Body Modification Studies

In contemporary Western society, there is a strong focus on how the body looks and performs, and whether it requires regulation. These powerful expectations impact on individual embodiment - the lived experience of having and being a body, including the internalisation and enactment of socially constructed norms (Kosut and Moore 2010; Shapiro 2015). In this article, we focus on the ways in which tattoos are an embodiment of the interaction order (Goffman 1983); a symbolic mediation between individuals and the social structure. To achieve this, we draw upon the experiences of Rachael, a 24-year old woman employed as a receptionist with ten tattoos, to illustrate how social discourses about the ‘normalised’ feminine body can be reinforced and challenged through tattoos. This is evidenced by Rachael’s use of tattoos as part of a suite of ‘technologies of the self’ (Foucault 1988), which make her feel in control and align, and reconfigure, her body with social discourses of femininity. ...

This thesis is an investigation into the legitimacy and limits of the term “body art” in its vernacular sense, wherein it refers to methods of decorating or ornamenting the body, such as tattooing or piercing. Though the term is widely used and widely understood, it has rarely appeared in any writing which takes an explicitly arthistorical or art‐critical approach, and has never been subjected to any sustained analysis which uses the methodologies deployed by specialists when engaging with other forms of art. If tattooing and its coincident technologies are “body art”, they have not as yet been understood as such by art historians.

The arguments made over the course of this work thus amount to a case for the applicability of art‐historical and art‐theoretical methodologies to body modification practice. The thesis first establishes the existence of a rhetorical yet broadly undefended case for the artistic status of practices which alter the form of the body. This claim is to be found amongst both the contemporary subcultural body modification community and amongst plastic surgeons. With particular reference to theories of art and aesthetics by John Dewey, Richard Shusterman, and Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, the work investigates whether such claims are tenable. In light of these investigations, the thesis then presents a number of problems which immediately arise from such a claim – problems of authorship, ownership, objectivity and value – and attempts to resolve them through detailed analysis of a number of case‐studies.

(The full thesis can be downloaded from the British Library's EThos Service at http://ethos.bl.uk by searching "Lodder" or the thesis' persistent ID, 525734 - registration required)

For thousands of years, Native Americans throughout the Eastern Woodlands and Great Plains used the physical act and visual language of tattooing to construct and reinforce the identity of individuals and their place within society and the cosmos. The act of tattooing served as a rite of passage and supplication, while the composition and use of ancestral tattoo bundles was intimately related to group identity. The resulting symbols and imagery held important social, civil, military, and ritual connotations within Native American society. Yet despite the cultural importance that tattooing held for prehistoric and early historic Native Americans, modern scholars have only recently begun to consider the implications of ancient Native American tattooing and assign tattooed symbols the same significance as imagery inscribed on pottery, shell, copper, and stone.

"Drawing with Great Needles" is the first book-length scholarly examination into the antiquity, meaning, and significance of Native American tattooing in the Eastern Woodlands and Great Plains. The contributors use a variety of approaches, including ethnohistorical and ethnographic accounts, ancient art, evidence of tattooing in the archaeological record, historic portraiture, tattoo tools and toolkits, gender roles, and the meanings that specific tattoos held for the Dhegihan Sioux and other Native American groups, to examine Native American tattoo traditions. Their findings add an important new dimension to our understanding of ancient and early historic Native American society in the Eastern Woodlands and Great Plains.

Introduction / Carol Diaz-Granados and Aaron Deter-Wolf
1. Native American Tattooing in the Protohistoric Southeast / Antoinette B. Wallace
2. Needle in a Haystack: Examining the Archaeological Evidence for Prehistoric Tattooing  / Aaron Deter-Wolf
3. Swift Creek Paddle Designs as Tattoos: Ethnographic Insights on Prehistoric Body Decoration and Material Culture / Benjamin A. Steere
4. Tattoos, Totem Marks, and War Clubs: Projecting Power Through Visual symbolism in Northern Eoodlands Culture / Lars Krutak
5. The Art of Enchantment: Corporeal Marking and Tattooing Bundles of the Great Plains / Lars Krutak
6. Identifying the Face of the Sacred: Tattooing the Images of Gods and Heroes in the Art of the Mississippian Period / F. Kent Reilly III
7. Dhegihan Tattoos: Markings That Consecrate, Empower, and Designate Lineage / James R. Duncan
8. Snaring Life from the Stars and the Sun: Mississippian Tattooing and the Enduring Cycle of Life and Death / David H. Dye

**** Note: this is a preprint, please refer to final published version for page numbers

Abstract: Drawing on ethnographic work on menstruation and gynecological examinations and surgeries in Salvador, Brazil, this article explores the way that bodily boundaries are constituted through medical practices. Focusing on the re-enactment of the boundary between the inside and the outside of bodies, it analyzes that which is detached from bodies and, by falling away from them, contributes to their constitution. It then considers how the gynecological examination and vaginal plastic surgery can be used to speak of the problematic and contingent act of delimiting bodies from the inside out.

