global history as a sacred art. Exploring the depth and beauty of its history, I think, helps to illuminate what is possible for this craft. Part 1 of the book concerns itself primarily with this purpose and constitutes an exploration of the history of tattooing from its earliest origins in the Paleolithic, traversing all around the world. Of course, volumes can be written on any one of the cultures and time periods I cover, and 1
Michiel de Vaan, Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the Other Italic Languages (Brill, 2008), 532. 2
introduction I cannot hope to be comprehensive in the space of this book. I focus on the antiquity of tattooing practices, with an emphasis on aspects that intersect with ritual, religion, and the sacred. The first chapter in this part begins with a discussion of how ancient tattooing is studied and its Paleolithic origins, and subsequent chapters traverse the world region by region, touching on evidence from the Neolithic onward into later history. The next chapters trace historical clashes between more tribal, so-called barbarian cultures and the great empires of the Iron Age, and the later encroachment of monotheism, colonialism, and capitalism on tattooing practices, including the way these forces still shape perceptions of the art today. In the final chapter of this part, I briefly outline the origins of the modern tattoo industry, post-colonial struggles of traditional tattooing cultures, and contemporary spiritual and Indigenous revitalization movements. My second hope for this book is to expand and deepen understanding of the universe of meaning and transformative power of tattooing as a sacred technology. I believe that as an embodied ritual art, tattooing at its best has the potential to connect participants to the deepest realms of human experience. More than just expensive wearable art, tattooing can be instrumental to how people experience themselves and their worlds. In part 2 of the book, I explore the ways in which tattooing intersects with spirituality and opens doors of experience through chapters dedicated to different domains of human experience: identity, power and initiation, religion and cosmology, protection, magic, healing, and death. This part of the book seeks to illuminate how body art intersects with the ways people embody power, relate with the animate world and the cosmos, carry sacred stories within the body, interface with the spirit world, heal and care for their bodies and spirits, and interface with death. Finally, my third goal for this book is to offer both tattoo enthusiasts and tattoo artists practical tools they can use to create meaningful tattoo experiences that awaken this craft’s transformative power. Toward that end, in part 3 I present a series of tattoo rituals and explorations of practice. This series begins with an exploration of values and the ethos of solidarity I hope to encourage. Chapters also focus on the phases of the tattooing experience, from design, spiritual preparation of the self and 3
introduction the body, preparing the workspace and tools, and rituals and practices for enlivening and sacralizing the tattoo session to aftercare and integration. Finally, I devote a chapter to development practices for the tattooist as a ritual specialist. I hope in some small way that these ideas can help open up new avenues for inviting the sacred back into tattoo spaces. My work as a ritual tattooist and my spiritual practice are centered in Celtic polytheism and its cultural roots in Gaelic and Celtic-speaking cultures. The rituals and practices I offer in part 3 are naturally shaped by my own experiences as a ritualist rooted in modern polytheist and witchcraft practices. I strive to step outside my own perspective as much as possible and make these practices accessible to all readers, with suggestions for how to adapt them to your own spiritual practice, tradition, or culture. What this book does not offer is actual training on how to tattoo. The profession continues to be taught master to apprentice, person to person, and that is as it should remain; it cannot be appropriately taught in a book. I will be delighted, however, if this book serves to inspire a few more artists to seek out training and take up the profession of ritual tattooing. There are sadly still not very many of us in the Western tattoo industry.
Ideological Frameworks In the work presented here, I strive to take a global perspective. Tattooing is a heritage of humanity, with deep roots in almost every continent where humans have lived. For any given domain of meaning tattoos can embody, examples of that aspect usually can be found expressed in different ways in multiple cultures. It is very illuminating to look at these cross-cultural comparisons and connections. It is also important to me to honor the cultural sovereignty of the cultures I speak about here. As I will strive to make clear throughout the book, discussing cultural practices as illustrations of the power of the art is not an invitation for anyone to adopt or appropriate culturally specific art forms, techniques, ceremonies, or practices without being in right relationship with that culture and community.
