A tattoo is a mark made by inserting pigment into the skin: in technical terms, tattooing is micro-pigment implantation. Tattoos may be made on human or animal skin. Tattoos on humans are a type of body modification, while tattoos on animals are most often used for identification.
Tattooing has
been practiced world wide, everywhere at the same time. The Ainu,
the indigenous people of Japan, wore facial tattoos. Tattooing was
widespread among Polynesian peoples, and in the Philippines,
Borneo, Africa, North America, South America, Mesoamerica, Europe,
Japan, Cambodia and China. Despite some taboos surrounding
tattooing, the art continues to be popular all over the world.
History
Tattooing has been a Eurasian practice at least since Neolithic times. Mummies bearing tattoos and dating from the end of the second millennium BCE have been discovered in Xinjiang, West China. Tattooing in Japan is thought to go back to the Paleolithic era, some ten thousand years ago. Various other cultures have had their own tattoo traditions, ranging from rubbing cuts and other wounds with ashes, to hand-pricking the skin to insert dyes.
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