Ancient Tattoo Traditions of North America

Deter-Wolf, Aaron, and Diaz-Granados, Carol. Drawing with Great Needles : Ancient Tattoo

Traditions of North America. Austin, TX, USA: University of Texas Press, 2013. Web. 5 July 2015.

This book mainly talks about the ancient traditions of tattoo, such as Native American tattooing, archaeological evidence for prehistoric tattooing, tattoos’ design, totem marks, and so on. They mention the history, meaning, and significance of Native American tattooing. I will use the first chapter only, the overview for Native American tattooing in the protohistoric southeast. The author explains different cultures from fifteen century to twenty century respectively. The earliest data shows Native American tattoos have many functions, like communication and identification . However, after the mid-twentieth century, most traditional meaning of Native American tattoos has been lost. Until the cultural movements of the 1960s and 1970s, people

restart to search their lost tradition, including tattooing.
Aaron Deter-Wolf is a prehistoric archaeologist with the Tennessee Division of Archaeology and an adjunct professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Middle Tennessee State University. Carol Diaz-Granados is a research associate in the Department of Anthropology at Washington University, where she has taught for 32 years. Hence, according to the identity of these two editors, I believe this article’s credibility. In addition, I will use this article in my background part of my essay to present the history of tattooing in the America.
Lei, Daphne P. “The Blood-Stained Text In Translation: Tattooing, Bodily Writing, And
Performance Of Chinese Virtue.” Anthropological Quarterly 82.1 (2009): 99-127. Web. 5 July 2015.
This article mainly represents the bodily writing as a performance of virtue in premodern China.

It also mentions mutilation and blood-letter-writing, beyond tattoo. Lei discusses the conflict about those “bloody” acts between gender and culture across time and space. After the background and introduction, she talks about traditional conceptions of tattoos in premodern China at first. She concludes tattoos are characteristic of criminals and barbarians at that time. Then Lei distinguishes the male and female performance of virtues. She connects tattoos with military context that tattoos always show the loyalty or bravery for soldiers. Lei uses many Chinese hero story at this part. Also the author mentions the male body and pains. It seems like a shame if a man got the fear of pain, even moaning, but it is an inspirit for men. In addition, for women, bodily writing always is a kind of performance or decoration in most. However, in a number of extreme cases, female bodily acts can be related with virtue, fidelity, filial piety, and

loyalty.
Daphne P. Lei is a professor in Drama, University of California Irvine. She holds a Ph.D from Tufts University, and Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow from Stanford University. Also, Anthropological Quarterly features the highest quality peer-reviewed articles in ethnography and anthropological theory. So this article from academic journal is authorized. Even though I won’t talk about mutilation and blood-letter, it still remains many content about tattoos. It will helps me to expound the different views of tattoo, especially the relationship with virtue. The article also gives a little history about tattoos on criminals and military. This article provides a lot of examples for me. Lei, who is a Chinese author, tells many Chinese hero stories. This is a great article to analyze the Chinese tattoo culture.
Pyrillis, Rita. “Body Of Work.” Workforce Management 89.11 (2010): 20-28. Web. 5 July 2015.
This article gives the views of several corporate executives and experts about tattoos and body piercing in the work place. They think tattoo should be covered under cloth when there is a customer-facing job. From her examples, the tattoos doesn’t affect people’s work indeed, even though most people will cover their tattoos in their first job interview. Pyrillis also mentions a psychologist’s words that body art has became fashion statement, a mode of self-expression. So most people are not prohibiting body art, just to hide it as a personal symbol.
Rita Pyrillis is a general writer in Chicago, but the Workforce Management is a authentic publication, which covers human resources, management and business strategy. And Pyrillis provides many facts of corporate executives and the options of experts to increase the credibility of her article. This article explains the relationship between tattooing and job. That is a main influence I will discuss in my essay, so I will use it in essay’s part about influence of tattooing. The author provides a lot of example for supporting my ideas. Also there are some number data could be used in my essay.
Roberts, Derek John. “Secret Ink: Tattoo's Place In Contemporary American Culture.” Journal
Of American Culture 35.2 (2012): 153-165. Web. 5 July 2015.
The article raises a new concept to me, a difference between people who have tattoos and the tattooed people. The people who have tattoos is whose tattoos are visible, while the tattooed people gets the tattoos are easily to hide. And Roberts finds more than ninety percent of American tattoos are people who have tattoos. In addition, Roberts claims nowadays, tattoos become paradoxical that we can say tattoo is a mainstream in the fashion front or for personal symbol, when we also can say tattoo is still not accepted in many situation. The main method of transmission of tattoos is media. But when tattooing become popular, people who have tattoos still often feel a social rejection and cover their body arts. This article lets readers understand how and why people who have tattoos discuss their status as tattooees and transition through mainstream society.
This is an academic journal. The author, Derek John Roberts, holds a PhD in Sociology from Michigan State University. The Journal of American Culture combines studies of American literature, history, and the arts, to produce analyses of American culture. So this article’s credibility can be approved. Roberts goes working at a tattoo shop to observe and do research for getting informations and collecting data. His personal experience will provide a great idea for my essay. He states a neutral position to face the problem of tattoos. That’s what I want to put in my essay. I will use it in my essay’s three parts, which talk about nowadays phenomenon, the reasons for getting tattoos, and the influence of tattoo.