Tattoo History - South America

Similar to the native Indians of north america the natives of South America, the Mayas and Aztecs in Mexico and Guatemala and the Incas in Ecuador, Peru and Chile, also knew about the symbolic power of decorated skin. Therefore they contrived complex patterns which origins were found in nature: cats of prey, birds, turtles, fishes and so on. Due to the paintings the naked skin proved to be the suggested force for everything the symbols stand for and beyond. With a few dots in the face the carrier huddled into the skin of a snake, jaguar coat patterns made him to a dangerous cat of prey and wings in the face made him to a bird of prey. With the certain painting the certain powers of the animal were given to the wearer and with this powers he would be able to achieve anything.

The tribes of the Shipibo, Stetebo and Conibo in Peru recognized melodies in their delicate stylized body paintings while they were under the influence of hallucinogen drugs during certain rituals. The Txukahamae indians, a tribe from the brazilian Rio Xingu, applied complex patterns on their skin with charcoal and the juice of the genipa tree. Same as in other countries the body painting process was also tied with initiation rituals. Facial paintings showed passed tests of courage on boys and a certain state of development in puberty on girls.

The tatau was mainly a popular Mayan ritual. When the spanish conquistador Hernando Cortés landed on the Mexican coast in 1519 he discovered that the natives worshiped ghosts and demons not only by building statues for them but also by cutting their images into their skin. Up until this point he spaniard had never even heard of tatauing and condemned the skin decorations as the work of the devil. The jesuit Jean Baptiste le Pers said: "It is no miracle that they all often dreamed of their tin gods, they had their images and faces right in front of them all the time and the images were all horrible."

One of the most comprehensive depictions of the Mayan art was composed by Diego de Landa, a franciscan monk, who traveled through Mexico as a missionary between the years 1549 and 1562: "They tataued their bodies and the more they did it the gutsier and braver they were considered because tatauing was an agony. It happened as follows: The tatauer marked the desired spot with ink and then scratched the images into the skin. Because it caused so much pain the work was done little by little. Afterwards they became sick because the work started to fester and wetted. But still, those who would not let tatau themselves were mocked... They punished theft, even the slightest, by making a slave of the thief... When they caught a criminal they tataued his face from the forehead to the chin as a punishment because this was a big disgrace for them... The Maya women pierced the cartilage that separates the two nostrils and put a piece of ivory trough the whole. This was considered jewelry. They pierced their ears to wear the same ear rings as their husbands. They tataued them from the waist up leaving out their breasts so they could still nurse their children."

De Landa was a fanatic priest who did everything to eradicate the worshiping of tin gods, witchcraft, tataus and all other heathenish rituals. But after twelve years missionary work he had realized that many Mayas who he had already converted to christianity were still devoted to their gentile faith and still got tataued in secret. His conclusion was that obviously only torture would be the only thing to get the Maya to convert. A spanish eye witness reported De Langa hung Mayas with big stones tied to their feet and flogged them and if they still didn't renounce their tin gods they were showered with burning wax. De Landa "missionized" over 4.500 natives. 30 committed suicide before the conversion and countless other ended as cripples. The few who survived the torture and still didn't want to convert to christendom were openly burned as a warning. The ones who converted to christendom were directed to destroy all images and statues of their former gods and also to burn thousands of written down pages of history, mythology, science, astrology, medicine and body art.

Contrary to the british sailors who landed in Polynesia two years later, very little spanish and portuguese sailors got tataued. Gonzalo Guerrero is one of them. He survived shipwreck in 1511 off the coast on Jamaica and stranded on the coast of Yukatan two weeks later where he was made a slave by a Maya tribe living nearby. But Guerrero proved as extraordinary skilled in warfare and had soon won the Maya's respect. He became the central authority, married the daughter of aristocrat, got seven kids and converted to the Mayan faith. According to his status he was tataued and fought along the side of the natives against the spanish intruders for over two decades. The missionaries put in a lot of effort to eradicate the tatau art in south america but they never completed their mission, especially in many parts of the Amazon lowlands.

Until today an estimated 180.000 natives still live in tribes in the depths of the Brazilian jungle. And the ritual of skin decoration survived with them. Not until the end of the 19th century the south american immigrants discovered tattoos for themselves as decoration. The dane "Lucky Tattoo" is considered the father of modern south american body art. He settled in Santos, Brazil, the biggest seaport of south america, where he was the only tattoo artist for a long time and decorated thousands of sailors.

Today, especially for brazilians who posses a distinctive bodily awareness, tattooing is a part of live. Even tourists get infected with "skin fever" on the Copacabana, and since the brazilians also know it is not very smart to lay out in the sun with a fresh tattoo all day, so called "stick on" artists offer their services. They apply small designs on the skin which can be transformed into real tattoos after the holidays are over.

back to tattoo history