Essay On Tattoos

THE HISTORICAL AND CULTURAL CONTEXT OF TATOOING

In the article «Secret ink: Tattoo’s place in contemporary American culture» the author briefly look at the historical facts of tattooing. I would like to expand the question in terms of logically reinforce developing theme.
The tradition of tattooing goes back thousands of years deep. Long before the advent of architecture, music and fashion our ancestors decorated their body. Archaeological findings suggest that body drawings was practiced in all cultures around the world. Tattoos are evident in wall paintings and clay figurines from ancient Egypt, Greece, South America, and Mexico ( Miller JC. The body art book. New York: Berkley Books; 1997.)
"One European artist painted a portrait of an old Maori. It was a very good picture. However, when the portrait showed himself a New Zealander, he asked who it depicts. The artist took this question as a joke, but the Maori took a brush and painted on the free side of the canvas strip and pretzels tattoo his face. When he finished, he began to instruct Europeans: "That's the way I look, and your daub meaningless"( H. Hanke on the seven seas. Sailor, Death and the Devil. Chronicle of antiquity.Moscow: Misl’,1989).
Maori - the indigenous people of New Zealand - made facial mask-like tattoo moko (moko), it is about a mask-moko referred to in the story of the ethnographer. Moko combined the permanent war paint, signs of military prowess and social status of its owner. If the deceased soldier on his face was a mask moko, it received the highest honor - his head cut off and kept as a relic of the tribe. And the corpses of soldiers, deprived of moko, left unburied (H.Per, H.Frank Tattooing, Gender and Social Stratification in Micro-Polynesia. The ...

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...stain themselves.

CONCLUSION

In ancient times people applied on the body tattoos because of certain circumstances - religious ceremonies, celebrations, and many other events. Attitude toward tattoos changed throughout history depending on various historical, cultural, religious and other factors. I in today's society such a phenomenon as tattoo is still on a psychological level is considered outlandish and meet in most cases social rejection. But anyway self-expression through the ink became mainstream.The reason for the popularity of tattoos can be considered freedom of expression of modern society and intrinsic motivation of each individual. Thus this facts creating a dissonance between the active popularization of tattoing and non- full acceptance of this phenomena from the society which lead to a psychological contradiction on societal and individual levels.