Author: Aubrey Adkins (Page 2 of 2)

In preparation for this class session, we finished Jane Caplan’s Written on the Body. Chapter 10, written by Caplan herself, discusses data collection and ensuing theories surrounding tattooing in 19th-century Europe. I thought it was interesting that a lot of information about tattooed people was collected by physicians and criminologists with the hope of finding a link between tattooing and atavism. As a side note, I learned that atavism means “a tendency to revert to something ancient or ancestral” – I had not heard the term before. One of these 19th-century researchers, Cesare Lombroso of Italy, came to the conclusion that criminals were more similar to “savages” than the average white European, because they could handle the pain of getting many tattoos. My favorite part of Caplan’s chapter was her inclusion of images to demonstrate the types of tattoos Lombroso and other researchers would have seen on the people they wrote about. I especially liked the little skull and crossbones on page 166, which was a German prison tattoo. 

In Chapter 11, Abby Schrader discusses convict tattooing in Russia, specifically as it intersects with vagrancy. Apparently, a large number of Russians attempted to flee state control by going to Siberia. At the same time, the Russian state decided to begin exiling criminals to Siberia, depending on their crime. I was really interested in what were termed “seasonal exiles,” or the convicts who would escape during the warmer months and return to prison for the winter (178). Schrader writes that around 1846, the Russian government began consistently branding exiles and vagrants; instead of discouraging these convicts from running away or taking on a new identity, this branding ensured that the vagrants were seen as the most powerful criminals. The more brands a convict had, the more he was respected. The vagrants even tattooed themselves, further separating them from the rest of society and creating a hierarchy within the prison system. 

Stephan Oettermann looks at tattooing in the worlds of the German and American fairgrounds in Chapter 12. He discusses the common lie some of the tattooed sideshow characters would tell – that they were abducted by any number of indigenous groups and forcibly tattooed. With the advent of P. T. Barnum’s circus, “the tattooed man or tattooed lady became a profession” (200). I found it interesting, given that before this course I thought tattooing was uncommon in the late 19th century, that the tattooed person sideshow was so normal, and even became boring to some people. Oettermann makes a compelling connection between the tattooed lady’s show and an erotic performance because she has to take off some of her clothing to show her tattoos. 

In Chapter 13, Alan Govenar goes through the history of tattooing in the United States from the mid-19th to the mid-20th centuries. Govenar notes that much of the limited research done on tattooing around 1900 was focused on the armed forces; over time, as tattoo designs became more “obscene,” military leadership upheld stricter policies about tattoos. Govenar spends a lot of time talking about Gus Wagner, a heavily tattooed American tattoo artist. Though the electric tattoo machine had been invented by the time Wagner started tattooing, he did not use it. According to Govenar, “the repertory of designs” drastically expanded at the beginning of the 20th century – probably due to the new possibilities of the electric tattoo machine (219). Unlike Oettermann’s erotic sideshow woman, Govenar describes modestly-dressed tattooed circus women, with “highly detailed and modelled” tattoos (225). I was surprised to learn that tattooing became significantly less popular in the 1950s, but it makes sense as a response to the end of World War II. Middle-class America villainized tattooing, and I think the effects of that villainization are still apparent today in the negative way that many people view those who are tattooed. 

The final chapter, written by Susan Benson, discusses piercing as well as tattooing. Benson identifies both practices as “statements of the self,” expected to represent the inner self to the best of one’s abilities (244). I was slightly disturbed, however, to read Benson’s assertion that the “vision” of one’s body with piercings “often draws upon an aesthetic of penetration and subjection…reinforces this sense of a body to be mastered” (250). Maybe this is a generational difference, or the result of the normalization of piercings, but as someone with nine piercings, I have never looked at them in the context of subjection or mastery. I just like how I look with shiny things in my nose and ears; the associated pain and the holes are a byproduct of this desire rather than an integral part of my appearance as a pierced person. 

In preparation for this class session, we read chapters 5-9 of Caplan’s Written on the Body. Chapter 5, by Juliet Fleming, first discusses how tattooing is, of course, permanent; for some reason, current Western culture has identified permanence as a negative thing. I thought this was interesting, because there are some things – like marriage – that our culture holds on a pedestal for their permanence. But, when the permanent change involves the body, we’ve gone too far. On the other hand, Fleming raises the point that tattoos are only as permanent as the body they adorn – so, not very permanent at all in the grand scheme of things. At the end of her chapter, Fleming makes a compelling point about the connection between tattooing and “foreignness.”  She writes “the tattoo may be thought to have achieved its status as the mark of strangeness or barbarity by force of analogy, since it is itself caused by the introduction of a foreign body under the skin” (81). I wish Fleming had explored this idea more thoroughly; I like arguments that compare the action of tattooing to its figurative effect. 

In the next chapter, Harriet Guest discusses 18th-century British views on South Pacific tattooing. To be honest, I found this chapter and the point it was trying to make confusing. Guest does provide a lot of interesting information about different cultures’ customs of tattooing, but given that this is done through the lens of 18th-century Britain, the information is heavily skewed. From my understanding, Guest mainly reiterated the point that the British did not view these South Pacific people as people, which added fuel to their fascination with their tattooing customs. I think the most interesting point she raised was that, in Enlightenment philosophy, “the treatment of women” is “the index of civility” (91). I had not encountered this idea before, so it provides a helpful framework for other 18th-century readings I may do in the future. It makes sense that these philosophers would have viewed femininity as unchanging and therefore a valid index to judge how “civilized” a certain culture may be. They only saw white men as having depth or agency, so these same white men’s treatment of women became the pinnacle of “civilization.” 