4
introduction A note about language is needed. Language is always political, and it is something that comes up often when studying Indigenous cultures and traditions that have been subjected to colonialist suppression and destruction. Ethnographic and historical works often speak of Indigenous peoples in the past tense, as if they are artifacts in a museum, even when they are still a living culture. This is often the case with studies of tattooing, as many tattooing practices have been suppressed to the point of disappearing. In some cases it may be factually correct to speak of such tattooing practices in the past tense, yet doing so reinforces the colonialist idea that Indigenous lifeways and cultures are of the past. To avoid reinforcing this type of erasure, I had to thread a fine needle in writing about tattooing cultures and their histories. I use the past tense when dealing with historical sources or looking at the antiquity of a given practice, and generally switch to the present tense when speaking of living cultures and cultural revivals. Gender is also a complex topic. Cisnormative and binary gender assumptions have been predominant in academic literature until very recently, and these assumptions surface in many of the sources I relied on in my research. Bones may be assigned an estimated sex based on measurements or DNA markers; gender may be interpreted based on the presence of gendered cultural items—but none of these measures confirm how the person experienced their gender. Many tattoo customs in traditional cultures have a gendered aspect, but ethnographies and histories do not always address complexities that may be present in a culture’s gender paradigm: gender fluidity, gender transition, third and non-binary genders, and other nuances. Many of the source materials I had to work from speak of men and women, so that language makes its way into my work, but I invite the reader to interpret this material beyond the cis-binary paradigm. It is never my intention that readers should adopt a rigid approach to tattoos and gender from anything they read in my work.
An Invitation Since humanity’s emergence from the primate line, people have sought to beautify themselves and communicate with the world around them 5
introduction through body modification and adornment. Tattooing exists as part of a spectrum of body practices that range from ephemeral to permanent: body painting and makeup; coloring, cutting, and dressing the hair; shaving; scarification, branding, cutting, and tattooing; piercing, reshaping, modifying, or even amputation of body parts. Tattooing practices are often entangled culturally with other forms of body modification, but the whole subject of body modification is too vast for this book, so I limit the focus to what I know and love best: tattooing. I hope this book offers something for everyone: tips and rituals to help tattoo enthusiasts deepen their tattoo experiences; guidance and practices for those who are on a professional path or seeking to begin; and stories to inspire everyone with the depth and richness of this craft. I invite you to join me in exploring the beauty and transformative power of this art.
6
PART 1
The Ancestral Journey
1
Beginnings How old is the art of tattooing? How is it possible to know whether early peoples practiced tattooing? This knowledge depends on people of the past leaving evidence of the practice—evidence that must also survive to the present. There are several kinds of evidence researchers can look at, both direct and indirect. The most direct and unambiguous kind of evidence for ancient tattooing is preserved human remains showing tattoo marks. Natural processes can preserve bodies for a very long time. For instance, in very dry environments, entombed or buried bodies may desiccate naturally, preserving skin intact with its ink. In very cold climates, permafrost may preserve the entire contents of graves in ice, including soft tissues and tattooed skin. Bodies may also be preserved through human intervention, as with embalming practices that use salts or other materials to stop decay and preserve the tissues. In rare cases, it may be possible for tattoo ink to transfer from skin onto bone, either as part of the tattooing process or during postmortem decay, so that even when the soft tissues have gone, bones may occasionally retain traces of the tattoo ink. In the absence of direct evidence from tattooed human remains, other kinds of physical evidence can point toward tattoo practices, such as the tools of the craft. Tattoo tools can be challenging to identify in the archaeological record, however. Tattooing can be performed with the simplest of tools, so any pointed or sharpened object could theoretically have been used as a tattoo tool. On surface examination, a tattoo needle may not always look different from, for example, a leatherworking awl or a sewing needle. For this reason, researchers look not just for needles but assemblages of items that, taken together, constitute a recognizable 9
