It all starts with a question: Are tattoos part of the human record?
My name’s Peter, and this is Stacks and Facts.
[musical interlude]
VIEWER ADVISORY: This video contains some sensitive material, including the filmed process
of tattooing, with real ink and needles and maybe some blood, too (but mostly no blood).
If this isn’t your cup of tea, feel free to minimize the video and pretend it’s a
podcast!
It also discusses the Holocaust, but I haven’t included any images of a graphic nature from
that time included, in case there are children in the audience.
So that’s that.
The video will begin in 5
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In North America, it’s not hard to find people with tattoos.
A 2015 poll found that nearly 3 in 10 americans have at least one somewhere on their body,
and the number goes up the younger you are with nearly half of everyone 18 to 35 having
been inked.
Because of this, you’re probably familiar with some of the more common tattoos out there:
Sailor-Jerry-style pin up girls, a flaming heart with “mom” across it, or sailors
with tattoos of anchors or swallows -- each of which have interesting histories in their
own rights.
But while tattooing in the united states is enjoying major popularity right now, it’s
important to note that tattooing is neither just an american phenomenon, nor is it even
a modern invention.
Tattoos have been a form of the human record for literally millennia, and ancient examples
have spanned the globe.
The Smithsonian reported in March of this year (2018, for those of you in the distant
future) that after a pair of mummies at the British Museum were re-examined, tattoos of
animals on the male and S-shaped objects on the female were found on their arms and shoulders.
It’s suspected that the animals on the male represented virility, while the S-shapes,
which are suspected to be staves or some other object connected with ceremony, represent
power or ritual.
These people were alive between 5,000 and 5,300 years ago, making them contenders for
the oldest tattooed mummies found.
Another example is that of a mustache tattooed on the mummified remains of a person found
in Chile, likely coming from prehistoric Chinchorro culture.
For a while, this was believed to be the oldest example of a tattoo found, at a whopping 6,000
years old, but by 2015 that estimate was corrected to around 3,800 years old.
Rounding errors, I tell ya!
Finally, we have tattoos that come from the Alps on the border of Italy and Austria: those
on 5,300 year old Otzi the Iceman.
Our friend Otzi has lines tattooed all over their body.
What’s interesting about these tattoos though is that their locations correspond with places
where Otzi had joint problems: the ankles, knees, along the spine, a wrist, and an elbow.
Because of this, it’s thought that perhaps the tattoos were used as a form of treatment
for these illnesses, or as guides for some other treatment like acupuncture.
This is a great opportunity to segue into talking about tattooing for medical reasons.
This is Auberon Wolf, or Aubrey, a tattoo artist here in Vancouver, and they did my tattoo.
They specialize in using tattooing to help people overcome traumas they’ve experienced
-- sometimes using them to transform scars from a painful past into something beautiful
and empowering.
My tattoo is NOT that kind of tattoo -- not exactly, anyways -- but I think it’s important
to support folks whose personal values align with my own.
Plus, they’re hella queer, which -- let’s be honest -- is my kind of people.
Here’s some of what they had to say about how they got started, and what tattooing means
to them:
I was starting to build a community of people that were trans, and a community of people that
had experienced breast cancer along the same time, and began to imagine what it could look
like to use skin pigments to feminize somebody more or masc—I was very much inspired by
drag communities, where you can put like a little bit of contouring on the face or on
the body and it drastically changes the illusion.
And so that was actually what first birthed that kind of idea, was around easing dysphoria
for people that might not be able to access surgeries for whatever reason.
But it would be years from that point until when I actually had the opportunity to learn
medical tattooing and micropigmentation.
But that always kind of lodged in the back of my head.
Also I have my own self injury scars that I used to get harassed about in public service
all the time, so when I got my own sleeve and felt my life transformed in terms of public
attention & self-perception, that just kind of cemented…
Like this, this is a thing!
We can do something with this!
But there's a person that I tattooed who had open-heart surgery when she was quite young,
and she felt very self-conscious, never wore anything revealing.
Had all-- the scar was quite large, probably almost about an inch in width, several inches
in length.
And in one session we gave her a beautiful deer/rose chest cover-up piece.
And she sent me this awesome message a handful of months later being like, “this one thing
has changed me so much, like I just look in the mirror and think I'm so cute and I wear
things I never would have worn and I feel myself changing!”
And I was like, this is so amazing because for me, I find it's usually not an immediate
impact.
It usually takes months or years for people to like see how much has shifted for them.
Is that not just, ugh, so great?
Art as therapy is nothing new, but it feels so good to hear someone talk about how they
can use their talents to help others -- especially when it means helping others heal.
So if you find yourself in Vancouver and want a tattoo from someone with those kinds of
values, hit Aubrey up -- their contact info is in the dooblydoo.
Thanks, Aubs!
Now, it would be wrong of me to talk about tattooing without also mentioning the role
of tattoos in many of the indigenous cultures across Polynesia.
