A book on native pain rituals?

September 18, 2006 6:40 PM

I'm looking for a book on ancient rituals of piercing and tattooing. Particularly among tribe members for purposes of adornment.

My wife and I have had a look on amazon, and there dosent seem to be anything.

Can anyone out there reccomend a book on this topic?

Thanks in advance.

posted by psyward to society & culture (6 comments total)

Here's the American Museum of Natural History's suggested readings list for a 2000 exhibit.

My primary suggestion, although I haven't read it entirely, would be Victoria Pitts' In the flesh: the cultural politics of body modification.

And more suggestions here, here, here, here, and here.

And on a related tangent, I always enjoy browsing Hanzi Smatter.
posted by billtron at 7:03 PM on September 18, 2006

D Simmons Ta Moko: the art of Maori Tattooing may be of interest and H G Robley Maori Tattooing. Both of these are available from Amazon. Google up Samoan tattooing as well.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 7:29 PM on September 18, 2006

Robert Brain's The Decorated Body and the RE/search Modern Primitives interview collection are both excellent, although the latter speaks more to modern manifestations.
posted by jtron at 8:30 PM on September 18, 2006

Marks of Civilization edited by Arnold Rubin is an incredible book along those lines. Out of print but it looks like Amazon's got some used copies listed.
posted by RoseovSharon at 9:27 PM on September 18, 2006

The Modern Primitive? amazon
posted by YoBananaBoy at 10:43 AM on September 19, 2006

What kind of book are you looking for?

There are some good old ethnographies (as in the above comments), but few of them are cross-cultural, and the focus isn't usually on the art, and most of them exhibit the usual biases. There are books like Modern Primitives, but they've got a different kind of bias, and, worse, aren't fact-checked as well as one might like. There are tattoo art books, but, with a few exceptions (books about Horiyoshi, for example), few provide much historical information. And there's van Dinter's Tribal Tattoo Designs, which does an excellent job of providing images and a poor job of providing context (plus, it's OOP and not-cheap). (All that said, Marks of Civilization sounds like it might be closest to what you want, and many libraries have copies.)
posted by box at 10:58 AM on September 19, 2006