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The Artistic Evolution of Japanese Tattoo Culture

Preprint · August 2019

DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.19944.01288

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Meiji University School of Global Japanese Studies
Japanese Fine Arts from a Global Perspective
Prof. Timon Screech
August 2019

Essay by: Anna Alexandra Haas-Krioutchkov

anna.alexandra@hotmail.de

The Artistic Evolution of Japanese Tattoo Culture

Tattooing is one of the world’s oldest and most widely spread forms of body modification.

Archaeologists having found mummified human remains revealing tattoos as old as 3350B.C. and

tattoos in Japan particularly, presenting records of tattoos dating back as far as 5000B.C., reveal the

art of tattooing to be a tradition dating back to prehistoric times. Since even today, traditional Japanese

motifs, designs, and stylistic sensibilities seen in Japanese tattoos, also known as Irezumi (literally

meaning “inserting ink”), remain a very influential and popular sources of inspiration behind

contemporary art and tattoos worldwide, I thought it would be interesting to research Japanese tattoo

culture in connection with Japanese Fine Arts from a historical perspective.

The first records of tattoos in Japan date back to the Jomon Palaeolithic period (14,000 to

300 B.C. approx.), in which artisans are believed to have created anthropomorphic figurines, also

known as dogu, depicting peculiar designs and patterns on their face and body. These series of incised

decorations on humanoid clay figurines excavated from Palaeolithic and Neolithic sites all over Japan

are seen as evidence that the custom of tattooing was practiced by the Japanese before the dawn of

history. The distinctive chord marked patterns on the faces of many of these dogu indicate customs of

body painting, scarification or tattooing, that have also been found in more recent carvings by

indigenous people across the Russian Maritime Region, suggesting a similarity in tribal behaviours in

the Northern Regions of Japan and beyond. These apparently ancient and unbroken traditions of

personal adornment and ritual practice have been interpreted as cultural traits intended to identify
Meiji University School of Global Japanese Studies
Japanese Fine Arts from a Global Perspective
Prof. Timon Screech
August 2019

individual tribes. But the creation of the figurines itself is believed to relate to rituals of protection by

individual families against illness, infertility and the dangers associated with childbirth.

Such archeological findings date the beginning of the tradition of tattooing in Japan as far

back as 10,000 years B.C., when the Paleolithic period is believed to have started, but in some remote

areas in Japan, this custom of ritual and tribal body marking has been found to have continued well

into modern times. One example of this, are the tribal tattoos of the indigenous people of northern

Japan, Hokkaido, also known as the Ainu, who have been suggested to be the direct descendants of

the Jomon people who inhabited Japan 12,000 years ago. Many of the artistic traditions of the Ainu

seem to have evolved from the ancestral Jomon people, many of these involving tattoos as a cultural

ritual. Until fairly recent times (the last fully tattooed Ainu woman dying in 1998), the Ainu women

were known to have tattooed their lips as part of their cultural rituals, the tradition of facial tattooing

being exclusive to females, as was the profession of tattooists. According to Ainu tradition, tattooing

was attributed to a gift from their “Ancestral Mother” Okikurumi Machi, the younger sister of their

creator god, Okikurumi and tattoos were a prerequisite for Ainu women to get married. The Ainu also

attribute healing and protective functions to tattoos that are believed to repel evil spirits. As the Ainu

have been established to be genetically related to the Jomon people, we can believe that these traditions

were partly passed down to them as part of their culture and religion. Similar evolutions of these

traditions can also be seen in the Maori people or in the Eskimo people who show similar tattoos in

their tribal customs.

Also, not only in the northern region of Japan, but also in the southern region of Japan,

similar cultural customs have been found to be part of the traditions of other indigenous tribes, such

as the Ryuukyuu clan, the indigenous inhabitants of Okinawa, particularly the people living on the
Meiji University School of Global Japanese Studies
Japanese Fine Arts from a Global Perspective
Prof. Timon Screech
August 2019

Amami Islands. The earliest records of their practices dating back to the sixteenth century, consist in

applying tattoos to the back of their hands and, in some cases, from the fingertips all the way to the

torso. These tattoos, also known as hajichi, have been associated with rites of passage, the tattoos on

the hand indicating a woman’s married status and the completion of the tattooing process being a

largely celebrated event. The design patterns differ in different regions but consisted mainly of three

elements: an arrowhead, a circle and a square. The arrowhead signifying “never coming back”, like

an arrow that is shot and never comes back, represents a daughter marrying into another house. The

circle is a symbol of winding a thread, and the square indicates a sewing box, a duty any woman

needed to excel in, in order to get married. The hachiji were done by using bamboo sticks to insert a

mix of ink and Awamori (distilled alcoholic beverage) under the skin and represented a symbol of a

woman’s status in society. Some locals even believed that a woman without proper hachiji would be

condemned to suffer in the afterlife.

