Tattoos have been around almost as long as man has walked the earth. Tattoos were used by tribal cultures to mark major life milestones for centuries. Even Mjoave Indians have tattooed their chins to ensure safe passage into the afterlife since time immemorial. Women in Myanmar’s Chin province began getting facial tattoos hundreds of years ago to discourage tyrannical kings from kidnapping them, but their facial art has since become a mark of beauty. For the past 200 years or more, Japan’s Yakuza mafia men have sported full-body tattoo art that to this day is applied with the primitive “hand-poked” method, which utilizes non-electrical hand tools and needs made of sharpened bamboo or steel.
Continue reading The Progression of Social Acceptance of Tattoos