Keywords: abjection, bodily boundaries, Brazil, dys-appearance, gynecological examination, menstruation, plastic surgery

Plastic surgery, obesity, anorexia, pregnancy, prescription drugs, disability, piercings, steroids, and sex re-assignment surgery: over the past two decades there have been major changes in the ways we understand, treat, alter, and care for our bodies. The Body Reader is a compelling, cutting-edge, and timely collection that provides a close look at the emergence of the study of the body.

From prenatal genetic testing and “t;manscaping”; to televideo cybersex and the “meth economy,” this innovative work digs deep into contemporary lifestyles and current events to cover key concepts and theories about the body. A combination of twenty one classic readings and original essays, the contributors highlight gender, race, class, ability, and sexuality, paying special attention to bodies that are at risk, bodies that challenge norms, and media representations of the body. Ultimately, The Body Reader makes it clear that the body is not neutral—it is the entry point into cultural and structural relationships, emotional and subjective experiences, and the biological realms of flesh and bone.

Ce séminaire se concentre sur la corporéité qui se définit, dans les dictionnaires en philosophie, comme «le caractère de ce qui est corporel», bref ce qui est relatif au corps matériel. Partant du postulat butlérien selon lequel «le corps a toujours une dimension publique [et que] constitué comme un phénomène social dans la sphère publique, mon corps est et n’est pas le mien» (Défaire le genre, 2006 : 35) et voulant que notre corporéité est autant traversée par le social qu’elle le traverse, ce séminaire explore les différentes structures sociales, culturelles, politiques, économiques, légales et médicales qui rendent certains corps et certaines identités intelligibles et compréhensibles et d’autres non en fonction des systèmes dominants (sexisme, racisme, classisme, capacitisme, cisgenrisme, hétéronormatitivé, etc.). Et comme le rappelle Butler, le système de «[...] genre apparaît comme une condition préalable de la production et du maintien d’une humanité lisible» (Défaire le genre, 2006 : 24). Pour le dire autrement, les processus de genrement qui font de nous des hommes/femmes et des êtres masculins/féminins, qu’on les accepte ou les conteste, sont ceux-là mêmes par lesquels nos corps et nos identités peuvent exister dans les structures dominantes. Ces systèmes de sexe/genre/sexualité, dont l’étude, la critique et la déconstruction sont centrales tant pour les études féministes, de genre, des sexualités, queers et trans, constituent donc la pierre d’assise autour de laquelle s’articule des corps et des identités dans ce séminaire.
À partir d’une approche interdisciplinaire et intersectionnelle, les thèmes suivants seront abordés : la normativité corporelle, le marquage des corps en fonction des systèmes dominants, les diverses formes de transitions et de transformations corporelles, les modifications corporelles courantes et «extrêmes» comme les tatouages, les chirurgies esthétiques, les chirurgies de confirmation du genre ou de réassignation de sexe, les chirurgies bariatriques, l’acquisition volontaire de handicaps (cécité, surdité, amputation, paraplégie), l’acquisition volontaire du VIH, les transformations animalières et cyborg, etc. Ce séminaire permet de développer les outils conceptuels et politiques nécessaires pour penser de manière critique l’(a)normalité, l’(in)capacité, la santé/maladie, le poids, l’apparence, etc., les représentations des corporéités et identités non normatives dans nos sociétés, leur pathologisation, médicalisation et leurs tentatives d’assimilation et de normalisation par la société, mais également au sein même des mouvements sociaux. Ce séminaire souhaite encourager un plus grand respect de ces corporéités et identités non normatives dans la société et les mouvements sociaux.

