Body Art

The word "tattoo" comes from the tahitian word "tatau" which means "to mark something". It may have been picked up by sailors — the first to popularize tattoing in the West — who likely learned techniques from their travels at sea. The actual origins of tattooing are unknown, since evidence traces it to nearly all ancient cultures, from Maori tribesmen to the Thracian women of fifth-century Greece, to the Ainu of Japan, to the indigenous tribes in polynesia. In fact, "Oetzi, The Iceman" - the oldest and best-preserved frozen mummy ever found - had 57 tattoos.

Tattoos have served as rites of passage, marks of status and rank, symbols of religious and spiritual devotion, decorations for bravery, sexual lures and marks of fertility, pledges of love, amulets and talismans. Ancient Greeks marked criminals and slaves with tattoos as a form of punishment.

Tattooed Roman soldiers popularized the art form, spreading it across the Roman Empire. However, roman emperor Constantine banned tattooing after deeming it un-Christian.

Prior to 2004, tattoing is illegal in South Carolina and Oklahoma. In 1999, there was a sensational case of illegal tattoing in South Carolina, as Ronald White appeared on TV tattoing a customer. 10 days after that, police officers dressed in full combat gear and bulletproof vests arrested him at his home. White was then sentenced to a year in prison and a $2,500 fine. It was later reduced when White appealed that tattoing is a form of art and should be a part of the first ammendment. The tattooing ban was lifted in 2004 in South Carolina and in 2006 in Oklahoma.

In 1936, 10 million Americans have tattoos. Today, the figure rose to 40 million. However, 17% of those people regret getting a tattoo, but a mere 2% only actually have it removed.

Some of the historical world leaders with tattoos are: Winston Churchill (anchor), Joseph Stalin (death's head) and Franklin D. Roosevelt (family crest).

If you are aspiring to become a tattoo artist, you should be aware that you could be sued for misspelling. Dan O'Connor was sued when he misspelled "Fighting Irish" as "Fighing Irish". Another tattoo-related lawsuit arose when Joseph Beahm misspelled "Why not, everyone else does" as "Why not, everyone elese does". And Lee Beck got sued for inking chinese characters which are supposed to say "Love, honor and obey", but made a frank by inking letters that actually said "This boy is ugly".

Now, if you need extra money, you can use your head as a billboard space. Jim Nelson in 2003, for example, put his head on eBay for auction, which was won by CI-Host, a web hosting company based in Dallas entitling it to tattoo its bright orange and blue logo onto Nelson's head. The fee was $7,000.

Random Odds & Ends

• Humans shed about 600,000 particles of skin every hour - about 1.5 pounds a year. By 70 years of age, an average person will have lost 105 pounds of skin.
• The Nazis, during the Holocaust, used human skin as a substitute for leather in the manufacture of lampshades and shoes, among other things.
• A fetus acquires fingerprints at the age of three months.
• Every person has a unique tongue print.
• Every time you lick a stamp, you're consuming 1/10 of a calorie.