Tattoo Supplies

A tattoo is a mark made by inserting pigment into the skin; in technical terms, tattooing is micro-pigment implantation. Tattoos may be made on human or animal skin. Tattoos on humans are a type of body modification, while tattoos on animals are most commonly used for identification. more...

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Tattooing has been practiced worldwide. The Ainu, the indigenous people of Japan, wore facial tattoos. Tattooing was widespread among Polynesian peoples, and among certain tribal groups in the Philippines, Borneo, Africa, North America, South America, Mesoamerica, Europe, Japan, Cambodia and China. Despite some taboos surrounding tattooing, the art continues to be popular all over the world.

Terms

The word \"tattoo\" can be traced to the Dutch word taptoe, meaning a rapid, rhythmic tapping. Most often, but quite wrong, many people believe the original root word behind tattoo is the Samoan word tatau, meaning to mark or strike twice (the latter referring to traditional methods of applying the designs). Sailors traveling the Pacific who encountered Samoans, and who were fascinated by the Samoan tatau, mistakenly translated the word \"tatau\" into the modern tattoo. In Japanese the word used for traditional designs or those that are applied using traditional methods is irezumi (\"insertion of ink\"), while \"tattoo\" is used for non-Japanese designs.

Tattoo enthusiasts may refer to tattoos as tats, ink, art or work, and to tattooists as artists. The latter usage is gaining support, with mainstream art galleries holding exhibitions of tattoo designs and photographs of tattoos.

Tattoo designs that are mass-produced and sold to tattoo artists and studios and displayed in shop are known as flash.

History

Tattooing has been a Eurasian practice at least since Neolithic times. Mummies bearing tattoos and dating from the end of the second millennium BCE have been discovered at Pazyryk. Tattooing in Japan is thought to go back to the Paleolithic era, some ten thousand years ago. Various other cultures have had their own tattoo traditions, ranging from rubbing cuts and other wounds with ashes, to hand-pricking the skin to insert dyes.

Purpose

Tattoos have served as rites of passage, marks of status and rank, symbols of religious and spiritual devotion, decorations for bravery, sexual lures and marks of fertility, pledges of love, punishment, amulets and talismans, protection, and as the marks of outcasts, slaves and convicts.

Today, people choose to be tattooed for cosmetic, religious and magical reasons, and as a symbol of belonging to or identification with particular groups (see Criminal tattoos). Tattoos of favorite bands and football teams' logos are fairly common in the west. Some Māori still choose to wear intricate moko on their faces. In Cambodia and Thailand, the yantra tattoo is used for protection.

Read more at Wikipedia.org