As newly tattooed Sailors returned home at war’s end, the work of Civil War–era tattooists spread around the country. Spurred by 19th-century whaling expeditions and long trading voyages, tattooing continued to spread among both naval and merchant seamen-and from them to landlubbers.ĭuring the Civil War, tattoos commemorating the historic clash between the ironclads USS Monitor and CSS Virginia made their way into both navies, along with more general motifs such as military insignia and names of sweethearts. By the late 18th century, around a third of British and a fifth of American sailors had at least one tattoo. Staving off boredom during long hours at sea, sailors doubled as amateur tattooists. Tattooing spread quickly from British to American sailors. In fact, the word “tattoo” is derived from the Polynesian tatau, which indicated indelibly marking the human body and phonetically imitated the sound of the rhythmic tapping of traditional tattoo instruments (usually needles fashioned from boar's tusks) used to pierce a subject’s skin. These brought tattoos back to their fellow seamen in Europe and America. Although there are indications that seafarers bore tattoos before the 1700s, Captain James Cook’s voyages of exploration in the Pacific during the second half of the 18th century exposed Royal Navy sailors to Polynesian body art. However, there is no dispute that tattooing was practiced in early societies in Europe and Asia, and by indigenous cultures worldwide for thousands of years. Captain James Cook’s journal, third Pacific voyage (1776–80)ĭespite numerous learned studies and analyses of various aspects of tattooing-sociological, artistic, psychological-the actual lore of this form of body art remains largely non-academic and often based on oral tradition centered around certain tattoo artists and styles. “The universality of tattooing is a curious subject for speculation….”
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