"RE/Search Publications' 'Modern Primitives' (1989) changed countless lives, bringing what had been a localised and niche set of body modification practices, aesthetics and philosophies out of San Fransisco to a global audience, dominating scholarly and popular discourse around body modification subculture for more than a decade afterwards. The voice of Fakir Musafar, dominates the book. This paper argues that modern primitives as Fakir defines them never really existed (and never could have existed) in the terms he suggests, and address an important sub-strand within Modern Primitives almost entirely ignored by critics and commentators: contributors who do not frame their practice in "primitive" terms."

The accepted version of this paper is now in Open Access, via the Centaur repository at the University of Reading. (See link below)

An examination of the difficulties faced within identification of African body modification in the archaeological record. Looking specifically at how we as archaeologists can acknowledge these problems and adapt to further explore the realms of body modification within African archaeology. The article examines the material world of through ethnographical and theoretical exploration of the social world.

Boasting some of the highest ratings in American cable television history, FX's sixseason dramatic series Nip/Tuck (2003-10) features more trans characters than any other show of its kind. Focusing on its regularly recurring trans woman character, Ava Moore, we argue that Nip/Tuck's representations of trans embodiment are complex, contradictory and, above all, ambivalent. More specifically, we claim that the show portrays medically-assisted transition not only as a large-scale crisis in the order of things but also as a path to personal prosperity and success. In doing so, we demonstrate that the former is articulated through themes of incest, infertility, fraudulence and monstrosity while the latter is articulated through themes of beauty, intelligence, resilience and social mobility. Having presented our analysis of how Nip/Tuck represents sex reassignment and those who undergo it, we then turn to a critical consideration of how a more recent dramatic series, Orange is the New Black (2013-present), portrays the trans trajectory. Widely understood to represent a kind of 'transgender tipping point', Orange is the New Black can be seen as a useful index of how trans people are portrayed in present-day televisual culture. Through our consideration of these portrayals, we think critically about whether popular media representations of sex reassignment have changed since Nip/Tuck and, if so, in what ways.

El presente trabajo es el resultado de una investigación acerca de la práctica y la estética del tatuaje. Consiste en un análisis de argumentos, motivaciones e intereses con respecto al tatuaje, presentados por un grupo de individuos tatuados y por un grupo de tatuadores, en Chile. En su sección introductoria, analiza el tatuaje desde una perspectiva histórica. En su desarrollo, se concentra en la reflexión acerca de las respuestas obtenidas en el estudio de campo. En su parte final, esboza conclusiones emanadas del análisis efectuado y presenta una interesante entrevista con un tatuador de renombre internacional.

Published in: Ranisch, R. & Sorgner, S. L. (2014) Post- and Transhumanism: An Introduction. S.L. Peter Lang Publisher. Pages: 213-226 Abstract: The 21st Century has ushered in a redefinition of the body by cybernetic and biotechnological developments. The concept of “human” has been broadly challenged, while “posthuman” and “transhuman” have become terms of philosophical and scientific enquiry. Are these scenarios inducing a paradigm shift in the ontological and epistemological perception of the human body? If so, will gender, race, age and class among others, represent significant categories of reformulation? More radically, from a futuristic perspective: will posthumans need any embodiment at all? Posthumanism and Transhumanism offer different answers to these questions.

"Representations", N. 129, Winter 2015.

The essay analyzes the project of maintaining the body of V. I. Lenin in the Mausoleum in Moscow for the past ninety years, focusing on the unique biological science that developed around this project, and the unexpected political role this body has performed.

Drawing upon Frank's (1995) discussion of the personal and social aspects of embodied storytelling, this paper considers the tattoo as a form of visual communication created within a multiplicity of contexts. Based on in‐depth interviews with eight tattooed men and women, the focus of this article is the stories that these individuals tell about their tattoos. I argue that the tattooed body is a distinctively communicative body. It has a great deal to say, not only about the identity of the wearer, but also about the culture in which she lives. I conclude with some reflections on examining the tattoo as a conceptual latchkey—a tool that may enable researchers to begin to unlock the complicated relationship between the body, self‐identity and society.