Clare Anderson moves the discussion to India and the practice of godna. Anderson describes how, in Hinduism, tattooing had several functions: “evidence of earthly suffering,” religious rites, a way to achieve good health, and a way to signify caste (104). I think this is such a beautiful variety of uses for tattooing, and I had no idea that tattooing was so integral to both tribal groups and caste Hindus in India. Unfortunately, tattooing also had a punitive function, even before the arrival of the British. I thought the most interesting result of this function was that “cultural norms relating to dress and physical appearance thus became a means through which convicts were able to mask the identity assigned to them by colonial penal codes” (115). Convicts would use turbans or their hair to cover forehead tattoos, which does seem like an obvious flaw in the forehead tattooing system. So, even though the marks themselves were permanent – or, as permanent as they can be on a human body – these people were able to effectively erase them. 

In chapter 8, Hamish Maxwell-Stewart and Ian Duffield discuss the tattooing practices of convicts shipped to Australia for their crimes. Maxwell-Stewart and Duffield mention how common anchor tattoos were among these convicts as a symbol of hope, originating from a New Testament passage. I found it super cool to see how far back the tradition of anchor tattoos goes because I think they are still very common today. Further, I think a lot of people who get anchor tattoos today get them to represent hope or another similar sentiment. The authors use this meaning of anchor tattoos to, in a sense, translate many convict tattoos; by saying the word “hope” in place of “anchor,” these tattoos gain a more coherent meaning. Apparently, many of these convicts would get some, if not all, of their tattoos while on the long journey to Australia. Because they were booked in and identified by their tattoos, some convicts would then tattoo over previous tattoos to take back control of their bodies. 

Finally, in chapter 9, James Bradley discusses tattooing in Victorian Britain. I was most interested in Bradley’s assertion that some members of the upper class got tattoos; thus far, much of the scholarship we have read has heavily identified tattooing with criminals or the working class. Bradley mentions Gambier Bolton, a member of the “newly tattooed upper classes” who had several tattoos, some acquired over the course of world travels (146). I don’t think I have ever encountered media that depicts rich Victorian people with tattoos, but this chapter completely flips any assumptions I may have made on their heads. However, I also thought it was important that Bradley noted that a lot of Victorian people still would not have viewed tattooing as a normal thing. In this case, tattoos were “a leisured and luxurious form of consumption,” cementing the type of tattooing Bolton engaged with as a somewhat frivolous, unattainable practice (153).

(this is definitely too long but no one else has posted so I have no point of reference — so sorry)

In preparation for this class session, we read the Introduction through Chapter 4 of Jane Caplan’s Written on the Body: The Tattoo in European and American History. In the introduction, Caplan provides a brief overview of the history of and societal views on tattooing in the West. The book was published in 2000, and marks the beginning of what Caplan cites as a “tattoo renaissance.” As someone who was born after the publishing date, it is interesting to note that I have lived my entire life in this tattoo renaissance. I feel like we might be in another tattoo renaissance right now – so many people are getting tattoos, as we discussed in our first class meeting, and I often find myself surprised to learn when someone does not have a tattoo. Previous to our first meeting, I also did not know that tattoos had a period of association with circus members; this makes sense, because today it seems like a lot of tattooed people work in the arts, performing or otherwise. On a different note, we looked at some images of tattoos people got after completing the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage, which was especially interesting in light of Caplan and Gustafson’s mentions of people from the Roman Empire getting tattoos after pilgrimages to Jerusalem. 

Introduced in depth by C.P. Jones’ chapter on Stigma and Tattoo, the idea of stigma and related terms being translated as meaning “tattoo” was surprising to me. As someone who went to Catholic school, we talked about stigmata exclusively as the mirroring of Jesus’ crucifixion wounds on extremely pious people. No one ever explained the origins of the word to me, so I found all the etymological discussions throughout the chapters to be fascinating. Jones also talked at length about the practice of tattooing enslaved people; I thought it was interesting how the connection between enslavement and tattooing drew some ultra-religious people to tattooing as a sign that they were “slaves for God.” 

Mark Gustafson expands on tattooing for the purpose of punishment in his chapter. Forcing criminals to work in the mines was apparently one of the most common punishments, and also popularized tattooing criminals’ foreheads to represent their crime, punisher, or punishment. These tattoos meant it was nearly impossible for the criminals to return to normal life after their exile in the mines or elsewhere was over; the practice reminds me of the extreme difficulty ex-offenders have finding jobs because of their permanent classification as felons. I had no idea that tattooing for the purpose of punishment is still being used in some places, and did not die out in Europe and the United States until the 19th and 20th centuries. 

Charles W. MacQuarrie moves out of mainland Europe in his chapter, focusing on the British Isles, and specifically Celtic tattooing. Out of the evidence MacQuarrie presented, I was most struck by the line he pulled from the 8th-century poem The Caldron of Poesy, which refers to a man of high status as having a “blue tattooed shank. ” The image of a man with a blue, heavily tattooed leg is vivid, and also makes an interesting connection between high social status and tattooing. As we discussed in class, tattooing’s negative connotation in the U.S. is finally fading, so it is cool to see tattooing viewed in a positive light in literature from so long ago. 

Finally, I thought Jennipher Allen Rosecrans’ chapter on symbolic tattoos was the most interesting. Rosecrans discussed the tattooing of astrological or other magical signs on the body as a means of controlling one’s fate or achieving some other impossible end. Apparently, both tattooing and temporarily writing symbols on the body were typical in and around the 1600s in England for a variety of reasons; when used for magical purposes, the practice was often condemned by the church. I am sure that many churches today would condemn tattooing for magical purposes, too, because most mainstream religions do not condone the practice of magic, and many religious communities look down upon tattoos. Rosecrans’ chapter also taught me about the many categories of magic practiced during this time period, including natural magic, celestial magic, and intellectual/angel magic.