Tattoo History - Sailors
Sailors
In 1769, on their first trip to the southern seas, some of the sailors in James Cook's crew let the natives of Tahiti decorate their skin as a memory of their experiences in this foreign and strange culture. They were the first to bring those so called "Tataus", a former native ritual action, as a fashion statement to europe. In the beginning mostly native tribal symbols were done, the forerunner of todays Tribal Tattoos.
At the end of the 18th century tattoos were already spread among sailors widely and the british navy was the first to register some patterns.
The russian Admiral Krusenstern talked in his "Journey Around The World" (1805) about every man in his crew getting tattooed while on sea. Tattoos where so popular then that a professional tattoo artist who was brought on board could hardly get all the sailors tattooed. Samuel O'Reilly said in due time: "A Sailor Without A Tattoo Is Like A Ship Without Grog: Unseaworthy."
Most of the tattoos were still done by natives on sailors and slowly the native tribal motives were mixed with the european designs. Synonyms for the southern seas, where they got their tattoos done, like Palm Trees, Exotic Birds, Ships, Anchors, Pin-Ups or Light Houses were mostly done at first. Maritime designs which had a big symbolic meaning for each and every carrier. The designs showed a close connection to the sailors homeland, the people who lived there and were also carried as good luck charms. Nowadays those kind of designs and images fall in the category of Traditional Tattoos.
A lot of sailors learned the abilities of the natives and used them on their ships or on their shore leaves and also gave them on to others. This way professional Tattoo Shops originated in seaport all over the world. The owners of the shops were mostly former sailors who, due to a lack of alternatives, still had to apply the Tataus in the traditional native way until 1891 Samuel O'Reilly introduced the revolutionary electro mechanic tattoo machine which made it possible for artists to apply the tattoos much faster and way less painful.
The actual father of those still popular sailor/traditional designs is Charles Wagner.
Some of their meanings are:
- A Light House, usually with the name of the sailors hometown was supposed to bring him luck on his journey
- A Cross is the symbol for the Christian faith
- A Heart With Flames, Sacred Heart stands for eternal love
- A Heart With A Dagger symbolizes an oath of vengeance
- Hold & Fast on the knuckles on both hands should in courage the sailor to better lace the ropes
- A Pig on one and a Cock on the other ankle protected the sailor from drowning since both animals cannot swim and would carry the sailor ashore quickly
- An Anchor means the sailor has crossed the atlantic
- A Rigged Ship says the sailor circumnavigated Cape Horn
- A Dragon symbolized a serving in China
- A Turtle shows the sailor has passed the equator
- A Golden Dragon symbolizes the sailor has crossed the date line
Know your history better than we do? Then let us know and e-mail us any additions you might have. If you know about an important event or a person influencing tattoo history that we missed out on... we wanna know about it too!