In recent years body modification practices such as the arts of tattooing and body piercing have experienced an increase in popularity. A close examination of previous research conducted on the topic revealed a dichotomous categorization of these practices as either acts of deviance or self-expression. In an effort to add to the research that strives to portray 'body art' as a means of identity formation, the current study took a qualitative approach to the examination of body modification practices and the individuals who participate in them. Throughout 2007, fifteen in-depth interviews were conducted with college-age individuals who had at least one visible piece of 'body art,' and were currently living in or around Manhattan, Kansas. An emphasis was placed on what motivated the individuals to participate in the arts of tattooing and/or body piercing and how they felt the physical alteration of their body had affected their subsequent social interactions and identity. A careful review of the interview transcripts revealed that the respondents had chosen to participate in body modification practices for a variety of reasons. Nine analytical categories were then created in an attempt to explain the key motivations for their participation in these practices and ultimately call into question whether these practices should continue to be viewed as "deviant." The findings also demonstrated that there is still a certain amount of stigma associated with the arts of tattooing and body piercing, especially within the workplace. Although some businesses and organizations require their employees to keep their artwork concealed during business hours, others simply refuse to hire any individual who has a visible piece of 'body art.' Thus, the knowledge gained from the respondents and their experiences provided insight into the thought processes involved in the decision to participate in body modification practices as well as shed light on discriminatory, appearance-based hiring practices.

This study presents the first systematic investigation of teeth and gum blackening as a form of body ornamentation in South Asia. While classical Sanskrit literature had affirmed the aesthetic appeal of jasmine white teeth, from around the middle of the sixteenth century blackened teeth, and sometimes gums, were noted as essential female adornments in some urban and courtly contexts. The agent of choice for teeth blackening became known as missī, a powdery mixture of (1) iron and copper sulphate, (2) a plant source of tannins, such as myrobalans, and (3) flavouring agents. The use of missī, thought to be sanctified by Fāṭimah, the Prophet’s daughter, became deeply engrained in Islamic culture across much of the subcontinent. Teeth blackening as a life cycle event related to sexual maturity and in its literary portrayals acquired distinct sexual overtones. It was integrated into to the culture of courtesans and prostitutes where missī became synonymous with the ritual of selling a woman’s virginity. Although not a primary motivation, medicinal considerations also played a role in the use of missī. Early references to blackening the gums and edges of the teeth suggest a connection to an older tradition of filing the interstices between teeth which had become prohibited by Islamic law. Geographically and culturally distinct traditions of teeth blackening also prevailed among diverse indigenous groups living along the slopes of the Eastern Himalayas, from Nepal through Meghalaya and Assam to Nagaland. Here teeth were blackened by applying the wood tar of specific plants or chewing specific plant products. These practices related technologically and culturally to the wide-spread teeth blackening traditions of island and mainland South-east Asia and beyond.

The employment of the tattooing to mark various parts of the human body, is a ‘custom’ that appears throughout the centuries in numerous regions and cultures. Through the existing examples it is pointed out that it was very popular among the ancient Thracians. Either as a sign of nobility for the men of Thrace, or as a mark of punishment on the Thracian women for the death of Orpheus, the Thracian tattoo is testified through the literary sources and the iconography. Focus of this paper is to explore the visual and written information regarding the Thracian ‘custom’ of tattooing and to investigate its symbolism and meanings. In order to do that within the right context, it is provided some brief general information on tattooing and an introduction to the Thracian people and their habits. The Thracian tattoos are approached through the ancient Greek view and they appear to be signs and symbols of various and different status.

La modificación artificial de la cabeza infantil constituye una de las tradiciones más arraigadas del antiguo mundo maya, cuyas practicantes recurrían a procedimientos sofisticados para dejar la cabeza de sus bebés ancha o angosta, larga o alta, esférica o bilobada. La primera parte de esta obra explora, en el marco de los esquemas ideológicos mesoamericanos, los diferentes significados y motivos culturales que una vez deben haber sustentado la modificación cefálica artificial en la sociedad maya. Se discute su papel en la ritualidad cotidiana y su rol en la protección del alma infantil. Por fin, un tercer significado, que denominamos “emblemático”, lo comunican los mismos semblantes modelados que sus portadores lucirían visiblemente a lo largo de su vida. En la segunda parte del libro, los planteamientos generales sobre la modificación cefálica anclan un estudio de casi dos mil cráneos, pertenecientes a diferentes épocas, sitios y regiones mayas y circum-mayas. Una taxonomía formal nueva, adaptada al área de estudio, coadyuva la identificación de las diferentes modalidades técnicas y sus resultados formales. Los patrones y tendencias registradas en este estudio regional subrayan que la modificación cefálica articula los cambios socioculturales que se produjeron en la sociedad maya a lo largo de su larga trayectoria. Todavía durante el período Clásico, las variadas siluetas cefálicas subrayan el papel de las mujeres en la expresión ideológica, quienes parecen emular los semblantes del panteón de las deidades al dar la morfología deseada a la cabeza infantil. Asociaciones culturales más amplias reflejan sorprendentemente la cartografía linguística y étnica de los grupos mayas durante el primer milenio de Nuestra Era. Del mismo modo, las preferencias en los portes anuncian cambios sociales más profundos, como son aquellos que se vinculan con la caida de las hegemonías mayas del Clásico y, naturalmente, la conquista española. Se concluye que la mirada de los antiguos mayas en el espejo de la práctica cefálica es capaz de enriquecer y expander nuestra comprensión de lo maya y los mayas, eso al comunicar aspectos íntimos de la antigua sociedad y su funcionamiento, no a través de sus productos sino directamente a través de que elllos mismos nos comunican a través de su cuerpo.

