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Okay so I am biased. What can I say? Scotland is the land of my ancestors, including my not-long-passed-from-this-earth-Granny. She was a spitfire, all 90 lbs of her, and her Scottish brogue was music to my ears. Well obviously I am not the only lover of all things Scottish. Some of them even have it inked into their skin!
Great likeness of Mel Gibson as William Wallace. However, for the record, it is highly unlikely that the real William Wallace looked much like Mel at all.
This is a Scottish Lion tattoo and the most elaborate and huge I’ve ever seen. The Scottish lion symbol is an ancient one.
I’ve always thought there was something noble in the simplicity of the Scottish flag.
Scottish pride is always great to see! Apparently this Scot also has some fondness for the Welsh symbol as well.
Another take on the scottish lion. This one with a twist of the Wales symbol by showing it to the side!
All in all those who sport tattoos of their home countries are only doing so to show a sense of pride in their heritage. This has always been of great interest to me and whenever I see a tattoo that seems to show ancestral interest, I always enjoy asking the wearer about their ink. You should too!
When the earliest Tattooed men and womens stories began reaching Western Europe they were generally assumed to be primitives lacking in intelligence or even barbaric because of their ritual tattooing practices. As some of those from tribes in Japan and India actually began making their way among modern and more civilized England often they were ‘allowed’ to mingle with upper society occasionally, but were most often used in shows that displayed them as non human and freakish. It is likely this same unacceptable judgmental idea that led to more recent ideas on what the people who would get tattooed were all about.
For many years it was almost unacceptable to even get a tattoo unless you were a part of an armed service, mostly navy men. And those were very often the bad boys as well. Most ‘good boys’ in the 1930′s and 1940′s didn’t even come home from wars with tattoos. Onto the 1950′s it seemed as if only the real bad boys and local brawlers were brave enough to sport their skin art. Into the 1960′s and 1970′s tattoos had only just begun to break out of the bad boy mold and began to creep into the other areas of society. By the early 1980′s it even began to be ‘okay’ for women to have a small tattoo in out of the way locations. That may not seem a big deal, but considering 30 years earlier it would have been astounding and rare to find a tattooed female at all, this was actually immense progress and a huge jump forward in the way society viewed skin art.And the amazing thing was that tattoos were no longer limited to rebels who lived on the edges of society. In my eyes, this made it harder and harder to decide who needed to be judged, always a great selling point with me. 
By the time we rolled into the 1990′s we barely even gave a second stare to women who had skin ink, and by then it was mostly to admire the work. And I recall in the late 80′s only a few years before having slipped from my house one night when I was 16 to return home later with my first minuscule piece of art on my shoulder, and waking up around 3am to my Dad yelling at me. My Dad you see, had not only been a Navy man, as well as the big boats bad boy who spent most of his time in the brig, but he had made it through the entire service without one single tattoo. I remember him grabbing my arm and actually trying to scratch the ink off. He told me that women just did not get tattoos. It wasn’t done. As he stormed from my room I remember yelling at him that I had gotten one and that I was a woman! Since then I have gotten a couple thousand more dollars worth of skin ink, and since then he has never said another word!
When we last broached this subject we learned that the Polynesians had actually created the word Tattoo by a variation of their own word TATU which means to mark. But let’s not forget to include all cultures who have had a hand in creating what skin art has become in the last 100 years.
Japanese Skin Art
The Japanese originated some of the cultural body suits as well. Their body art came in a bit more colorful version then the Polynesian version but additionally was reserved only for the men. It was unacceptable and unheard of for a woman to have skin art. The Japanese believed that the skin art itself acted as wards in protection from evils. This is why warriors were commonly painted more fiercely the more skill and cunning they showed in battles. Japanese skin art collectors commonly ink dragons, demons and strong warriors on their backs to prevent evil from ‘sneaking up behind’ the bearer of the tattoo. The art form of cultural body suits eventually spread far into Asia and was discovered by none other then the 12th century explorer Marco Polo.Marco Polo then unleashed the Asian concept of body suits onto English Society.
Real Tribal Skin Art
The Aztec, Incan, Mayan and various Native American tribes have practiced tattooing since ancient times. The North American Iroquois Indians shocked European settlers and pioneers with their immense body and skin arts. Some Native Americans became relative curiosities in some of the courts of Europe because of their tattoos and piercings. In the areas of the United States that are now known as Kansas, Oklahoma and Missouri resided a large Native American tribe known as the Osage Nation. The Osage nation adorned themselves with skin art as a form of their social status. But unlike some of the other Native American tribes, the most heavily tattooed members were the females. Indeed, the more tattoos a woman had the higher her social rank would become. In most Native American tribes, young warriors should always receive their tattoos from a Shaman or the tribal medicine man.
If you think some skin art can be painful now. Try to imagine how skin art began. Its highly likely that prehistoric man accidentally stumbled onto the idea of tattooing. Early tattoos were done by cutting a pattern into the skin and then rubbing ash, dirt and different dark substances into the wound to create a scar tissue shaped in a specific way. This was known as a Keloid. This form of tattooing was mostly seen in Africa among some tribes who to this day still practice this form of skin art. The Keloid on the left looks sort of like a tree or mushroom. Certainly not a very perfected form of skin art, but a form nonetheless.
The sole purpose of early tattoos were directly related to the cultural and religious beliefs of the tribes who adorned them. These tattoos were also 
often seen as a rite of passage into adulthood. We do know that as early as the year 2000 BC that ancient Egyptians were practicing the arts of henna and tattooing specifically for cosmetic forms of these arts. Mummies have been discovered who had previously had eyeliner tattoos.
So a few hundred years back a very well preserved mummy was found inside of a glacier in the Alps. This was the body of a hunter who had perished there over 5,200 years before. Eventually his body froze into the glacier and was preserved in ice for so very long. This hunter was dubbed the ICEMAN but also came with a few additional surprises. One that found scientist boggled the most were his well preserved tattoos. The ICEMAN had 47 tattoos covering his body that were considered medicinal tattoos. All of his tattoos were located in 
acupuncture points all over the body. This indeed was a boggling prospect for scientist who know that acupuncture was invented by the ancient Chinese around the time of the birth and life of Christ. This is 3000 years later then what the Iceman disproves. They determined that his tattoos were done with slivers of bones which then had charcoal rubbed into the open wounds to create a tattoo once the swelling subsided.
Tattooing is even mentioned at least six times in the Bible. As God was punishing Cain for killing Able he places a mark on Cain so that anyone who found him would not kill him. Some may consider this more of a branding, but no doubt the concept is much the same. The ancient Polynesians also practiced their own art of tattooing which consisted of a tattoo that covered the entire lower half of the body and even in some instances, the entire body including their face and hands. Yes, I see no shame in admitted the tattoo above here has incredible artist quality. And the tattoo is a hell of a creation too! So here it is shown how the ancient art of Polynesian body suits has lived on until today.
Last but not least it is important to know that the word TATTOO is actually derived from the Polynesian word “TATU” which means to mark.
Only in the last one hundred years or so can anyone claim to have come near to perfecting the art of tattooing. It is also likely an ongoing learning practice that will only continue to improve with time!
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