The word tattoo itself is a loanword from the Samoan word “ta tau,” the exact meaning
of which is complex, as Professor Albert Wendt explains (link in the dooblydoo), but part
of it means “to strike.”
This calls back to how tattooing was traditionally performed among Polynesian cultures: the tattooer
would dip a sharp needle-like object into an ink, place it on a person’s body, and
then strike the tool holding the ink to drive it into the skin.
And in Aotearoa New Zealand [card here: Aotearoa = New Zealand in Maori], tā moko is similar
to tatau but uses a chisel instead of a needle.
Ta tau and tā moko are really important to Samoan and Maori people, because they’re
a way to preserve and convey information not just about the individual, but about the people
and the culture that the individual belongs to.
Their very distinctive designs can indicate status, belonging, and identity -- each of
which people across Polynesia have had to fight to maintain as they struggle against
colonialism and its lasting harmful legacy among indigenous societies.
Nowadays, ta tau, tā moko, and other tattooing practices are a way for Maori, Samoan, and
other people across Polynesia to own and take pride in who they are and where they come
from.
I’ve put a bunch of links to some recommended readings in the description that discuss ta
tau and tā moko’s history and modern developments, so go have a look!
It’s REALLY interesting.
Ta tau and tā moko have been around for a very long time, and in the past few decades
they’ve become, for some people, a symbol of national identity or cultural heritage
-- a way to broadcast to the world, “this is who I am, and this is where I come from.”
In that way, they serve as highly visible metadata -- they tell you a thing about a
person that the person WANTS to put out there.
But sometimes, tattoos aren’t voluntary.
An example of this comes from just outside of a little town in southern Poland called
Oswiecim: the Auschwitz concentration camp complex.
Starting in May of 1940, people who were sent to Auschwitz were assigned serial numbers
as a way to keep track of them.
Originally, these numbers were sewn onto clothing -- this identified them as “suitable for
work,” and thus -- in the eyes of the state, worth keeping records about.
However, people who were deemed unsuitable for work never got serial numbers, as they
were sent directly to the gas chambers and murdered.
The overwhelming majority of those murdered on arrival to Auschwitz were Jews, and the
overwhelming majority of those who were sent to Auschwitz never left: approximately 1.1
million out of the 1.3 million people who entered died there from 1941-1945, from gassing,
starvation, disease, medical experimentation, being shot, or a handful of other causes.
But I want to be very clear, here: how they died doesn’t take away from the fact that
they were ALL murdered.
It was this outrageous death rate that eventually led to prisoners being tattooed during intake.
The harsh truth is that the people who ran the camp -- and it *was* people who did these
horrible things, make no mistake, not monsters, or animals, but *people* -- wanted to make
sure that their records were accurate.
This was hard to do because after the prisoners were murdered, their bodies were stripped
of the clothing that bore these serial numbers.
So in 1941, Auschwitz personnel began tattooing prisoners first on their left upper chest,
and then eventually on their left forearms.
Aside from being individually assigned, each number was one in a *specific* series, depending
on how that person was categorized: the pattern of digits assigned to Hungarian Jews was different
from the pattern assigned to Roma prisoners; the pattern assigned to women was different
from the pattern assigned to men.
And numbers were assigned in sequence -- the higher the number, the later an individual
arrived.
In all, more than four hundred thousand serial numbers were issued -- but again, that’s
out of the 1.3 million people who passed through Auschwitz’ gates.
Nearly a million people -- men, women, children, the sick, the elderly -- were in the eyes
of SS officers, not worth the ink and paper it would cost to keep track of them.
But we *know* these people existed, and that they were murdered.
Train schedules, deportation data, written testimonies, and first-hand accounts by both
prisoners and the people who worked there all back this up, in spite of what a small
but vocal minority might want us to believe.
And so, I think, we have a responsibility to remember them: who they were, why they
died, and how the world got to a point where that was even possible.
It’s easy to say that it could never happen again, but… couldn’t it?
If we aren’t careful, it can -- and it will.
We in the information professions also have a responsibility: to recognize that how we
go about doing our jobs can either support or resist systems that cause harm to others.
The people who ran Auschwitz weren’t just soldiers: they were secretaries, accountants,
recordkeepers, doctors.
And while it can be hard to imagine what good a single person can do against a greater power,
it’s important to remember that individuals are ultimately the only ones who do anything.
What the individual chooses to do is ultimately up to them, and what informs those decisions
is, in part, the information they have access to, and in part what their own values are.
[transition?]
Someone very important to me once said that fame is a four letter word, and like tape,
or zoom, or face, or pain, or life or love, what ultimately matters is what we do with
it.
This person cared deeply about others, and felt very strongly about the role that folks
in media had to play in fulfilling the needs of those who consumed the media they produced.
