Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - The History of Tattoos

Starting point is 00:00:00 Everyone listening to this is familiar with tattoos. All of you have at least seen somebody with one. Most of you probably know somebody with one. And statistically speaking, many of you have at least one of your own. The act of putting permanent illustrations on skin is actually one that goes back thousands of years and is something that has been practiced by cultures all over the world. Learn more about tattoos, where they came from, and how they've been used around the world, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

Starting point is 00:00:27 What if your perceptions about the past were wrong? ThruLine is a podcast that takes you back in time to uncover the parts of the story that may have gone unnoticed. It effectively turned day into night. And how it shaped the world now. Time travel with us every week on the ThruLine podcast from NPR. Tattoos are one of the things that people have very mixed opinions on. Some people love them and have multiple tattoos. all over their bodies. Some people hate them and would never get a tattoo. Regardless of where you

Starting point is 00:01:19 stand on the subject, tattoos have been an element of human culture for millennia. Tattooing is something that goes back so far we don't really even know where or when it began. But before I dive into the history of tattoos, I should give a brief explanation of what a tattoo is. A tattoo is nothing more than an ink, dye, or pigment, which is put into the dermis layer of the skin. The dermis is the middle of the three layers that make up the skin, the top being the epidermis and the lower being the hypodermis. To make a tattoo requires nothing more than ink and something to put the ink into the skin, usually some sort of needle. The simplicity of tattoos is one of the reasons why the adoption of tattoos was so widespread. Which substances were used as inks were varied and

Starting point is 00:02:04 dependent on where in the world the tattoo is being applied. Perhaps the most common substance was soot, which came from burnt wood. Soot is a substance that is universal and can create an exceptionally dark color. Ancient tattooing traditions which have been passed down to the modern day will usually involve a wide variety of substances depending upon what is available locally, but most of them will involve soot as the basis of at least the color black. And I should note that for the most part, ancient tattoos weren't very colorful as far as we know. They mostly used a single pigment, which was usually black. The earliest evidence of tattoos is in doubt because it's been difficult for archaeologists to identify tools used for tattooing.

Starting point is 00:02:46 Because it requires nothing more than a needle of some sort, it's believed that many tattoo tools may have been misidentified or overlooked entirely in the archaeological record. An ancient tool for making tattoos could easily have been used for other purposes, such as leather working. The misidentification of tattooing materials has led some to suggest that we may actually have archaeological evidence for tattoos dating back as far as 50,000 years. If that's true, this would make tattooing one of the earliest human art forms. While this is speculative, the earliest hard evidence we have of actual tattoos comes from Azi the Iceman. As I've mentioned in a previous episode, Atsi was a man who lived approximately

Starting point is 00:03:27 5,300 years ago. He died on a glacier in the Alps and was found in 1991, remarkably well-preserved. There's an enormous amount that we learned from Atsi, and one of the biggest surprises was that Atsy had 61 tattoos on his body. Many of the tattoos on Atsy were placed on areas where he was clearly suffering from arthritis, indicating that the tattoos may have had some sort of medicinal purpose. The extent and placement of the tattoos on ATSI indicate that tattooing probably wasn't something that was invented recently around ATSI, but rather Atsi and his people were practicing something that had been handed down to them over the centuries. While Atsi has the oldest known tattoos, there have been other tattoos found which are almost as old. Two 5,000-year-old

Starting point is 00:04:13 mummies found in Egypt show the earliest illustrative tattoos. One on a male shows the image of a bull and a sheep. Another on a female shows an S-shaped design on her shoulder. The mummy of a 4,000-year-old Egyptian priestess known as Amunet, a priestess of the goddess Hathor was found with extensive tattoos on her lower abdomen. It's believed the tattoos may have been applied as a form of protection during pregnancy and childbearing. In 1917, a mummy was found in Chile called Chinchoro Man that exhibits tattoos. The date of the particular Chinchoro Man mummy has been questioned, but there have been Chinchoran mummies found that are as old as the oldest Egyptian mummies.

Starting point is 00:04:50 The existence of mummies in Chile indicates that either tattooing was discovered independently in the Americas or that it was a technology that existed before humans ever arrived in the Americas. Going through the use of tattoos in every culture around the world would quite literally take hours as tattooing has been found almost everywhere in the world. Tattooing went from Egypt into Nubia and into modern-day Ethiopia and Africa. Female Skithian warriors of the Eurasian steppes, from whom the legends of the Amazonian warriors are believed to have come from, received tattoos of beasts that they hunted. In ancient Greece, Persia, and Rome, tattoos actually weren't very common, but they were used to identify slaves. In China, tattoos have been found on mummies that date back

Starting point is 00:05:33 two to four thousand years, but it eventually evolved into something that was considered a barbaric practice that was only done by people in the far south of China. Tattooing was extensive in ancient Japan as a spiritual practice, but by the 17th century, it was only practiced by the lower classes. In the Americas, there was an extensive culture of tattooing across many different tribes and cultures. Tattoos were used by the Inuit people in the far north. Women would often receive facial tattoos which were part of an initiation right into womanhood. When Europeans arrived in the New World, they reported many different tribes with tattoos, some of which were quite extensive and covered most of their bodies. I should give special mention to the one region of the world

Starting point is 00:06:13 which is probably best known for its extensive and intricate tattooing, the Pacific. There are five different styles of tattoos in Polynesia, New Zealand, Maori, Marquesan, Samoan, Tahitian, and Hawaiian. The Maori people in New Zealand practice what's known as Ta Moko. These often involve facial tattoos for both men and women. They were traditionally used to signify social status as well as for adornment. Tahiti is actually believed to have been where the word tattoo originated from. It's thought to have come from the word tatau, which is the word for the bone from a flying fox that was used as a tattoo needle. It was first used in this context in the diary of Captain Cook.

