Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Old attitudes



Much of the western religious philosophies deem it sacrilegious
to alter the human body. In Leviticus 19:28, the King James version,
there is a mention to making body marks, “Ye shall not make
any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print any marks upon
you ….” One must agree that to ban something in a culture, the
culture must be doing it in the first place. Thus, tattooing was a
part of the culture at that time.
In the race to spread monotheism, Jewish and Christian leaders
connected tattooing with heathen polytheists. Tattooing in
Europe and the Middle East at that time was done mainly for
religious and superstitious reasons. Tattooing was relatively
widespread among tribal people. In order to keep people from
believing in anything that wasn’t monotheistic in nature, any form
of tattooing that didn’t show a devotion to God was looked at as
sacrilegious.
Over time, as the control of Christianity became stronger, religious
leaders saw all tattooing as the work of heathens. It was the
Roman emperor, Constantine, who banned tattooing because he
thought it was “un-Christian.” This attitude made tattooing very
unpopular in the Western world. Tattoos were associated with
those who were “unholy” and not likely to receive “God’s blessing.”
Later it was the crusaders and then the pilgrims who wanted to
spread Christianity through exploration. When they would reach
Jerusalem, the Christian Crusaders would get a tattoo as a sign
of devotion and to mark this memorable journey, not unlike
the exploring sailors who eventually ventured to the Polynesian
Islands and got tattooed by the local inhabitants.
As Christian nations started to conquer and pillage foreign soil,
they needed to break the hearts and minds of the peoples they
conquered to make them easier to control. What worked at home
would certainly work in these new lands. The Christian religion
and all of its rules and regulations were forced upon the conquered
peoples. Tattooing in most of the colonized islands was banned.
The heathens, who seemed to have done just fine over the previous
thousands of years, were “saved” and brought to Christianity.
This was just a tool to strip the people of their identity, breaking
their spirit and their ability to stand up for themselves. It worked
just as well as England’s divide-and-conquer routine (the act of
getting two local factions to war with each other in order to make
both factions weak and easier to conquer), in breaking the natives’
spirits. Not to mention that smallpox and other devastating diseases
brought by the westerners killed off many. In 1887, the
French took a census and counted 5,246 natives in the Marquesan
Islands. There were 90,000 natives there around 1800. Much of
the tattoo culture, which played a heavy part in the social structure
of the conquered peoples, was lost.
Modern Christian conservatives continued the idea of tattoos
as being for heathens. To this day, many religious conservatives
still frown upon tattoos and other forms of body modification. In
adapting to the evolving views of popular culture, the Catholic
view on tattooing appears to be that it’s okay as long as you get
tattooed in a safe environment with as little risk to infection as
possible. Catholicism also recommends that the tattoos be of good
moral taste and not offend or cause harm to your fellow human
beings.
Sailors were known for coming into port and spending all their
money on booze and tattoos while causing a ruckus. This kept
the old attitude that tattoos were for the barbaric alive and well.
After being confined to a ship for an extended period of time and
without much of anything to spend their money on, sailors would
come into port for only a few nights looking for something to do.
Due to a tradition of taking souvenirs and not particularly being
held back by the attitudes of mainstream society, getting tattooed
became a popular form of entertainment. It was, after all, the sailors
who ventured to Polynesia and brought back with them the
tribal tattoos as well as a means to create them. Like these sailors,
for many people there is excitement in traveling and getting a tattoo.
For this reason, some of the busiest tattoo shops today are the
shops located in tourist destinations.
After WWII, many soldiers came home with tattoos they had
gotten when overseas. Some of those soldiers rode motorcycles
during the war and continued to do so when they returned to the
United States. Anyone who rides a motorcycle can tell you it’s
fun to ride with friends. This enjoyment of riding with friends is
what led to the formation of biker gangs. Thanks to The Wild One
(1953) with Marlon Brando, which portrayed motorcycle gangs as
rebellious and unruly, the motorcycle became a symbol of rebellion.
Tattoos had been a sign of rebellion for years, so the two
forms of rebellion became intertwined.

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