Tribal Tattooing III

French explorers and missionaries in Eastern Canada, did leave us some information about some of the tribal tattooing in North America.

While these records are mainly from the Huron tribe, I think it’s safe to say that most of the North American Native tribes did their tattooing in a similar manner.

The warriors, to show their bravery as well as to scare their enemies, were tattooed. To do this they would take the bone of a fish or a bird, and sharpen it like a razor. This  would be used to puncture their skin in the desired pattern.

This was a painful process as we can imagine. The warriors would sit completely still and would not say a word. The blood would be wiped away as it oozed from these incisions. Once this was complete they would rub a black color powder into the incisions. When the wounds healed, it would leave the black tattooed lines or crude pictures.

Some tribes used sharpened awls, or thorns, to pierce the skin. Since some tribes would tattoo their entire body this way. Some would die, it’s not clear what caused their death. Many of the ones that died, would die in winter, so the possibility of too much blood lose from the piercing of the skin for the tattoos, would leave the individual vulnerable to hypothermia.

Also tattooing the entire body can affect the liver, by not allowing enough oxygen in the blood. This can kill the person.

Another possibility might be that the white men brought with them diseases, that the native peoples had never been exposed to. With the blood lost leaving the person being tattooed weak, and having no immunities to the white man diseases, they may have succumbed to one of the many diseases brought here from  Europe.

Since nothing was recorded at the time, we will never know for sure what killed them. Tattooing your entire body could send your body into shock. Not all tribes tattooed the entire body.

Some tribes used tattooing as a religious ceremony. Others used it for magical ceremony, with the belief that in so doing it would somehow give the person magical powers. Many tribes used tattoos as a rite of passage, when puberty was reached.

Tribes also used tattooing for healing purposes. It was believed that disease was caused by evil spirits, and their tattooing along with the songs and dances would exercise the demons causing the illness.

The Sioux believed the spirit of a dead warrior would be stopped on the path to the afterlife by an old woman who would demand to see his tattoos. If he had none she would condemn him to return to Earth as a wandering ghost.

Tattoos were also used to signify bravery in combat. The older warriors could have many tattoos. An Iroquois chief known to have 60 tattoo characters on his thigh each indicating an enemy killed.

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Tags: Arts, Death, Earth, Eastern Canada, Iroquois, Native American, Native Americans in the United States, Sioux, Tattoo, United States, Wyandot