Tuesday 8 May 2012

Japanese Tattoo Design

Japanese Tattoo Design
Japan has an extensive history of tattooing.  For thousands of years, tattoos have played a significant role in the culture of the Japanese people. From mafia symbols to clay burial figures featuring facial tattoos, tattoos have served many different purposes throughout time. “Iremuzi” is the Japanese word for traditional hand-poked tattoos. To create a permanent mark or tattoo, ink has to be inserted into the skin at a certain depth. Though modern tattooing uses a machine with automatic needles, ancient tattoo, and tattoos done in the ancient tradition, were created by poking a harkened object dipped in ink into the skin.

In this way the society of Edo progressed, and the pride and mentality of the ordinary people, manifested in such ways as dategokoro (foppish male fashion) and shokunin-kishitsu (the pride and way of thinking of the Edo working classes) of the tobishoku, or blue-collar workers, grew amongst such townspeople as labourers, manufacturers, hikeshi or firemen (in 18th century Edo urban fires were commonplace, and a major cause of mortality, as well as an ample source of tales of heroism) and petty crooks known as gaen. Some of these predominantly working class people of Edo, in imitating the heroes of the folk story Suikohden, as popularised at the time by the famous woodblock artist Kuniyoshi (Suikohden was a legend originating in China, where outlaws who, in defying the local corrupt authorities became folk heroes as protectors of the common people; an oriental equivalent of Robin Hood) began to ritualistically and painfully tattoo themselves with designs based on folklore, such as dragons, giant snakes and Chinese lions, and also with religious figures such as the Bhudda, Fudomyo (the God of Fire), Fujin and Raijin (the Gods of Wind and Lightning) and Kannon (the Goddess of Mercy) using sharp needles to insert pressed charcoal ink under their skin.
















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