"Tattooing is the peculiar art of injecting inks into the living parchment that .
is called the human dermis"(Johnson13). The word tattoo comes from the .
Tahitian word tatau, which means "to mark something." The word tattoo has .
been used in the English language since around the year 1644, denoting the beat .
of the drum (Rowe12). Although the idea of having your skin poked hundreds of .
time a minute sounds extremely painful, tattoos have become more and more .
popular these day. What started out as a simple system of identifying, .
differentiating, and classifying people, has turned into just another cool fad, a .
form of today's body art. Tattoos use to have meaning; they had purpose, and .
the most important people had reasons for getting their tattoos. Today most .
people get tattoos because it is a very popular and unique way to express .
oneself and because many people think that they look cool. Unlike members of .
ancient tribes, most people's tattoos today do not have meaning, and if they do, .
the tattooed person probably does not know what that meaning is. There are two .
sides of tattooing the ancient methods, meanings, and purposes and the present .
methods, meanings, and purposes.
Tattoos started as body paint or die known as henna. However after a while .
some tribes or cultures took the tradition of painting their bodies to a whole new .
level. They began to use the pigments used to paint or die their bodies and .
rubbed them into fresh wounds in order to assure that the color would stay .
underneath their skin permanently. Another way they used to create tattoos was .
to take a small piece of extremely sharp bone or stone (which in some cases .
took days to prepare) and tie it to a stick. After they had the sharp object that .
was to be used to puncture the skin properly tied to the stick and prepared, they .
would take another stick (or larger stone) and tap the stick with the sharp object .
attached to it with the larger stone or bone in order for it puncture deep into the .
