Charles Pierre Claret de Fleurieu, Voyage autour du monde (1798) or of writing on it their own name and that of their mistress. We should be wrong to suppose that tattooing is peculiar to nations half-savage we see it practised by civilized Europeans from time immemorial, the sailors of the Mediterranean, the Catalans, French, Italians, and Maltese, have known this custom, and the means of drawing on their skin, indelible figures of crucifixes, Madonas, &c. : xvii While tattoo, from the Polynesian root "tatau," only entered English and other European languages in the late 18th century, European sailors have practiced tattooing since at least the 16th century. To what extent tattooing among European sailors traces back to an indigenous European tattooing tradition, and to what extent it is a product of cultural exchange during the Age of Discovery is unknown. See also: History of tattooing Origin "Figures printed on the arms of our Tarentine sailors" from Voyage en Italie, en Sicile et à Malte, 1778 by Louis Ducros Many sea service members continue to participate in the tradition. There are records of significant numbers of tattoos among US Navy sailors in the American Revolution, Civil War, and World War II. "Sailor tattoos" can refer to this style of tattoo, which was popularized for a broader audience starting in the 1950s. In the United States, these former sailors trained a generation of professional tattoo artists, who then developed the American traditional ("old school") tattoo style by combining sailor traditions with styles and techniques learned from Japanese tattoo artists. This trend increased after the development of the electric tattoo machine in the 1890s. Starting around the 1870s, a few former sailors began opening professional tattoo parlors in port cities in the United States and England. These tattoo artists informally developed a graphical vocabulary including nautical images such as mermaids and ships. Common symbols include swallows, nautical stars, and anchors.įor centuries, tattooing among sailors mostly happened during downtime at sea, applied by hand with needles and tattoo ink made with simple pigments such as soot and gunpowder. Sailor tattoos have served as protective talismans in sailors' superstitions, records of important experiences, markers of identity, and means of self-expression. People participating in these traditions have included military service members in national navies, seafarers in whaling and fishing fleets, and civilian mariners on merchant ships and research vessels. These practices date back to at least the 16th century among European sailors, and since colonial times among American sailors. Sailor tattoos are traditions of tattooing among sailors, including images with symbolic meanings.
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