The first known written record of tattoos in Japan dates back to 300 A.D., in which

inscriptions in the text History of the Chinese Dynasties have been found to mention facial tattoos and

the decoration of the body as a normal part of Japanese society. The descriptions in these Chinese

chronicles from the 3rd century reveal body marking and also body painting to be a common custom

among the Wa people (the Japanese people). Records in the History of the Han Dynasty (206 B.C.-

220 A.D.) show several Chinese visiting Japan during the Japanese Yayoi Period (300 B.C.-300 A.D.),

taking note of the elaborate tattoos worn by many Japanese. It is believed that, during this era, the

motivation behind Irezumi was spiritual, but also served as a symbol of high social status.

However, after the end of the Yayoi Period (300 B.C.-300 A.D.) and with the beginning of

the Kofun Period (300 A.D.-600 A.D.) a significant shift occurred, in which tattoos took on a rather
Meiji University School of Global Japanese Studies
Japanese Fine Arts from a Global Perspective
Prof. Timon Screech
August 2019

negative light within society. Criminals started to be marked with tattoos, a practice also referred to

as Irezumi-kei (入墨刑) or Bokugei (墨黥), similar to the way slaves were marked with descriptive

phrases of their crimes during the Roman Empire. Criminals would be tattooed on their foreheads and

lower arms depending on their crimes, so everybody could see what they had done. These markings

were reserved for only the most serious crimes and the people bearing these tattoos were rejected from

their families and by society as a whole. This practice adopted from Chinese Culture caused the stigma

towards body modification to worsen, causing tattoo culture to decline and be explicitly used as a

punishment by the 8th Century.

For a few centuries the Japanese tattoo tradition fluctuated, almost disappearing as an

artform. It was not until the Edo Period (1600 A.D.-1868 A.D.) that Japanese decorative tattoos started

to develop into what is known as Irezumi today. This development is greatly related to the arrival of

Japanese woodblock art, Mokuhanga and its use in the Ukiyo-e paintings, also known as Pictures of

the Floating World, who greatly flourished as an art form during this period. Specifically, the release

of a certain illustrated Chinese novel in Japan made the largest impact on the way tattoos were

perceived within society. This novel known in Japan as the Suikoden (“Water Margin”, Shui Hu Zhuan

in Chinese), was popularized through a series of woodblock illustrations commissioned to the famous

Ukiyo-e artist Utagawa Kuniyoshi, who draw heroic scenes of some of the novel’s most popular

outlaw warriors (also known as the “108 Stars of Destiny”), covered in large tattoos depicting mythical

beasts such as dragons, tigers, flowers and religious symbols. The first prints of this series known as

Tsuuzoku Suikoden gouketsu hyakuhachinin no hitori (“The hundred and eight popular heroes of the

Suikoden”) released in 1827, were an immediate success and the popularity of the novel lead to an

enormous growth in demand for this type of tattoos, which were associated to bravery and strength.

This style of tattoos became most popular among groups of people with lower social statuses, such as
Meiji University School of Global Japanese Studies
Japanese Fine Arts from a Global Perspective
Prof. Timon Screech
August 2019

laborers, peasants, and even gangs. Following the increase in popularity for these type of tattoos, other

artists such as Utagawa Kunisada, capitalized on the Suikoden print boom by creating prints portraying

popular Kabuki (traditional Japanese theatre form) actors displaying tattoos. By the 1860s,

leading Kabuki actors were actually appearing on stage in Kimonos dyed with tattoo-like patterns,

starring in iconic plays such as Kawatake Mokuami’s Aoto zōshi hana no nishiki-e (“The Glorious

Picture Book of Aoto’s Exploits”), about a band of honourable thieves. Such influences in the arts and

entertainment that the common people consumed made people want those types of tattoos as a physical

rendering in the form of paintings. This practice eventually evolved into what we know as the

Irezumi patterns today. During this time, many woodblock artists converted their woodblock printing

tools to be able to recreate that same art on skin. Using a unique ink known as Nara, famous for its

colour change from black to either blue or green when inserted into the skin, many Ukiyo-e artists

became tattooists using their Ukiyo-e tools and lead to tattoos becoming once again, a symbol of status

and wealthiness. It is also said that since wealthy merchants were prohibited from wearing and

displaying their wealth through jewellery, decorating their entire bodies with tattoos was their

alternative solution to show and display their riches.

