by Katy Mack

Created on: July 15, 2008

An Old and A New Generation of Tattoos
Tattoos have been seen as many things in the past. Symbolism, creativity, gangs, mile stones in life, and branding for criminal activity. Tattoos are becoming extremely popular now a days with the newer generations. They have also been around for over 5000 years ago. Pieces of bodies have been recovered in anthropology digs dating back at least 5000 years ago showing that they were used for tribal reasons such as living near water and warrior acts of victory.

There weren't the fancy tattoo guns back centuries ago. They used different ways all across the world. Scientists figure the first tattoos were possibly created by accident when someone cut themselves and then rubbed dirt or soot into the would and it became permanent. Since then there has been the needle and soot technique where a person with dip thread in soot and run the needle and the thread through the skin. This would leave little dots instead of a steady line of permanance. Then there is the irezumi in Japan which is also known as the hand poking method. It started with a weapon that had a wooden hand that had now become steel and other metals. But the 36 closely grouped needles on the end of the stick never changed. The artist would stencil a design on the body part and then place ink in containers to later be dipped in. The needles would the dipped into the ink and then jabbed into the skin. The thing about this tattoo procedure is that the artist has to have a very steady hand and has to be able to jab the needles at an angle with a very slight twist to make the ink permanent.
There is also the tapping method done by the Polynesian and Micronesian. They would use a tool with blades facing downward from the end of a stick and was tapped by another stick so that the blades struck the skin after it had been dipped into ink. The most interesting thing is there are still people out there today performing these acient ways of tattooing and more and more people are willing the go the extra mile and extra pain to be able to say they got a traditional tattoo.
These days tattooing has been taken to a new level. People are getting the inside of their lips tattooed, their cartelidge, even their eyeballs. But there is also alot more tattoo removals getting done. A tattoo should mean something special to its owner not just gotten out of a whim. Tattoos have come a long way but there is still along way they can go also.

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