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Tattooing in America
North America
Most nineteenth century scholars took no interest in North American native tattooing. In 1909 the American anthropologist A.T. Sinclair surveyed the literature and noted with dismay that "one of the great difficulties in treating our subject is that details or even mention are so often absent when the practice must have been common. Even the slightest hint is sometimes of value." In his definitive paper, "Tattooing of the American Indians" , Sinclair surveyed the records of tattooing in each geographical region of North America, but in many cases came up only with fragmentary one-liners such as "The Algonquin tribes everywhere seem to have practiced the custom."
Some of the most interesting descriptions of pre-Columbian tattooing in North America were written by l7th century French explorers and missionaries in Eastern Canada. A typical example is the French explorer Gabriel Sagard-Thêodat's account of tattooing among the Hurons, written in 1615:
But that which I find a most strange and conspicuous folly, is that in order to be considered courageous and feared by their enemies [the Hurons] take the bone of a bird or of a fish which they sharpen like a razor, and use it to engrave or decorate their bodies by making many punctures somewhat as we would engrave a copper plate with a burin. During this process they exhibit the most admirable courage and patience. They certainly feel the pain, for they are not insensible, but they remain motionless and mute while their companions wipe away the blood which runs from the incisions. Subsequently they rub a black color or powder into the cuts in order that the engraved figures will remain for life and never be effaced, in much the same manner as the marks which one sees on the arms of pilgrims returning from Jerusalem.
Numerous brief references to tattooing are found in writings of 17th century Jesuit missionaries whose reports were forwarded to Paris each year and compiled in volumes titled Jesuit Relations . Jesuit missions were scattered throughout eastern Canada, and missionaries reported that tattooing was practiced by almost all of the native tribes they encountered. In 1653 the Jesuit missionary Francois-J. Bressani reported:
In order to paint permanent marks on themselves they undergo intense pain. To do this they use needles, sharpened awls, or thorns. With these instruments they pierce the skin and trace images of animals or monsters, for example an eagle, a serpent, a dragon, or any other figure they like, which they engrave on their faces, their necks, their chests, or other parts of their bodies. Then, while the punctures which form the designs are fresh and bleeding, they rub in charcoal or some other black color which mixes with the blood and penetrates the wound. The image is then indelibly imprinted on the skin. This custom is so widespread that I believe that in many of these native tribes it would be impossible to find a single individual who is not marked in this way. When this operation is performed over the entire body it is dangerous, especially in cold weather. Many have died after the operation, either as the result of a kind of spasm which it produces, or for other reasons. The natives thus die as martyrs to vanity because of this bizarre custom.
South America
When Cortez and his conquistadors arrived on the coast of Mexico in 1519 they were horrified to discover that the natives not only worshipped devils in the form of statues and idols, but had somehow managed to imprint indelible images of these idols on their skin. The Spaniards, who had never heard of tattooing, recognized it at once as the work of Satan.
The sixteenth century Spanish historians who chronicled the adventures of Cortez and his conquistadors reported that tattooing was widely practiced by the natives of Central America. Oviedo, who wrote the first and most complete account of the conquest of Mexico, tells us that the natives "imprinted on their bodies the images of their demons, held and perpetuated in black color for as long as they live, by piercing the flesh and the skin, and fixing in it the cursed figure." The Jesuit missionary Jean Baptiste le Pers wrote: "They called their idols zemes and the imprinted their image on their own bodies. So it is not astonishing if, having them without ceasing before their eyes and fearing them much, they saw them often in dreams. They were all hideous - as toads, tortoises, snakes, alligators, etc." And the historian Cogulludo reported that warriors were tattooed to commemorate their achievements in battle, "so the bodies of old heroes were completely covered with hieroglyphics."
As far as we know, only one Spaniard was ever tattooed by the Mayas. His name was Gonzalo Guerrero, and he is mentioned in several early histories of Mexico. The reports of his activities are fragmentary but intriguing. Guerrero was one of 20 sailors who survived a shipwreck off the coast of Jamaica in 1511. He and his companions managed to crowd into a small lifeboat and drifted at sea for two weeks without food or water, during which time several of them died of exposure and starvation.
The survivors finally reached coast of Yucatan, where they were captured by Mayas. Geurrero and four others managed to escape and make their way through the jungle to Chetumal, a nearby Mayan city-state. The ruler of Chetumal, who was an enemy of their former captors, allowed them to live but made slaves of them. During the next two years three of the Spaniards succumbed to hunger, hard work, and disease. The only survivors were Guerrero and a Catholic priest, Geronimo de Aguilar.
USA
The most popular designs in traditional American tattooing evolved from the efforts of many artists who traded, copied swiped, and improved on each other's work. In this way they developed a set of stereotyped symbols which were inspired by the spirit of the times, and especially the by experiences of soldiers and sailors during both World Wars. Many of these designs represented courage, patriotism, defiance of death, and longing for family and loved ones left behind.
The earliest written records of American tattooing are found in ships' logs, letters and diaries written by seamen during the early part of the nineteenth century. In his memoirs of life on board a US. Navy frigate in the 1840's, Herman Melville reported that some of his shipmates "excelled in tattooing or pricking, as it's called in a man-of-war. Of these prickers, two had long been celebrated, in their way, as consummate masters of the art. Each had a small box full of tools and coloring matter, and they charged so high for their services that at the end of the cruise they were supposed to have cleared upward of $400. They would prick you to order a palm tree, an anchor, a crucifix, a lady, a lion, an eagle or anything else you might want. "
One of the first professional American tattoo artists was C. H. Fellowes, whose design book and tattooing instruments were discovered in 1966 by a Rhode Island antique dealer and are now in the collection of the Mystic Seaport Museum in Mystic, Connecticut. Fellowes left no other record of his life and art. A thorough search of nineteenth-century business directories failed to reveal his name, and it is probable that he followed the fleet and practiced his art on board ship and in various ports.
His book contains over a hundred designs in red and black, many of which are ambitious compositions featuring religious, patriotic and nautical themes. Certain of these are of special interest because they commemorate specific naval engagements which occurred during the Civil War and the Spanish-American War. One of the great naval battles of the Civil War is illustrated in a drawing which shows the northern warship "Kearsage" with guns blazing as a Southern vessel, the "Alabama", sinks in flames. According to contemporary accounts, the crew and officers of the "Kearsage" had stars tattooed on their foreheads to celebrate their victory over the "Alabama", which took place on June 19, 1864.
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