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Tattoo History - James Cook
James Cook
James Cook the british world circumnavigator was born in 1728 and died in 1779. He was most likely not the inventor of the tattoo as such in Europe but James Cook, who explored the southern pacific om three journeys, certainly was the one giving the unique art of body decoration it's worldwide known name.
On the 11th of April 1769, 77 years after William Dampier introduced the from head to toes tattooed Prince Giolo, who was quickly forgotten, to the society Englands, Cook discovered a group of islands called Tahiti and with it the art of the tatau. The accompanying natural scientist Sir Joseph Banks was the fist european ever to write an report on the customs of the Polynesians. On the 6th of October Cook and Banks, who were on a journey to find the southern continent, New Zealand, discovered a small group of islands who had not have visitors from europeans for over a century. This journey aroused the passion of many sailors worldwide for skin art.
When Cook came back from his second journey to the southern pacific and brought the Tahitian native Omai to London, the enthusiasm for skin decoration rose in the english royalty and the term tattoo was born.
