The History Of Tattoos, In One Entertaining Animation

Nowadays, tattoos are very popular so that an estimated one in five Americans now has one according to survey which was conducted by Harris poll. . -I'm not sure about S.Korea- This video by TED-Ed about the history of tattooing, the art form is at least 8,000 years old, and the history of the tattoo is as rich and complex as it is long.  So if you have a tattoo, you’re part of a rich cultural history that dates back at least 8,000 years.

Watch the TED-Ed above for more intriguing tattoo facts.

It only takes 5 minutes, and after watch this,  you will be fascinated with tattoo. 

But I would like to write about video briefly for saving your 5 mins! 

Ancient Tattooed Aryan Mummies of Asia

Tattooed mummies from around the world attest to the universality of body modification across the millennium, and to the fact that you really were stuck with it forever if your civilization never got around to inventing laser removal. 

<the right man : A mummy from the Chinchorroo > 

A mummy from the Chinchorro culture in pre-Incan Peru has a mustache tattooed on his upper lip.

< The left man : Ötzi mummified iceman of the Alps. > 

Ötzi, mummified iceman of the Alps, has patterned charcoal tats along his spine, behind his knee and around his ankles, which might be from an early sort of acupuncture.

 

The mummy of Amunet, a priestess in Middle Kingdom Egypt, features tattoos thought to symbolize sexuality and fertility. 

Do you have any idea why do we English speakers call them all tattoos?

The word is an anglophonic modification of "tatao," a Polynesian word used in Tahiti, where English captain James Cook landed in 1769 and encountered heavily tattooed men and women. And people started to use the word "tattoo" instead of "scarring," "painting," and "staining," and sparked a craze in Victorian English high society.

<Victorian lady who got tattoo> 

The funny thing is, in the Victorian society, people looked down their noses at tattoos but lots of people had them in secret. 

The western people usually got tattoos before meeting the Samoans and Maori of the South Pacific. Crusaders got the Jerusalem Cross so if they died in battle, they'd get a Christian burial. 

 

There's also a long tradition of people being tattooed unwillingly. Most infamously, the Nazis tattooed numbers on the chest or arms of Jews and other prisoners at the Auschwitz concentration camp in order to identify stripped corpses.

And those criminals and outcasts of Japan, where tattooing was eventually outlawed from the mid-19th century to just after World War II, added decoration to their penal tattoos, with designs borrowed from woodblock prints, popular literature and mythical spiritual iconography. Yakuza gangs viewed their outsider tattoos as signs of lifelong loyalty and courage.After all, they lasted forever and it really hurt to get them.

 

For the Maori, those tattoos were an accepted mainstream tradition. If you shied away from the excruciating chiseling in of your moko design, your unfinished tattoo marked your cowardice.

But with the incredibly broad history of tattoos giving you so many options, what are you going to get? This is a bold-lined expression of who you are, or you want to appear to be.

 "Everyone is marked, thus in different parts of his body, according maybe to his humor or different circumstances of his life." Maybe your particular humor and circumstances suggest getting a symbol of cultural heritage, a sign of spirituality, sexual energy, or good old-fashioned avant-garde defiance.

A reminder of a great accomplishment, or of how you think it would look cool if Hulk Hogan rode a Rhino. It's your expression, your body, so it's your call.

 

Now I'm going to introduce my only one tattoo. Technically, this is not "Willow tree", --it might be willup tree -- but I and my friends call this "little willow with warm heart". When I was in Calgary in Canada, I got this little one on my ankle. At the first time, there's no reason to decide to get tattoo. One of my best Canadian friend, Randi, showed this little design of willow tree and told me, "Willow, this is just so you." so I decided. It was a little bit painful at the first time, my friends Randi and Jenn hold my hands to make me relax. After 15 minutes, finally I got the first and only one little willow tree on my ankle. Now I'm in Korea. Whenever I saw my little willow, I remember my short, but precious period in my life, Calgary life. At that time, I had my own motto "One more shoveling!", It means never give up  and do my best in everything. It always fillips my memory in Calgary and makes me try to do best from little things like assignment. I've always believed in living life to the full and earnestly through this little willow tree. This willow tree is the symbol of my life and just myself.