chapter one toolkit for tattooing. A sharpened pointed object on its own may be difficult to establish as a tattoo needle, but a needle found alongside pigments, grinding tools, palettes for mixing ink, razors for preparing the skin, pigment markers for drawing designs, and herbs or ointments for healing points more convincingly toward tattooing. Recent studies have developed a new methodology for identifying tattoo tools in archaeological assemblages. Researchers have examined the patterns of wear and staining on the tips of known tattoo needles at the microscopic level and analyzed trace residues of pigments and human skin materials left on needle tips. Through this analysis, researchers have developed a technical profile of the use-wear patterns typical of tattoo tools.2 This serves as a diagnostic tool that allows objects to be firmly identified as tattoo tools. As this technique is applied to existing collections, it may have the potential to mark out tattoo artifacts whose significance had been previously missed. Representations of tattooing may also be recorded in the art and material culture of people from the past. Images of people with skin markings appear on decorated objects and in wall paintings, carved stone artwork, and a range of other objects. However, it can be challenging to prove the presence of tattoo customs based solely on art depicting people with ornamented skin. In the often highly stylized forms of ancient art, marks on human figures could signify tattoos—or body paint, scarification, patterns on tightly fitted clothing, or some other symbolic ornamentation. Researchers look for formal artistic conventions that may help separate tattoo markings from other kinds of ornamentation. It is often necessary to rely on other contextual information such as historical documents or the presence of toolkits, as mentioned above. Historical documents can provide crucial records of cultural practices like tattooing, but they are also fraught with complexities. Many societies of the past did not employ writing; oral cultures who did not use writing themselves may only be reflected in the historical writings of outsiders. 2
Aaron Deter-Wolf and Tanya M. Peres, “Flint, Bone, and Thorns: Using Ethnohistorical Data, Experimental Archaeology, and Microscopy to Examine Ancient Tattooing in Eastern North America,” Zurich Studies in Archaeology 9 (2013): 35–45. 10
beginnings History, as they say, is recorded by the powerful; all historical writings reflect the values and interests of their authors. Sometimes written histories convey as much or more about their authors than they do about their subjects. This is especially the case when it comes to documents written by the elite of a conquering power about members of a culture being framed as a barbarian other. As I will show in subsequent chapters, the “tattooed barbarian” is a cultural image projected again and again by empires of state onto nomadic and Indigenous cultures outside their boundaries, and this inherently political narrative complicates the use of historical writings as testimonies to the history of tattooing. Written history is not the only kind of history. Traditional cultures also pass on historical knowledge through oral transmission. Western science has been slow to acknowledge these oral traditions as genuine sources of valid information, but they can, in fact, be very deep wells of knowledge. Due to the nature of oral transmission, traditional knowledge can be quite conservative, often using verse or other devices as mnemonics to aid in accurate transmission, and this can allow knowledge to be preserved from very deep time. Even the tattoo patterns themselves may be passed down for many, many generations intact so that contemporary Indigenous tattooing customs and the knowledge passed with them may themselves be a record of very ancient history. Many gaps still remain in the history of tattooing, and it is important to remember that gaps in the evidence don’t necessarily indicate that tattooing did not exist in a given time and place. An absence of evidence for tattooing may point to a culture that did not know of the practice or