Tattooing
2 of the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Tattooing. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
the custom of marking the skin with figures of various kinds by means of slight incisions or punctures The word itself and a coloring matter. is Tahitian (ta, "a mark"), but the practice is very widely spread, being universal in the South Sea Islands, and also found among the North and South American Indians, the Dyaks, the Burmese, Chinese, and Japanese, and common enough still among civilized sailors. It is expressly forbidden in Scripture (Lev. xix: 28), from which it is to be concluded that it was common among the neighboring nations. Undoubtedly was the the main cause of its origin of the desire to attract the admiration opposite sex, but this fundamental human desire does not of course exclude motives for tattooing for religious or other ceremonial purposes, or for mere sexual consideraornament apart from tions. Among the Polynesians the operation is attended with circumstances of ceremony, and the figures represented are often religious in signification or symbolic of rank, not seldom the totem The New Zeaor special tribal badge. elaborate landers were distinguished by tattooing of the face, and many of their heads are preserved in European mu- Whatever may be the case elsewhere, seums. where greatest perfection, is neither ceremonial its origin in nor symbolical, but merely cosmetic. Its end is to take the part of a garment or decoration, those parts of the body only tattooed which are usually covbeing ered, and only in the cases of such workmen as runners, grooms, bearers, who work in a half-nude state. The head, tattooed neck, hands, and feet are never , and it is found among the lower classes alone, and very seldom among women, and these only the dissolute. The usual objects illustrated are large dragons, lions, battle scenes, beautiful women, historical incidents, flowers-never obscene pictures. The colors employed are black, which appears blue, derived from Indian ink, and various shades of red, derived from cinnabar. The artist uses in his work exceedingly fine sharp sewing needles, fixed firmly 4, 8, 12, 20, or 40 together, and, arranged in rows in a skilful artist can piece of wood. A cover the whole back or breast and belly of a grown man in a day. Among the Ainos again the tattooing is done on the exposed parts of the body, and largely practiced by women. The Igorrotos in the mountainous region above Luzon tattoo elaborately, but in series of lines and often been emcurves. Tattooing has ployed as a badge of brotherhood in some cause, and more often still as a means of identification for slaves and criminals. The so-called branding of the letters D. and B. C. on military deserters , only given and incorrigible characters up in 1879, was merely tattooing with needles and India ink. The war paint of the ancient Briton and Red Indian braves still survives in the paint-striped face of the circus clown. Among the lower-class criminal population of Europe the practice of tattooing is still common, but almost exclusively among males.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
the process of marking the surface of the body with indelible patterns made by pricking the skin and inserting various coloring materials. Sailors have been accustomed from time immemorial to tattoo love emblems, names, anchors, and the like on the arm and wrist in India ink. The pigment eats into the skin and dyes it so permanently that it can neither be washed out nor carried away by the absorptive processes of the body. Of civilized peoples, the Japanese have been most addicted, until of late, to the practice. The women of the upper Nile Valley tattoo their bodies extensively. Tattooing has been carried to its greatest extent among the people of the South Sea Islands. The word is of Tahitian origin. The Tahitians, the Dyaks of Borneo, the Fiji Islanders, the inhabitants of the Solomon group, and the Papuans of New Guinea are noted for the extent to which they tattoo their bodies. The Maoris of New Zealand , in particular, covered the body with fantastic designs until their skins were as brilliant as oriental rugs. The younger generation have ceased to decorate the body in this fashion.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Both accounts treat tattooing as something done by "savage" peoples, sailors and, in Collier's words in 1921, "the lower-class criminal population of Europe" — and Collier's confidently traced its origin to "the desire to attract the admiration of the opposite sex." That framing has collapsed: tattooing is now a mainstream commercial trade in Europe and North America, with surveys since the 2010s finding roughly a quarter to a third of adults in Britain and the United States tattooed, women as often as men. The antiquity of the practice is also far better established than either writer could know: when the frozen body of Ötzi was found in the Alps in 1991 it carried some 61 tattooed marks made around 3300 BC. The Maori tattooing Aiton's thought the "younger generation have ceased" has been deliberately revived as tā moko since the 1990s, and the preserved tattooed heads Collier's noted in European museums are now being repatriated to New Zealand under a programme run from Te Papa since 2003.
Written for this edition, 2026.