Japanese tattoo
The history of Japanese tattoo strikes imagination with variety of factors that influenced its development, with variety of meaning the tattoo had during ages and with variety of purposes tattoo was used on. At first the tattoo for Japan was a way to punish criminals. It was a special form of penalty. That penalty was of three stages. Say, one has committed a crime at the first time he will be sentenced for tattooing, that tattoo will be a line. Once he commits another crime he will have two of those, and after the third time he will have three of those. And the three lines are the word "dog" on the forehead.
Another function of Japanese tattoo is to show the braveness and strength of a man. The tattooing is rather painful process and it will take much strength to have it. There were no special tools at that time and so the tattooing was even more painful than it is today. The more tattoos one had the braver and stronger he was considered. So, usually the bodies of Japanese men were covered with tattoos. The bodies of women were also covered with tattoos. Though, not every woman may have the tattoo on their body.
Common, the tattoo was typical for geishas. Moreover, it was their distinctive features. The tattoo for geisha was one of five proves of love. If you think that it was enough to have a butterfly on a wrist you are wrong. The whole body of a geisha had to be covered with tattoos just like the bodies of members of Yakudza were. Only in that case the tattoo could be recognised as a proof.
The peculiar type of women's tattoo is a kakusi-boro. Those are tattoos peculiar for their colour and tattooing. The process of patterning kakusi-boro is rather painful process especially for woman. It was easier for man to undergo the pain of standard tattooing than for a woman to undergo the pain of kakusi0boro. The kakusi-boro was patterned by means of cutting the skin with special knife. Than the rice powder was rub in those cuts. The tattoo remained invisible till a woman gets excited or wet after bath.
The Japanese tattoo is peculiar for its asymmetry that is typical feature for common tattoo. Japan was the first one to deviate of rules of tattooing and create its own. Strict distinction of the motif of tattoo also was a peculiar feature of Japanese tattoo. Moreover, the main characters of a tattoo were always outlined with decorative lines. Those are also peculiar for a variety of plots and images. Those are not just separate images but a composition of images that are united under common idea.
Japanese tattoo provided tattoo-lovers all over the world with the most popular and beautiful image for tattoo – the image of eastern dragon. Actually the image of western dragon is deviant of the eastern one. The hieroglyphs that nowadays decorate bodies of a number of people are also the present of Japanese culture.