chose not to use it. On the other hand, it can be the result of conditions that simply weren’t conducive to evidence being preserved. Geography is a major factor: bodies, bones, and organic materials usually don’t survive from deep time in the ground except under special conditions such as very dry, very cold, or anaerobic environments. Cultural practices can also have a huge impact on what survives. Mummification practices, the custom of placing valuable goods with the dead, and tomb protection practices help preserve evidence. Societies who cremate their dead or repurpose or destroy tools rather than deposit them may not leave as much evidence of tattooing for the archaeological record. 11
chapter one
Paleolithic Origins Tattooing appears to be nearly as old as humanity itself. Given its modern incarnation of finely tuned machines, presterilized needle cartridges, digital art design, and spectacularly hyperrealistic artistic stylings, it is easy to forget just how simple and primal an art practice it is. To tattoo requires only ink and a blade. The technologies required to indelibly mark the human skin with pigment are among humanity’s earliest survival technologies: the making of fire and sharpened tools. Most of the earliest tattoos used carbon-based black pigment composed of soot collected from burned plant matter; a few used natural mineral pigments. To insert these pigments into the skin, the simplest sharpened blade or point sufficed, such as the flaked stone or sharpened bone tools made by the earliest hominid ancestors. These simple technologies of fire and blade that early people developed for survival have been with humanity since the Paleolithic period, and so, apparently, has the art of tattoo. It has been suggested that the discovery of tattooing could have emerged from early medicinal practices, such as rubbing ash or botanical substances into a wound to protect against infection.3 This action could leave a pigmented scar or mark, which may have sparked the idea of creating such marks intentionally by using similar materials with the addition of a blade or point. Some researchers situate the development of tattooing as part of a rapid increase in cultural complexity that occurred in the late Paleolithic across much of the Eastern Hemisphere. This surge saw the first consistent use of symbolic behavior, the making of art and ritual objects, as well as developments in survival technologies.4 Art objects depicting human figures with applied designs appearing from the late Paleolithic onward have sometimes been interpreted as representations of tattooing. These engraved ivory and bone figures bear lines, hash marks, dots, and other textures which can be interpreted as body art. Of course, this interpretation is unproven. These objects, tens of thousands of years old, were made 3
Alice Claire Gorman, “The Archaeology of Body Modification” (PhD diss., University of New England, 2000), 68. 4 Adam Powell et al., “Late Pleistocene Demography and the Appearance of Modern Human Behavior,” Science 324 (2009): 1298. 12
beginnings
FIGURE 1. La Femme au Renne (“Woman with Reindeer”), Dordogne, France, Upper Magdalenian. Based on Renaut, “Prehistory of Tattooing in Europe,” 246.
by people whose lives, ways of seeing, and artistic values were very different from ours; it is difficult to be sure that the marks they placed on these figures were intended as literal representations of body decoration. For example, figure 1 is a reproduction of an artifact fragment showing part of its original artwork. It seems to show a pregnant woman lying down, with a deer or elk standing or leaping over her. Parts of the artwork are missing, but you can see the legs of the animal on the left, and below is the woman, with her shoulders oriented to the right. Her pregnant belly is incised with marked patterns that may represent body art. Toolkits also begin to make their appearance in the Paleolithic. In what is now southern France, the Plantaurel massif makes up part of the Pyrenees mountain range, and in its center nestles a massive cavern, the Mas d’Azil cave. Early human communities used this cave for millennia, leaving abundant traces in the form of wall paintings, sculptures of ancient animals carved in bone and stone, many stone and bone tools, and a large collection of stone cobbles painted with abstract patterns in ochre pigments. Among these assemblages was found a group of objects 13
chapter one
FIGURE 2. Paleolithic tattoo toolkit, Mas d’Azil cave, France, about 10,000 BCE.
Based on Deter-Wolf, “Middle Stone Age Origins of Tattooing,” 18.
