Indian Antiquary Vol 26

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 131

BAY, 1897.]
SPIRIT BASIS OF BELIEF AND CUSTOM.
127
In South India, almost all young girls hare their arms marked with flowers.47 The Juangs of East Bengal wear three strokes on the brow over the nose and three on the temple, apparently the forerunners of sect-marks and made with the object of frightening spirits. The Karens of East Bengal wear three red lines radiating from the seat of their breeches. The lines were formerly marked on the skin. 19 In Gujarât, in Western India, carriage bullocks (1820) are tattooed 50 with tigers and flowers. Tattooing is common among the Burmese tribes along the east frontier of Bengal.51 The Burmaps tattoo their bodies with the figares of lions, tigers, elephants, rata, and birds. Some of these marks are special charins against evil spirits and diseases.63 All Burman boys get their thighs tattooed.53 By some Burmans tattooing is resorted to as a medicine.54 Chin women tattoo their faces to prevent their being carried off by Burmans. Friar Oderic in A. D. 1321 found a singular generation in Sumatra who branded their faces with a little hot iron in some twelve places. 58
The Andamanese tattoo their heads and paint then with clay,67 The custom of tattooing is carried to great perfection among the Motu women, whose bodies are covered with tattoo marks resembling fine lace garments. The Motus tattoo an olive leaf in the clavicular region of their bodies.s0 In the Melville Islands, the people gracefully tattoo their bodies like the lace on a bussar's jacket,60 The Samoan youths are elaborately tattooed. The Papaans of New Guinea make scars on their shoulders, breasts, and thighs.62 The skin is cut with sharp instrument, and white clay or some other earth is rubbed in the wound.63 The Papuans of North Guinea tattoo crossed swords and daggers on their bodies. West Australians almost invariably tattoo their shoulders, backs, and breasts,65 Hay describes in North-West Africa a tall and aged Musalman dame with round her neck the tattooed representation of a chain with a cross hanging to it.66
In North Africa, the chins of high-class Musalman girls are adorned by figures burnt into the skin with gunpowder.07 In modern Egypt, both men and women tatoo parts of the body.co The people of Mecca tattoo their boys', and, in some cases, their girls', faces by drawing three cuts down each cheek and two cuts across each temple. In Central South America, the big robber race of Guaycourons tattoo the face, paint the body, bore the lips, and shave the heads except a top-knot.70 The people of the South Sea Island of Tanna make tattoo-marks in the shape of fish and of leaves.71 Among the Samoans girls are tattooed when they come of age.72 In the Fiji Islands, women only are tattooed.73 In Micronesia, east of the Philippines, tattooing is general. No untattooed girl can be married. The gods will not accept an untattooed man as a sacrifice.74 In Australia and over all Oceania, tattooing is religious."
The following instances show the antiquity of tattooing. The ancient Ethiopians painted the images of their ancestors on their bodies apparently with the object of housing the ancestral spirits and making them gnardians). Among the Thracians (B. C. 450) to be tattooed was a mark of noble birth.77 The archaic Greeks tattooed their face, arms, and breasts.78 The
Dubois, Vol. I. p. 483. Dalton's Descriptive Ethnology of Bengol, p. 157. 49 Op. cit. p. 118. 50 Moore's Oriental Fragments, p. 518.
51 Dalton's Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal, p. 114. 82 Fytche's Burmah, Vol. II. p. 61.
65 Shway Yoe's The Burman, Vol. I. p. 46. 64 Op. cit. Vol. I. P. 58.
56 Op. cit. Vol. II. p. 165. 50 Yule's Cathay, Vol. I. p. 86.
57 Jour. R. 4. Soc. Vol. XII. p. 472. 38 Jour. Anthrop. Inst. Vol. VII. p. 481.
19 Op.cit. Vol. VII. p. 481. 6 Earl's Papuans, p. 199.
61 Pritchard's Polynesian Remainis, p. 145. 62 Earl's Papuans, p. 71.
65 Op. cit. p. 71. € Op. cit. p. 72.
65 Jour. Anthrop. Inst. Vol. V. p. 317. 6c Hay's Western Barbary, p. 44.
67. Denham and Clappertou's Africa, Vol. I. p. 42. e Egypt in Enoy. Brit. Ed. IX. p. 723.
© Barkhardt's Arabia, Vol. I. p. 381. 10 Reville's Les Religions des Peuples Non-Civilials, Vol. I. p. 388.
71 Op. cit. Vol. II. p. 139. 12 Spencer's Descriptive Sociology, 3, Tablo XII. 15 Revillo's Les Religions des Peuples Non-Civilisés, Vol. II. p. 132.
11 Op. cit. Vol. II. p. 132. * Op. cit. Vol. II. p. 147.
T6 Leckie's History of Ra'i naliam, Introd., p. xxi. 11 Bawlinson's Herodotus, Vol. III. p. 218.
8 Imperial Dict., 8. v., Woad.