Although tattooing existed throughout the ancient world, there have been few archaeological identifications of actual tattoo implements outside of Oceania. This chapter discusses the archaeological footprint of ancient tattooing and uses cross-cultural comparative ethnographies to examine the material culture of the practice. These data show that identifying tattoo tools in an archaeological setting requires convincing association of those materials with pigments, supported by various additional items from a tattoo toolkit. Applying these associations to the archaeological record allows for identification of the oldest potential tattoo tools to date and suggests tattooing originated during the Middle Stone Age in southern Africa.

PLEASE NOTE:
In the time since this chapter was published, there have been important advances in archaeological efforts to identify tattooing tools through microwear signatures. Thanks to that work, and particularly the efforts of Gates St-Pierre (2018), we now know that use-wear on the bone tools from Blombos Cave discussed in this paper is *not* compatible with tattooing. The contextual argument presented here for identifying tools based on patterns of artifact associations still stands.
See:  Gates St-Pierre, C. 2018. Needles and bodies: A microwear analysis of experimental bone tattooing implements. J. Archaeol. Sci. Rep. 20: 881–887. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2017.10.027.

The origins of modern human behaviour have been constructed by some archaeologists as a question of the origins of symbolism. In this thesis I argue that consciousness is embodied and that body modifications are a key element in generating symbolic behaviour. I develop criteria by which body modification tools can be identified in the archaeological record thereby contributing evidence for the antiquity of modem human behaviour.
The possibility that body art preceded the first unequivocal archaeological evidence of symbolic behaviour has long been acknowledged but regarded as an intractable problem because of its archaeological invisibility. Archaeological evidence for body modifications shows that they were practiced from the Upper Palaeolithic, but the reliance on preservation of skeletal material and soft tissue, and the difficulty of interpreting ancient art, means that there are limitations to establishing its presence prior to this. The most abundant archaeological remains in the Palaeolithic are stone tools. I demonstrate that in more recent contexts stone tools are routinely used for head shaving, scarification, and surgery such as finger amputations and genital modifications. The presence of use-wear and human body residues on stone tool edges provides a means of detecting symbolic body practices that is not dependent on stylistic judgements of stone tool form, controversial "non-utilitarian" art objects, burials or changes in brain structure and size, none of which have satisfactorily proved that symbolic behaviour existed before 60 000 bp.
To test this I analyse a collection of flaked bottle glass razors used for shaving the head from the Andaman Islands. The results of this analysis are compared to a further series of glass and obsidian razors from Antigua, New Guinea, Mexico and Egypt, and experimental obsidian razors. I conclude that the combination of residues such as blood and hair, and wear traces that indicate a scraping/slicing motion, allow razor use to be identified on stone tools. This provides evidence with which to test for the presence of body modification in the archaeological record prior to 60 000 bp reflecting complex symbolic behaviour and hence an earlier genesis of language than is currently accepted.

This article explores the carnal dimensions of existence through ethnographic research in a mixed martial arts club. Mixed martial arts (MMA) is an emergent sport where competitors in a ring or cage utilize strikes (punches, kicks, elbows and knees) as well as submission techniques to defeat opponents. Through data gathered from in-depth interviews with MMA practitioners and participant observation in an MMA club, I elucidate the social processes that are integral to the production of an MMA fighter habitus. I examine how body techniques are learned and become attached to the identity of mixed martial arts fighters. Using Crossley's concept of reflexive body techniques, I examine how MMA fighters engage in body callusing through use of reflexive body techniques thereby allowing them to withstand the rigors of the sport.