which have been interpreted by archaeologists as a probable tattoo toolkit, dating to about 10,000 BCE.5 This toolkit (see figure 2) includes a set of bone needles sharpened at both ends and bearing linear grooves, a pigment dish and grinding tool of reindeer bone, and a clump of ochre pigment that had been repeatedly perforated by the needles. There were also several narrow, linear 5
Marthe Pequart and Saint-Just Pequart, “Nouvelles Découvertes à La Grotte Du Mas d’Azil,” Bulletins et Mémoires de La Société d’anthropologie de Paris, IX° Série 2 (1941): 128–129. 14
beginnings bone tools and one with a spatulate shape, which may have been used to manipulate pigment and draw designs on the skin. The grooves on the sharpened needles could enhance their effectiveness as a delivery vehicle for pigment into the skin. This assemblage was found in the late 1930s, and to my knowledge the proposed tattoo needles have not been examined microscopically to confirm they were used for this purpose. Nevertheless, taken as a group, the objects make a strong case for tattooing. Tools and toolkits continue to appear in archaeological finds in the Neolithic and Chalcolithic (Copper) periods. It is theorized that the use of tattoos and other social markers to signal group identity may have begun around this period, when rapid population increases presented groups with increasing challenges in negotiating relations with others.6 For example, a site in the eastern Balkans dating to about 4500–4250 BCE yielded a collection of finely crafted bone needles with remains of pigments on them, as well as clay figurines showing body decoration.7 Together, these artifacts strongly suggest tattooing practices. Excavations in predynastic Egypt have also yielded assemblages of tools including sharpened bone awls, flint bladelets, pigments, grinding palettes, and botanical remnants that might be related to ink-making or healing materials.8 I will discuss this evidence in more detail with respect to different regions and cultures in following chapters. Direct physical evidence of tattooing in the form of tattooed human remains appears soon after this period. The oldest tattooed human remains found to date is the body famously called Ötzi, recovered in the Italian Alps and dating to 3370–3100 BCE. By the beginning of the second millennium BCE, tattooed remains appear across a very wide range of the globe, including locations in present-day Russia, Egypt, China, 6
Andrew Gillreath-Brown et al., “Redefining the Age of Tattooing in Western North America: A 2000-Year-Old Artifact from Utah,” Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 24 (2019): 1065. 7 Petar Zidarov, “Tattooing in the Balkan Copper Age: Bone Needles and Mineral Pigments from Pietrele, Romania,” in Saxa Loquuntur: Essays in Honour of Nikolay Sirakov on His 65th Birthday, ed. I. Gatsov (Avalon, 2009), 327–328. 8 Renée Friedman, “New Tattoos from Ancient Egypt: Defining Marks of Culture,” in Ancient Ink: The Archaeology of Tattooing, ed. Lars Krutak and Aaron Deter-Wolf (University of Washington Press, 2017), 21–22, Kindle. 15
chapter one and Chile.9 By about the Bronze Age, the practice is virtually global. Scarification often enhances or replaces tattooing in areas where populations tend to have very heavily pigmented skin, such as sub-Saharan Africa, as tattoos are harder to see on very dark skin without the addition of raised scars.10 This distinction is not absolute, however, and there is overlap between the practices. Given the global distribution of tattooing, it seems likely that there was not a single point of discovery from which the practice disseminated around the world. It is more likely, considering how simple the tools are, that multiple cultures would have developed tattooing independently as part of their own body ornamentation and therapeutic practices. Researchers have noted the antiquity of tattoo evidence in North Africa, the Near East, and the eastern Mediterranean. Notably, many of the ancient finds in these regions seem to indicate a tradition of primarily women tattooing and being tattooed. It has been suggested that this female tattooing tradition may have been transmitted from North Africa and the Near East into Europe and Central Asia during the Neolithic.11 Tattooing in Southeast Asia and the Americas seems likely to have arisen independently, and there may be other points of origin as well.
