Clipper ship forearm tattoo1/18/2024 ![]() : 19–22 : 157įollowing the American Revolution, American sailors' tattoos were listed in their protection papers, an identity certificate issued to prevent impressment into the British Royal Navy. : 16–23 Maritime historian Ira Dye writes that "the tattooing of American (and by strong inference, European) seafarers was a common and well-established practice at the time of Cook's voyages." : 523 Scholars debate whether Cook's voyages increased the popularity of tattooing among sailors per se, or whether the rise of print culture and surveillance-based recordkeeping that happened around the same time made tattoos more visible in the historical record. There is a persistent myth that tattoos on European sailors originated with Captain James Cook's crew, who were tattooed in Tahiti in 1769, but Cook brought only the word tattoo to Europeans, not the practice itself. : 10–2 Drawings of tattoos, including initials, hearts, and an anchor, recorded in protection papers : 529 By 1740, seamen were recognizable at a glance by their distinctive dress and tattoos. : 12 For example, in the 1720s–1730s in Virginia and Maryland, there were multiple mentions in newspapers of sailors who had blue markings on their arms, including initials and crucifixes, made with gunpowder. 18th century Įnglish and American sailors circa 1700–1750 used ink or gunpowder to create tattoos by pricking the skin and rubbing the powder into the wound. The development of an "identifiable tattooing tradition" among sailors may be an extension of their "choice of social self-demarcation through distinctive dress and accessories." : 76 The sailor was proud of his profession and "wanted people to know that he went to sea." : 553 Tattoos are also practical: they help to identify the body of a drowned sailor. Charles Pierre Claret de Fleurieu, Voyage autour du monde (1798) or of writing on it their own name and that of their mistress. We should be wrong to suppose that tattooing is peculiar to nations half-savage we see it practised by civilized Europeans from time immemorial, the sailors of the Mediterranean, the Catalans, French, Italians, and Maltese, have known this custom, and the means of drawing on their skin, indelible figures of crucifixes, Madonas, &c. : xvii While tattoo, from the Polynesian root "tatau," only entered English and other European languages in the late 18th century, European sailors have practiced tattooing since at least the 16th century. To what extent tattooing among European sailors traces back to an indigenous European tattooing tradition, and to what extent it is a product of cultural exchange during the Age of Discovery, is unknown. See also: History of tattooing Origin "Figures printed on the arms of our Tarentine sailors" from Voyage en Italie, en Sicile et à Malte, 1778 by Louis Ducros Many sea service members continue to participate in the tradition. There are records of significant numbers of tattoos on US Navy sailors in the American Revolution, Civil War, and World War II. "Sailor tattoos" can refer to this style of tattoo, which was popularized for a broader audience starting in the 1950s. In the United States, these sailors turned tattooists trained a generation of professional tattoo artists, who went on to develop the American traditional ("old school") tattoo style by combining sailor traditions with styles and techniques learned from Japanese tattoo artists. This trend increased after the development of the electric tattoo machine in the 1890s. ![]() Starting in the 1870s, a few former sailors began opening professional tattoo parlors in port cities in the United States and England. These tattoo artists informally developed a graphical vocabulary including nautical images such as mermaids and ships. Sailor tattoos have served as protective talismans in sailors' superstitions, records of important experiences, markers of identity, and means of self-expression.įor centuries, tattooing among sailors mostly happened during downtime at sea, applied by hand with needles and tattoo ink made with simple pigments such as soot and gunpowder. People participating in these traditions have included military service members in national navies, seafarers in whaling and fishing fleets, and civilian mariners on merchant ships and research vessels. These practices date back to at least the 16th century among European sailors, and since colonial times among American sailors. Sailor tattoos are traditions of tattooing among sailors, including images with symbolic meanings.
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