Early Tattooing Methods

Different cultures developed a vast variety of different tattooing methods.

In many North and South American Indian tribes the tattoos were applied by simple pricking. Other tribes simply rubbed color, mostly made out of ash into scratches they carved into their skin and many Arctic and Subarctic tribes mostly Intuit.

Some tribes in eastern Siberia made needle punctures through the skin, and a thread was drawn under the skin coated with pigment to apply the color.

In Polynesia and Micronesia the pigment was pricked into the skin by tapping on a tool shaped like a small rake. A similar method is still used today by famous tattoo artists in Asia and other different countries. It still is almost the same procedure than it was 300 years ago, except for the sterilizing, and it is considered a honor to receive a tattoo that way by a Japanese Tattoo Master.

The Maoris of New Zealand, who are probably the most famous people in the world for their tattooing, used the same technique for tattooing as they used to carve wood. A small bone cutting tool was used, to carve shallow, colored grooves in complex designs on face and buttocks, by striking it into the skin.

In the 1700s, after the Europeans arrived and introduced metal to the natives, the Maoris began using the metal settlers brought for a more conventional style of puncture tattooing.

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