Art and Material Culture Before I dive into the regional histories of tattoo practices around the world, it is worth taking a moment to consider the framework through which to study them. As I noted in the introduction, tattooing is part of a spectrum of body modification and adornment practices. All human cultures employ some forms of body modification practices, and where tattooing is practiced, it is as part of this context. Popular articles about tattoo history often speak of tattooing cultures as if there is a binary distinction between societies who practiced tattooing and those who did or do not, but there is no such binary. The tech9 10 11
Aaron Deter-Wolf, et al., “The World’s Oldest Tattoos,” Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 5 (2016): 3. Gorman, “Archaeology of Body Modification,” 67. Luc Renaut, “What to Make of the Prehistory of Tattooing in Europe?” in Ancient Ink: The Archaeology of Tattooing, ed. Lars Krutak and Aaron DeterWolf (University of Washington Press, 2017), 260–261, Kindle. 16
beginnings nology for tattooing has existed with a virtually global distribution for millennia. Cultures do not exist in isolation. Even among societies who may not have commonly practiced tattooing, most will have had some exposure to it. Rather than a binary question of whether a people did or did not tattoo, it is more illuminating to ask what relationship a society or a group of people within that society had to tattooing. Tattooing can be normative for a group—that is to say, it may be part of a suite of body curation practices used to signify membership and identity with the group. It can also be counternormative, used to exclude or to self-signify as countercultural or subcultural. When a group of people makes use of tattooing, one can ask why that choice is made and what it means to them. What other elements of aesthetic and material culture might also be used as related signifiers? Historian Matt Lodder points out that tattoo is not an art movement—it is a medium for art movements, like paint and canvas or ink and paper.12 That is to say, tattoos tend to use the visual language of the culture surrounding them. The motifs, patterns, images, and stylistic conventions found in tattoos are often also used in textiles, ceramics, wall painting, metalwork, woodwork, and other materials. So, for example, the energetic animal scenes found on Scythian metalwork are similar in style and use the same visual language seen in the tattoos on preserved bodies. This is just as true of modern Western tattooing as it was for ancient people; hence the current popularity of hyperrealistic, cinematic, and anime tattoos in a culture that is saturated with pop culture, film and television hyperrealism, and CGI. Tattooing is part of a range of physical media through which the visual language of a culture can be expressed. This framework can be helpful when it comes to trying to reconstruct a tradition of tattooing that has been lost or is poorly preserved, as other surviving material culture can help fill in the gaps so that we can envision what their tattoos looked like.
12
Matt Lodder, Painted People: Humanity in 21 Tattoos (William Collins, 2022), 3. 17
Body, Mind & Spirit / Magic Studies
Embark on a Global Journey into the History, Spirituality, and Modern Rituals of Tattoo Art
T
ATTOOING is one of humanity’s oldest art forms, practiced on nearly every continent. It was—and still is—a sacred way to express individuality, embody power, communicate with the spirit world, tell stories, and so much more. Gorgeously illustrated by Morpheus Ravenna hirself, this extensively researched book will help you reclaim the sacred meaning of tattoos that has been largely lost in today’s world. Morpheus takes you across the world and centuries, revealing practices from Europe to Asia to the Americas and from the Paleolithic era to Colonial times to the present. Sí shows how tattoos were used to heal body and soul, connect with ancestors, process death, protect loved ones, and honor rites of passage— and how you can do the same in your life. Filled with rituals and tools for both tattoo artists and tattoo receivers, this book is perfect for making body art a sacred experience.
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$27.99 US
RAVENNA
Morpheus Ravenna (pronouns: sí/hir) is a genderfluid tattoo artist, sorcerer, and writer residing in the East Bay Area of California. Sí specializes in ritual tattooing as well as Celtic and medieval styles, creating artworks and sorcerous crafts in a variety of media inspired by history, myth, and the otherworldly. Sí is a witch, animist, and dedicant of the Morrígan, serving as priest in the Coru Cathubodua Priesthood. Morpheus is the author of The Magic of the Otherworld and The Book of the Great Queen, and sí can be reached at BansheeArts.com.
INK & BLADE
“Ravenna sets an ambitious scope and executes it masterfully .… A deeply human book that doesn’t shy away from complex topics such as dynamics of power, identity, sacredness, and body sovereignty.” —Nataša Ilincic, ˇ ´ illustrator, author, and anthropologist