Due to the large influence of ukiyo-e and kabuki, the trend toward ever larger and more

elaborate tattoos accelerated during the 19th Century, culminating in the full-body tattoo, and although

the Tokugawa shogunate (1600-1868) periodically started issuing decrees limiting tattooing, these

had little effect on the wider public. It would not be until the beginning of the Meiji period (1869-

1920), that tattoos would be outlawed again by the Meiji emperor, who banned tattoos as barbaric and

distasteful, getting in the way of his efforts to westernize the country. Travelers coming to Japan would

highlight how exotic and shocking the Westerners of the Victorian era found customs such as mixed-

sex public bathing or the sight of men walking about town virtually naked with full-body tattoos.
Meiji University School of Global Japanese Studies
Japanese Fine Arts from a Global Perspective
Prof. Timon Screech
August 2019

Interestingly enough, when tattoos were first outlawed, the law did not apply to tattooing foreigners.

And therefore, many tattoo artists set up shops in Yokohama and began tattooing foreign sailors, who

then exhibited the Japanese cultural motifs, symbols, and styles that accompanied the Irezumi all over

the world, leading to the Japanese tattoo to gain unexpected global prominence and attracting some

very distinguished clients from Europe to the bays of Yokohama. Even during this period of

government intolerance towards the Irezumi, the internationally renowned skill of Japanese Horishi

(Japanese tattoo artists) attracted visitors such as Prince George, later George V of England, and

Nicholas Alexandrovich, later Nicholas II of Russia, who are both said to have received Irezumi as

souvenirs during their visits to Meiji Period Japan. This international exposure and popularity made

many Japanese tattoo artists take their business overseas, emigrating to places like Hong Kong,

Singapore, the Philippines, Thailand, India, Britain, and the United States, as a result of tattooing being

completely banned again from 1936 up until 1946.

Japan’s legal prohibition against tattoos was completely lifted in 1948 under the US

occupation that followed Japan’s defeat in World War II. With US military bases opening up around

Japan, Japanese tattooists began catering to American servicemen, particularly around the naval base

at Yokosuka. The demand was largely for Western designs, but it still established a thriving business

for many artists. However, it was not until the 1970s that Japan's Horishi really began to emerge from

the shadows with the appearance of books and exhibitions devoted to their art. In the 1980s, tattooing

took hold among popular American and British rock bands, and their influence led to a reappearing

interest among Japanese youth towards body marking in general. This would eventually lead to the

popularity of tattoos spreading, and younger Japanese people rediscovered the appeal of traditional

Japanese Irezumi. Although the deeply rooted negative stigma against people with tattoos still remains

up to this day, I believe Irezumi have come a long way from being a symbol for criminality, gangs and
Meiji University School of Global Japanese Studies
Japanese Fine Arts from a Global Perspective
Prof. Timon Screech
August 2019

the Yakuza. Whether the notion of tattoos will furtherly change in Japan in the future is hard to predict,

but either way the intricacies and dedication put into each Irezumi piece is an admirable aspect of

artistic expression unique to Japan.

 Meiji University School of Global Japanese Studies
Japanese Fine Arts from a Global Perspective
Prof. Timon Screech
August 2019

References

Deter-Wolf, Aaron; Robitaille, Benoit; Krutak, Lars & Galliot, Sébastien "The World's Oldest

Tattoos", Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, Volume, 5 pp. 19-24, 2016.

Keo, S. “The Culture of Tattoos in Japan” 2018

https://thinkglobalschool.org/the-culture-of-tattoos-in-japan/ (2019.08.12)

Krutak, Lars “Tattooing Amongst Japan’s Ainu People” 2008

https://www.larskrutak.com/tattooing-among-japans-ainu-people/ (2019.08.12)

McLaren, Hayley “Needling Between Social Skin and Lived Experience: An Ethnographic Study of

Tattooing in Downtown Tokyo” Hitotsubashi University Repository Graduate School of Social

Sciences. 2015.

Skutlin, John “Fashioning Tattooed Bodies: An Exploration of Japan’s Tattoo Stigma” Chinese

University of Hong Kong, Asia Pacific Perspectives, Vol. 16, no. 1, pp. 4-33. 2019.

Trudeau, Matt “The Suikoden and Japanese Tattoos” Pacific Tattoo Company. 2016.

https://www.pacifictattoocompany.com/suikoden-japanese-tattoos/ (2019.08.12)

Willem R. van Gulik “Tattooing in Prehistoric Japan“ Irezumi: The Pattern of Dermatography in

Japan , National Museum of Ethnology No. 22 pp. 6-10, 44-52, 190-193, 257-263 E. J. Brill,

Leiden, 1982

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