![]() However, colonists did not adopt this practice from the indigenous tribes with whom they encountered and cohabited. When colonists first arrived in the Americas, they would have seen tattoos on the indigenous people they met (fig. 2). It is important to distinguish ‘voluntary’ tattooing because the practice of tattooing criminals and slaves was practiced and would have been familiar to these colonists. While there is a recorded history of tattooing traditions in Neolithic Germanic, Anglo Saxon, and Gaelic communities, the people who sailed to the colonies to live in the early settlements of the New World had not practiced voluntary tattooing for hundreds of years. 2. Etching of Mohawk Chief Sa Ga Yeath Qua Pieth Tow with tattoos on chest and face, ca.1710. Credit: National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution However, the tattooing practice in the United States that has grown so much in popularity today largely found its origins among the seamen who sailed in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.įig. (It is not within the scope of this paper to thoroughly discuss the rich history of tattooing among the indigenous peoples of North America, and while I primarily will discuss the appropriation of Samoan and Maori tattoo designs, modern Native American tattooing traditions are also appropriated in American tattoo culture.) I would be remiss to say that tattooing started in the United States with the American sailors of the 19th century (fig. In North America, indigenous people of tribes such as the Navajo, Mohawk, and northerly Inuit, have used tattoos in their culture several hundred years before the first European colonists arrived on the continent. 4 : 520-554.)Įven now archeologists are discovering older and older preserved bodies that feature the distinctive black marks of charcoal ink punched into the skin with early tattooing tools. ![]() (Ira Dye, “The Tattoos of Early American Seafarers, 1796-1818,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 133, no. 1. Visual log of tattoos seen on sailors in a survey done in 1809. Of course, I did not know then that this would be the first of many tattoos that I would collect, but I also did not realize that in the moment the first quick needles poked me, I was joining in a practice that has been part of human history for thousands of years.įig. I was about to get ink injected into my skin a permanent mark. “That must have hurt,” I thought to myself, suddenly wondering what I was doing in this place. As I nervously handed my first tattoo concept (quickly sketched on printer paper) to the artist I noticed bold black and red ink forming a rose on the back of his hand. ![]() Pin-up girls and kewpies smiled down at me while ferocious looking dragons and tigers grimaced. ![]() I was intimidated by the inked men and the crazy tattoo designs framed on the walls. The first time I walked into a tattoo shop when I was in college, I was immediately greeted by the smell of disinfectant and the sounds of the machines buzzing. Home > Essays > Tattooing and Cultural Appropriation Tattooing and Cultural AppropriationĪ Brief History and Analysis of Tattooing in the United States from 1790 to 2020 by Sarah Etherton
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |