In the 1830s an Irishman named James F. O'Connell acquired a
full-body tattoo while living as a castaway in the Pacific. The
tattoo featured traditional patterns that, to native Pohnpeians,
defined O'Connell's life; they made him wholly human. Yet upon
traveling to New York, these markings singled him out as a freak.
His tattoos frightened women and children, and ministers warned
their congregations that viewing O'Connell's markings would cause
the ink to transfer to the skin of their unborn children. In many
ways, O'Connell's story exemplifies the unique history of the
modern tattoo, which began in the Pacific and then spread
throughout the world. No matter what form it has taken, the tattoo
has always embodied social standing, aesthetics, ethics, culture,
gender, and sexuality. Tattoos are personal and corporate, private
and public. They mark the profane and the sacred, the extravagant
and the essential, the playful and the political. From the Pacific
islands to the world at large, tattoos are a symbolic and often
provocative form of expression and communication.
"Tattooing the World" is the first book on tattoo literature
and culture. Juniper Ellis traces the origins and significance of
modern tattoo in the works of nineteenth- and twentieth-century
artists, travelers, missionaries, scientists, and such writers as
Herman Melville, Margaret Mead, Albert Wendt, and Sia Figiel.
Traditional Pacific tattoo patterns are formed using an array of
well-defined motifs. They place the individual in a particular
community and often convey genealogy and ideas of the sacred.
However, outside of the Pacific, those who wear and view tattoos
determine their meaning and interpret their designdifferently.
Reading indigenous historiography alongside Western travelogue and
other writings, Ellis paints a surprising portrait of how culture
has been etched both on the human form and on a body of
literature.
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