So far tattooing has been mentioned only incidentally; but as it is
one of the most widely prevalent methods of primitive personal
"decoration" a few pages must be devoted to it in order to ascertain
whether it is true that it is one of those ornamentations which, as
Darwin would have us believe, help to determine the marriages of
mankind, or, as Westermarck puts it, "men and women began to... tattoo
themselves chiefly in order to make themselves attractive to the
opposite sex--that they might court successfully, or be courted." We
shall find that, on the contrary, tattooing has had from the earliest
recorded times more than a dozen practical purposes, and that its use
as a stimulant of the passion of the opposite sex probably never
occurred to a savage until it was suggested to him by a philosophizing
visitor.
Twenty-four centuries ago Herodotus not only noted that the Thracians
had punctures on their skins, but indicated the reason for them: they
are, he said, "a mark of nobility: to be without them is a testimony
of mean descent."[98] This use of skin disfigurements prevails among
the lower races to the present day, and it is only one of many
utilitarian and non-esthetic functions subserved by them. In his
beautifully illustrated volume on Maori tattooing, Major-General
Robley writes:
"Native tradition has it that their first settlers used to
mark their faces for battle with charcoal, and that the
lines on the face thus made were the beginnings of the
tattoo. To save the trouble of this constantly painting
their warlike decorations on the face, the lines were made
permanent. Hence arose the practice of carving the face and
the body with dyed incisions. The Rev. Mr. Taylor ...
assumes that the chiefs being of a lighter race, and having
to fight side by side with slaves of darker hues, darkened
their faces in order to appear of the same race."