Eldridge, the founder of the Tattoo Archive in Winston Salem, North Carolina. “Explorers like Cook took sailors to the South Pacific, where tattooing was a highly developed art form going back centuries,” says C.W. Top: A scene from Tattoo Jack’s shop in Denmark, circa 1942, from the book “Danish Tattooing” by Jon Norstrøm. Above: An etching of “Prince Giolo,” a tattooed slave captured from the Island of Miangas by William Dampier’s expedition in 1691. The English word “tattoo” is actually a descendant of the Tahitian word “tatau,” which Cook recorded after a stop on the island while travelling in the South Pacific. European explorers frequently returned with tattooed foreigners to exhibit as oddities in the West, like Omai, the native Raiatean man Cook presented to King George and members of British royal society. Such publicity soon ignited a more widespread fascination with body art. Though tattooing was already present in much of Europe, during the 1700s, the visibility of exotic voyages taken by the likes of Captain James Cook helped cement the connection between tattoos and seafaring men in the popular media. “They can’t be lost or stolen and they don’t encumber an already heavily burdened traveler, so it’s not a surprise that they became inextricably linked with sailors.” “The attractions of tattoos for itinerant populations are quite obvious,” says tattoo-art historian Matt Lodder. In fact, contemporary tattooing in the West can be traced to the 15th century, when European pilgrims would mark themselves with reminders of locations they visited, as well as the names of their hometowns and spouses to help identify their bodies should they die during their travels. “There’s no way to take a tattoo home, except in your skin.” (Hint: Grog once referred to a watered-down rum issued by the British Royal Navy to every sailor over age 20.) Yet these young land lubbers probably don’t even know the difference between a schooner and a ship, much less where the term “groggy” comes from. Traditional tattoo designs, like anchors, swallows, and nautical stars, are popping up on the arms and ankles of kids in every hip neighborhood from Brooklyn to Berlin, Sao Paulo to San Francisco.
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