And so when he was a few years older than I am now, he started making a television show
because he wanted to make sure that children had *something* on TV -- a new media at the
time -- that provided them with value and substance.
He kept at it for over thirty years, and in that time, he taught children and the adults
who cared for them the inherent worth that each of them had, and reminded them that they
were complex beings with big feelings -- and that that was more than okay, it was *important*.
He really tried to get across the idea that it was important to recognize your agency
over your feelings -- that *you* can control what *you* ultimately do with the mad that
*you* feel.
You can decide whether your anger, or fear, or even curiosity is DEstructive or CONstructive.
And I think that that’s really important, which brings us… to my tattoo.
By now, you might be able to tell that it’s a tattoo of a trolley -- and if you know me,
you might be able to guess that I was talking about Fred Rogers, host of the TV show Mr.
Rogers Neighborhood and subject of the most excellent documentary that just came out,
“Won’t you be my neighbor?”
Oh, and before I go on, I’m just gonna take this opportunity to clarify that, contrary
to rumors, Mr. Rogers was never in the military, and did not wear sweaters to cover up full-arm
tattoo sleeves.
Sorry if I burst any bubbles.
His show had a trolley that would go between the real world and the land of make-believe,
and since it’s such an iconic piece of the show, I thought it would be a good way to,
I guess, enshrine? the values that Mr. Rogers was trying to get across.
I got the tattoo because at some level I want to broadcast my values to those I meet -- and
also to remind myself that I’m no exception.
A thing that’s started happening since getting the tattoo and that I didn’t expect but
I’m glad about, is that it’s ended up serving as a kind of check on my own attitudes
and behaviour.
It seems like it’s easy these days to get wound up when we’re talking with others
online, and it’s easy to forget that in spite of how technology changes our perceptions
of others, the overwhelming majority of people are not so different from us.
The internet has done a real number on how responsible we feel to be kind to each other
or give each other the benefit of the doubt.
This feels pretty intuitive from skimming over most comments sections -- or all of twitter
-- but research has started coming in that provides empirical evidence backing it up
-- we treat people worse on the internet.
I worry, given recent events around the world, about how much of that bleeds into our interactions
with others offline.
And try as I might, I haven’t been an exception.
But now, with this visual reminder a foot from my keyboard, I stop myself more often.
I ask myself, “what am I doing with the mad that I feel?”
Sometimes, I’ll end up being kinder with my words, and sometimes -- because that’s
not always easy -- I walk away.
And that’s okay, because I leave a little piece of myself behind every time I meet someone
online or off, and I feel like I owe it to myself and others to make sure it’s good
for them.
Now that I have this tattoo, it tells me not just about who I am, or what I care about,
but it’ll serve as a reminder to future me where I’ve been.
So I’d like to offer my thanks to Randy Willier for his permission to use his rendition
of the trolley, which I found as the cover art on the little book of quotes called -- very
appropriately, “Life’s Journeys According to Mister Rogers.”
Now because this is my first tattoo, I wanted to talk to someone whose tattoos have a bit
more history so I emailed my friend Kim.
Kim is a librarian in Aotearoa New Zealand, and she sent me some photos of of her tattoos
along with their significance to her.
Here are just a few of them, along with how she described them.
This one is a japanese aesthetic inspired by my love of Japan and travel to Japan.
My ancestry is: Nordic/Māori thus a strong link to the sea.
This one is a girl wearing goggles about to take flight!
Goggles symbolize adventure for me.
This tattoo represents the end of a significant relationship.
This one’s based on the work of Melbourne street artist Kaff-eine whose work I absolutely
adore.
She uses her practice to take art to slums and build capacity in communities.
My obsession with Bowie and Camilla d’Errico meant that it was inevitable that I would
get an astronaut one day.
I think it’s great that each of these can tell you a little bit about Kim -- where she
comes from, what she cares about -- and, that you wouldn’t necessarily know the details
without asking her.
And I think that’s the point I want to close on: as great as tattoos are, they’re no
substitute for actually getting to know someone.
While we might make a snap judgment about someone based on how many tattoos a person
has, or what the tattoos are of, or even where they are on the person’s body, it’s a
lot more humanizing to let the tattoo help you imagine someone as a complex human being.
Not every tattoo has an elaborate story behind it, but at the very least, it relates to a
very specific time and place for the person who has it.
So maybe use that little piece of human metadata to start a conversation.
But hey, that’s just an idea.
Now what I’d like to know is what you think of this idea of tattoos as metadata.
Let me know in the comments below!
And if you have tattoos, I’d just dig it of you took a photo of it and sent that to
me in a tweet, with a description of what it means to you.
If you like this video, definitely share it with your friends, and if you like what I
do and you haven’t subscribed already, go ahead and do that -- there’s a button down
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of whenever I release a new video.
So that’s all I’ve got, thank you so much for watching, and until next time, don’t
forget to ask questions.
Okay bye. [musical outro]