Starting point is 00:06:53 In one of the most hilarious historical errors of all time, in 1722, a Dutch ship arrived in Samoa and wrote of their meeting with the inhabitants. One of the sailors noted, quote, they are friendly in their speech and courteous in their behavior, with no apparent trace of wildness or savagery. They do not paint themselves as they do the natives of some other islands, but on the lower parts of their body, they were artfully woven silk tights or knee breeches, end quote. Those silk tights that they thought they were wearing on their legs, were out of their own. actually tattoos. By now, I hope I've driven home the point as to just how ancient and widespread tattooing was. What tattoos represented, who received them, and how they were perceived, varied from place to place, but it was something that was near universal. So how did we get from these ancient forms of tattooing to what we see today? Tattooing had actually fallen out of fashion through much of

Starting point is 00:07:47 Europe by the 17th century. There were some minor exceptions, however. If pilgrims traveled to Jerusalem, would often get a tattoo of the Jerusalem cross to signify that they had made the journey. However, the group which began getting tattoos and who slowly brought them back into popularity were sailors. In particular, sailors who went to the Pacific would often get tattoos to commemorate their voyage. Eventually, sailors began using tattoos as a form of identification and a type of initiation. A new crew member might be required to get a tattoo to show that they were part of the crew. They could also get a commemorative tattoo for crossing the equator or rounding can Cape Horn. Sailors also got tattoos for personal reasons, which served as a way to identify

Starting point is 00:08:29 bodies that may have drowned or fallen overboard. As more and more sailors returned home with their tattoos, tattooing began to spread, usually among the lower classes of society and criminals. However, in the United States, modern tattooing can be traced back to a single individual, a former sailor and Civil War veteran named Martin Hildebrandt. In the early 1870s, he opened up the world's first tattoo parlor in New York City and was the world's first professional tattoo artist. About 10 years later, Sutherland McDonald opened up the first studio in London. Tattooing did eventually spread throughout all of society. Members of European nobility and royalty began getting tattoos, discreetly, of course. Kings George V and Edward V and Edward I of Great

Starting point is 00:09:13 Britain, King Frederick the 9th of Denmark, King Ferdinand I of Romania, Kaiser Wilhelm II, King Alexander of Yugoslavia and Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, all reportedly had tattoos. Heavily tattooed men and women often performed in circus side shows in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. They would have their entire bodies covered in tattoos, save for their faces and hands. Betty Broadbent and Nora Hildebrand were two of the most famous tattooed ladies of the period. The most significant technical innovation in tattooing occurred in 1891, when a New York City tattoo artist, Samuel O'Reilly, received a patent for the electric tattoo machine.

Starting point is 00:09:52 It was a modification of the electric pen, which was developed by Thomas Edison. Electric tattoo machines are still used today and are the primary way of applying tattoos. A tattoo machine works by using electromagnetic coils to move a set of needles rapidly in and out of the skin, applying the ink. Throughout the 20th century, tattoos slowly gained in popularity.

Starting point is 00:10:12 By 1936, an estimated 10% of all Americans had at least one tattoo. As with the long history of tattoos before the 20th century, the meaning and use of tattoos was very mixed. Permanent tattoos were used to mark and track prisoners in death camps during the Holocaust. Tattoes became staples of biker gangs and of prisoners. However, at the same time, many native people around the world rediscovered tattooing as a way to connect with their culture.

Starting point is 00:10:39 Ordinary people got tattoos as tattoo parlors became more ubiquitous. Data on tattoos in the United States. was actually just released a week before I recorded this episode by the Pew Research Center. They found that 32% of all Americans have a tattoo, and 22% actually have more than one. 38% of all women have at least one compared to just 27% of men. If you look at the data by age, 41% of adults under the age of 30 have at least one tattoo,

Starting point is 00:11:07 as do 46% of those between the ages of 30 and 49. Tattoos still aren't something that is for everyone, but they are more popular today than ever. Depending on where you go in the world, tattoos can have wildly different connotations. In countries like Japan or El Salvador, tattoos can often represent membership in a criminal gang. In places like New Zealand or Samoa,

Starting point is 00:11:30 it can represent a connection with a person's cultural heritage. For many people, it can simply be an artistic expression or a way to remember an important event or person. Regardless of their modern meeting, tattoos are one of the oldest and most universal forms of human expression. One which may go back tens of thousands of years. The executive producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is Charles Daniel. The associate producers are Thor Thompson and Peter Bennett. Today's review comes from listener Azaraz over on Apple

Starting point is 00:12:03 podcasts in the United States. They write, this podcast fulfills my desire to learn fun, random facts, and it does so in a way that I can multitask while prepping in my food truck. We make Euros. The short episodes are perfect to keep on while I prepare for the day. It makes the time pass by, and I also have cool icebreakers to share with my customers. Thanks. Thanks, Azaraz. I can think of no better accompaniment to a euro than everything everywhere daily, because knowledge makes everything taste better.

Starting point is 00:12:32 It is the perfect condiment. Remember, if you leave a review or send me a boostogram, you two can have it right in the show.

Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - The History of Tattoos

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