Tattoing, or the marking of indelebile design under the skin is a practice of the white and mate skined populations; that’s why it is replaced in black africa by scarification. with a sharp instrument with multiple stings skin is perforated and then dying substances are absorbed by dermis and let an indelebile mark. The design is often very complex and the process doesn’t give a chance for failure so a draft is realised with ashes or coal.

Once tattoo was realy common in traditional civilisations but today it’s cultural and social functions are disapearing. In “primitives” societies tattoo had essencialy the fonction to asign to individuals a role in the group; generally followed for the men with initiation rites and acces to adulthood. In Oceania and particurarly in Polynesia tattoo reach it’s most sophisticated developments; it can cover the entire face and body. Tattoo was also a common practice in europe and mainly romania , serbia, france, portugal and through antic greece.

Prohibited by severals western religions it disapeared from europe except for some corporation in the middle age. It only reapeared in the XVIIIth century via the exploration of pacific asliands.

the word “tatoo” comes from the tahitien tatau “design”. The expression is the repetition of the roots “ta” wich means “to strike”. Captain COOK great discoverer of polynesia and his colummnist BANKS quote the term in writing “tattow” in their stories of travelling in 1772. Moreover we can note that in polynesian “ta” means ” design” and adornment, “the spirit” or “spirits”. So in this region tattoo was a magical pratice enabling spirits to come into the body. The design was translated after by tahowas or priests-sorcerers. But with time tattoo has lost it’s magical fonction to become a code discribing the different social classes and alliances. Today tribal tattoo even if it keeps it’s social fonction is more a cultural wealth.

This evolution from the magical to the social then to the simple adornment can be found in numerous societies that used tattoo. In japan it could represent exploits of the gods, of the masters of war, masters of hunting. But for a long time in japan tattoo was a punishment borrowed to the chinese. In the XVIIIth century at Toma the criminals were tattooed with the ideograme of the dog; in Kyoto two bars on the arms; in Nara two lines circling the biceps; in Satsuma a circle near the shoulder.Some writers explains enigmatic move from criminal to adornment by the will of the criminal to hide their carateristic sign in a design. The practice of tattoo as a punishment disapear in the XIXth century.

In the XVIIIth century when the europeans discover the new world they are seduced by the amerindians practices and start to “sting” their skin. Other travelers use tattoo as a mean to be more integrated in the societies they look at. So tolstoi in order to win the sympathy of the oceanians adorned his self like them. Back in ST PETERSBOURG his fame was great and people wanted to see him closer. Then numerous aristocrats copied him like Catherine of russia, PETER the great , and the tsar nicalos II.

Tattoo became slowly a fashionable phenomenon in europe and spreads through aristocratic and political circles. In france Marat the “sans-culotte” would have one tattooed; the duke of chartre known as “philipe-Eguality” had revolutionaries inscriptions. Other famous revolutionaries were tattooed: Robespierre, Danton, Bonaparte etc…In berlin at the end of the last century elegants women wanted to get tattoo by burmese tattoo artist. But it’s thanx to prince of wales (futur edward VII) and his son (futur george V) that tattoo got realy famous. In 1882 where they were travelling around the world the kids of the queen victoria got tattooed in japan by the famous Hori-Chiyo. So the baron of postdam the futur Keiser frederic II went to japan with george the first of greece and came back with a dragon on his chest.

The success of tattoo goes on in europe and america. The world of tattoo had been and is still illustrated with political men. The american presidents like theodor and franklin Roosvelt, Truman and Kennedy; in england with Churchill. Staline had a skull and red star. the french presidents too like thiers, poincarrÈ, sadi carnot, casimir perier, felix faure…and the generals galliÈni, foch,petain etc…

Recently tattoo has spread in the show business. Before it was a privilege of upper classes but it’s image got altered. Sailors made of it a symbol. then the soldiers. So tattoo got limited to the memebers of certain stigmatised groups and we can see that it spreads mainly in monosexual environments(barraks, prisons, brothels, asylum) it is a compensation of the absence of the “other”‘s body when one’s body becomes a fetish. the incarnated image is a substitute and a memory. Sometimes tattoo was associated with asocials spychiatrist saw in it a sign of paranoia, exhibitionism, rebellion, and a tendencie to primitivism: auto-plastie. But those studies made in hospitals, prisons, give a biased vision buy using phatological personalities and cannot say what tattoo really is.

II-Language of the tattoo and it’s practice

1. Islands of the pacific

In a lot oceanian archipelagos tattoo is a part of the culture. It deals at the same time with alliances system, the memebership to a social group, tells the individual story and so the indentity of the person. Tegumantary inscription make easyer the integration of the individual in the community and are a necessary ritual in the social evolution. Tattoo in the traditonal societies on the contrary of comtemporary tattoo doesn’t sent the image of one’s own boby but it’s social boby.

For a better understanding of the oceanians societies we must says that art, power (time and spiritual) are concentrated in the concep of mana. Mana is that active strengh associated with the ancesters, of divine origin; without whom no human activity is possible. So every work of art is a vector of this force with the choice of the materials and iconography. So wether it is in architecture, weaving, sculpture, or tattoo every work obey to a social and religious fonction.

Now we wiil illustrate this by studying three great cultures of this area: polynesia, micronesia and new guinea.