"Different forms of dental modifications used to be a widespread
cultural expression across much of Luzon (Philippines). Gold
decorations on teeth appear in the archaeological record around
the fourteenth century CE, and later Spanish documents confirm
gold pegging, but also teeth filing as well as the deliberate
blackening of dentitions among Tagalog and Bikol speakers. While
in the immediate sphere of Spanish influence such practices were
rapidly abandoned, they persisted far longer among indigenous
groups in more remote locales, especially the Cordillera. The
motivations behind dental modifications were complex and
included concepts of beautification, achieving personhood and
affirming group identity. By the beginning of the twenty-first
century the practices had generally fallen into disuse, though to
this date an appreciation of and familiarity with the techniques
of teeth blackening is being preserved among an ever shrinking
number of elders of certain indigenous groups, such as the
Gaddang."

This article examines tattooing as an ancient and contemporary form of body inscription and modification. It frames the
popularity of tattooing in the Western World in relation to other modern body modifications and within the landscape of
consumer culture. Showing parallels between the motivations and meanings of contemporary tattoo practices, a historical
overview of tattoos in premodern and non-Western cultures is presented. The divergent ways in which scholars have
approached tattooing is examined, juxtaposing research in the behavioral sciences that links tattoos to deviant and antisocial
behaviors with ethnographic and social–scientific studies that place tattoos within cultural, symbolic, esthetic, and prosocial
frameworks.

Teeth blackening is a form of body modification that was prevalent across parts of Melanesia and Micronesia. The near-permanent colouring of teeth was accomplished by applying plant-based substances combined with a unique kind of ingredient, namely, different soils (asphaltic, peat swamp, volcanic or manganese-containing). Teeth that had been culturally manipulated in a more or less ritualized fashion carried a wide range of associations, embodying local aesthetic criteria and mediating physical and, in particular, sexual maturity and attraction, as well as accomplishing social enhancements that came with maturation. Betel chewing was practised in a very similar region and, though it was distinct, intersected closely with teeth blackening. Subsequent to western contact, missionary efforts succeeded in repressing teeth blackening effectively, and it disappeared rapidly across the whole area where it was once practised.

The Department of Hebrew & Jewish Studies, University College London, is hosting the Sacred Ink eLecture series, which focuses on body marking for ritualistic, aesthetic, and other benign purposes throughout the ages, from Ancient Egypt up to the present day. The online talks are free to attend and take place each Wednesday from 27 April until 1 June 2022 from 16:00 until 17:00 BST (London) via Zoom. The schedule, abstracts and registration details are found in the flyer.

"Although Madagascar is geographically disjunct from Southeast Asia, Micronesia and Melanesia, where intentional blackening of teeth used to be ubiquitous, this study found the practice deeply rooted in Malagasy culture. Men and women accomplished teeth blackening not only by chewing various, mostly endemic, plants, but also by applying organic burn products as well as a  combination of mineral rich soil and barks containing tannins. The highly developed oral literature of Madagascar, in which teeth
blackening features frequently, provides material to study the diverse associations which the practice and the requisite plants evoked. These connotations reached from the overtly sexual to affirmations of various core cultural values. For example, when teeth blackener was removed again from frontal teeth to render them white, while keeping molars blackened, this pattern not only held esthetic appeal, but also somatically expressed a desire for concealment versus revelation of the private self. The widespread distribution of teeth blackening across the island and similarities to methods known from Austronesian speakers elsewhere are some of the indications that teeth blackening might have reached Madagascar during its early phases of settlement by Austronesian speakers from the Indo-Malay archipelago. Surprisingly, betel chewing, a practice equally associated with Southeast Asian people, appears to have reached Madagascar at a relatively late date by way of the Swahili coast. Neither areca nut (Areca catechu L.) nor betel pepper (Piper betle L.) become naturalized across the island, nor did the usage of these plants penetrate Malagasy culture to any great extent."

