It is a fact of great interest that the tendency to painting and adorning the body existed already in prehistoric times, thus affording a notable illustration of the truth of Herbert Spencer’s opinion that the vanity of uncivilized man was much greater than that of civilized man. In palæolithic dwellings coloured earths have actually been discovered, and coloured pastes made by mixing iron rust with reindeer fat, which unquestionably were employed for the colouring of the human body. Moreover, as Ludwig Stein remarks, the history of cosmetics, which Lord Bacon, in his “Cosmetica,” dated from the days of Biblical antiquity, can be traced back with certainty to the man of the ice age, upon whose individual and moral qualities this fact throws a significant light. According to Klaatsch, palæolithic man was not contented simply with painting his skin; he also tattooed himself by means of fine flint knives.[84]
Painting and tattooing of the body must, then, be regarded as a primitive stage of clothing. Ploss-Bartels remarks: “I find it impossible to doubt that the original meaning of tattooing is to be found in the endeavour to cover nakedness”; and Joest, the most learned student of tattooing, is of the same opinion. He writes: “The less a man clothes himself, the more he tattoos his skin; and the more he clothes himself, the less he tattoos.”[85]
We must also regard the coloration of the skin produced by tattooing as a means of allurement; tattooing was, in fact, principally carried out for the purpose of sexual allurement and stimulation. The tattooed man is the more beautiful, the more worthy object of desire. Even in cases in which painting and tattooing were originally undertaken for other purposes—for instance, with some therapeutic aim, or perhaps to serve as means of social or political differentiation—still, these signs and visible changes in the skin of the body speedily exerted a powerful influence upon the other sex, and by sexual selection were converted into sexual lures.[86]
This sexual character of tattooing is indicated also by the fact that amongst numerous savage people of the South Seas, in the Caroline Islands, in New Guinea, and in the Pelew Islands, the girls, in order to attract the men, were accustomed to tattoo exclusively the genital region, and especially the mons Veneris; thus, by tattooing, they made this region markedly apparent. It is characteristic that Miklucho-Maclay at the first glance received the impression that the girl tattooed in this manner wore on the mons Veneris a three-cornered piece of blue cloth, so closely can tattooing simulate clothing.
The sexual nature of tattooing is also shown by its association with phallic festivals. In Tahiti there is a very characteristic legend regarding the sexual origin of tattooing.[87] Among many primitive peoples the first appearance of menstruation gives the signal for tattooing, and for priapistic festivals.
An important sexual relationship is also manifested by the colour element of tattooing. It appears that the sense of love in primitive man is closely connected with the sight of particular colours. According to Konrad Lange, the sensual voluptuous value of these colours obtained its peculiar character from the feeling of love associated with viewing them; and, speaking generally, we can prove the existence of a certain association between the love of colour and the sexual impulse. Lange records an experience of his own youth, that when, about fourteen years of age, he was glancing at a vari-coloured necktie he had feelings which were not very different in their nature from sexual desire. He rightly draws attention to the fact that in primitive man this association of ideas is especially vivid, for the reason that, as already stated, the painting of the body is usually first undertaken at the time of the commencement of puberty.[88]
It is a significant fact that among modern civilized peoples the practice of tattooing is generally confined to certain lower classes of the population, such as sailors, criminals, and prostitutes, among whom the primitive impulses remain active in a quite exceptional strength, as Lombroso has more especially shown in his “Palimsesti di Carcere,” and in his works on the criminal and the prostitute. Very frequently obscene tattooings were found in such persons.[89] Marro, Lacassagne, Batut, and Rudolf Bergh, have also studied the tattooings of prostitutes and criminals, and have observed the same objects and ornaments in both classes. Salillas in Spain, Drago in the Argentine, Ellis and Greaves in England, and Tronow in Russia, obtained similar results. In 12·5 per cent. of the inmates of reformatories in Brieg, Kurella found that the skin was tattooed. According to him, cynicism, revenge, cruelty, remorselessness, gloomy or indifferent fatalism, bestial lewdness, with a dominant tendency to unnatural vices of every kind, “constituted the principal psychical manifestations exhibited by these tattoo-pictures.”
“Pæderastic symbols among the men, and tribadistic among the female prostitutes, are of especially frequent occurrence, and among these we often find a mackerel sketched on the vulva, denoting the souteneur; still more perverse sexual representations even French authors such as Batut have not ventured to reproduce; we see things which would send the police des mœurs out of their minds. Already in quite young vagabonds, frequently sons of prostitutes, we see representations of this kind.”[90]
Not only, however, in criminals and prostitutes, but also in the non-criminal members of the lowest classes of the population, we often observe erotic tattooings of the most obscene character, which, without doubt, serve as sexual lures and stimuli. J. Robinsohn and Friedrich S. Krauss recently published an interesting account of these matters.[91]
Cases of Tattooing in Women of the Upper Classes.—It appears that the primitive tendency to tattooing as a sexual stimulus and means of allurement has recently revived in certain circles of the refined sensual world. René Schwaeblé, in his celebrated book based on his own observations and moral studies, and entitled, “Les Détraquées de Paris” (Paris, 1904), gives an account of the increasing diffusion of tattooing among both men and women of the upper classes of Parisian society, for which purpose a specialist has opened an atelier in the Rue Blanche, in Montmartre. Schwaeblé devotes a special chapter to the “tatouées” (pp. 47-57), and describes an assembly of some of these distinguished libertines in a house in the Rue de la Pompe in Passy. In one of these ladies, tattooing imitated in a most deceptive manner a pair of stockings, thus affording a characteristic instance of the above-mentioned association between tattooing and clothing. Another woman had inscriptions tattooed on the thighs and hips; in two the legs were adorned with garlands of vine-leaves, birds were billing on the abdomen, and on the back were depicted many coloured bouquets of flowers, with the inscription, “X. pinxit, after Watteau.” A marchioness had her family coat-of-arms depicted between the shoulder blades; another great lady had had tattooed on her body the maddest and most obscene drawings of a satanistic character! Two unmistakably homosexual women had a common tattooing—that is to say, one was complementary to the other; only when they were side by side had the picture a meaning. The most remarkable of all the tattooings, however, was that of the hostess. On her body was the picture of a complete hunt, the individual scenes of which wound round her body; it was in the most vivid colours; carriages, packs of hounds and hunters were all shown. The final goal of the hunt was a fox tattooed in the genital region.