"Abstract:
Since the end of the 19th century tattooed people in Euro-American societies have been perceived either as exotics from faraway countries or associated with socially-deviant groups such as criminals, sailors or circus people. In the beginning, heavily-tattooed people were showcased, later they were stigmatized, expelled from public places and killed in the Third Reich. In this context the “Tattooed Women” occupy a special place: they were outsiders within a group of outsiders. Exposing the skin of women was unconventional especially to the middleclasse civil society at the end of the 19th century, which insisted on women covering their whole body. The tattooed circus women not only showed much of their skin, but it was also covered with colorful and exotic pictures. In this paper promotional postcards and photographs of circus women held at the Walter Schönfeld collection in Heidelberg are examined. These cards and photographs are significant ethnohistorical sources because they were used as a means of self-promotion. As such, they offer valuable insights into the way in which the tattooed circus women perceived and represented themselves to the outside world. The paper examines the cards and photographs in the context of existing and developing theories about tattoos.


Zusammenfassung:
Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts waren Tätowierte in der euroamerikanischen Gesellschaft zumeist entweder Exoten aus fernen Ländern oder Kriminelle, Seeleute oder Zirkusmenschen  Exoten aus der Nähe. Stark Tätowierte wurden bei Vorführungen bestaunt, aber ansonsten nach und nach stigmatisiert, aus der Öffentlichkeit vertrieben oder im Dritten Reich schließlich umgebracht. Vor allem Tätowierte Damen nehmen in diesem Kontext eine besondere Stellung ein. Sie waren längere Zeit die Außenseiterinnen unter den Außenseiterinnen und Außenseitern. Für die bürgerlich geprägte Gesellschaft Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts verstieß die entblößte Haut einer Frau ganz und gar gegen die Konventionen. Fast der ganze Körper einer Frau war mit Kleidung bedeckt. Die tätowierten Schaubuden-Frauen dagegen zeigten nicht nur viel Haut. Die war zusätzlich noch mit bunten, fremdartigen Bildern geschmückt.
Ihre Werbepostkarten und -fotografien aus der Sammlung Walther Schönfeld in Heidelberg werden untersucht. Diese Werbekarten sind die unmittelbarste Quelle für ihre Selbst-Repräsentation und deshalb eine wesentliche ethnohistorische Bildquelle.
Im Rahmen dieses Artikels sollen außerdem vorhandene und in Entwicklung befindliche theoretische Ansätze und Konzepte über Tätowierungen an das gesellschaftliche Phänomen der „Tätowierten Damen“ angelegt und übertragen werden.

(peer reviewed)
"

Recent attempts to study cranial modification have suggested that the practice was a part of embodiment and socialization among the Maya. Comparison of colonial and modern Maya childbirth and socialization practices supports these arguments. We suggest that the next question to be asked is: "Why was the head specifically targeted for modification among the Maya?" This paper argues that one of the motivations behind cranial modification among the Maya was to protect newborns from injury. We present evidence from colonial documents and ethnographic studies on midwifery showing that animating essences resided in the head and that newborns were particularly at risk for soul loss and injury from evil winds. Further we present data on metaphoric polysemy between the human body and houses to argue that newborn humans were much like newly constructed houses in their susceptibility and that both required ritual ensoulment. The construction of the house roof parallels cranial modification. This likely has parallels in Classic Maya times, with some temple dedications and the construction of vaulted roofs with capstones, and suggests that the need to guard against soul loss has pre-Columbian roots.

In antiquity, tattoos could beautify, shock, or humiliate.
This article appeared in Archaeology magazine,1999.    .
It has been updated and revised as a chapter in my book "Flying Snakes and Griffin Claws: Classical Myths, Historical Oddities, and Scientific Curiosities" (Princeton University Press, 2022)
For discussion and illustrations of women’s tattoos in antiquity, see chapter 6  in my book “The Amazons: Lives and Legends of Warrior Women across the Ancient World" (Princeton University Press, 2014).

The aim of this work is to shed anthropological light onto the realm of body modification in
the city of São Paulo. My proposal is to pull off an ethnographic study together with nonmainstream
body modification professionals, undergoers and enthusiasts. In this practice
the quest for strenuous pain is present, which makes it some interesting ground to be
scoured with an anthropological approach concerned with seeing into the role of body,
aesthetics and pain, never shrugging aside the association between sexual arousal and
modified body. This essay is directed towards my attempt to interpret what I could feel and
gather from the subjects in the field work from an anthropological point of view. The
discussion in body techniques and medicalization in body modification is the starting point
from which I discuss means to spawn a discourse capable of viewing the practice as a
manner to state self-body projects, as opposed to the growing profissionalization and
normalization in the field. Taking into account field work data on how the subjects view
pain experience, I shall discuss the subversive potential of these body practices.