Body Art and Culture
We are all a work of art! The body can be used in order to express artistic style or culture. In America, styles and fads run the gamut from glam to slum. What a person wears, what hair style they wear, and how a person applies their makeup tells so much about a person. A business suit denotes a business meeting or a successful individual, while a jogging suit denotes a health conscious individual. Jewelry, manicured nails, and names on shoes, purses, or clothing are signs of wealth. The point is our body is a canvas; and we pierce it, temporarily paint it, clothe it, and - growing more common every day - permanently paint it. This permanent paint is known as body ink, body art, or more widely known as tattoo. Tattooing in America is a choice. It tells people something, if not just a small portion, about the person with the tattoo. Tattooing did not start in America. When it made its way across the ocean to America it was on the bodies of sailors and the military. Today, tattoos can be seen on millions of people worldwide, but the growing population of tattooing people is middle-class stay at home moms. The negative connotation surrounding tattoos dictated that only criminals, side-show freaks, or military men had tattoos. This being said, today tattoos on people has become much more acceptable as our cultures mix, mingle, and linger. Body art not only tells something about the wearer, it can also mean something for the wearer. Hair, clothing, and body art can all express some cultural, religious, or personal meaning to the wearer. For example, Kaur’s hair was a sign of her religion and faith, and certain tattoos signify the death of a friend, colleague, or loved one, and clothing symbolizes likes or dislikes, personal interests, and employment. Schildkrout and Kaur both show how these displays of the outer self can reflect the inner self, and how the body can be used to reflect culture or art.
Kaur discusses body image which for her was affected by culture and religion. She just wanted to fit in with her peers but she was obligated by her connection to family and religious culture to keep her hair long. Eventually, her desire to be like her peers gave her the strength to cut her hair but it only helped her realize her hair, her connection to her culture and her inner faith was more important than looking like the status quo. Kaur’s desire to belong in a group inspired her to cut her hair, much like getting a tattoo or smoking in order to fit in influenced many of my peers. I can certainly relate with Kaur’s overwhelming desire to want to belong.
Where Kaur connects with the audience by telling a personal story of her struggles with body image versus religious and familial loyalty, Schildkrout discusses body modification in a much more sterile and informative fashion. Her essay is not a personal exploration, but a historical look at different aspects of body modifications, including tattooing, scarring, piercing, and body painting. She talks about each one briefly, and touches on how each one holds cultural importance. The writings of Kaur and Schildkrout are as diverse as the various body
modifications they discuss.
While Schildkrout speaks about different cultures, Kaur gives the reader a first-hand account of how body perception is effected by one particular culture, especially when that culture is surrounded by another. Schildkrout states, “Hair is the easiest and most obvious parts of the body subject to change” (Hirsschberg & Hirschberg, 2009, p. 108), but this was not a true statement for Kaur. Hair may be the easiest thing to change for most people, but not for women of the Sikh religion, to which Kaur belongs. In order to understand Kaur’s familial and religious beliefs about hair, one must understand her religion.
The Sikh religion originated in Northern India around five hundred years ago carrying a message of truth because they are always searching for the truth. Sikh believe in one God and in reincarnation. They have eleven gurus, the eleventh one’s soul living eternally in the written words of their holy book or transcripts. To be baptized a Sikh means to be baptized a disciple.
Sikhs who are baptised(sic) and make a special commitment to Sikhism, go through an ‘Amrit’ ceremony. They are then known as part of the ‘Khalsa panth’ (brotherhood of all those who have committed). They are all required to wear the five Ks to represent this unity and spiritual being...
The five Ks represent:
1. Kesh (hair) – uncut hair and beard as it is given to us by god
2. Kangha (wooden comb) – to be worn in the hair at all times, as a symbol of cleanliness
3. Katchera (shorts) – cotton underwear which symbolize purity
4. Kara (steel bangle) – worn on the wrist to symbolize truth and freedom
5. Kirpan (sword) – to defend the truth (Kwintessential Ltd., 2008)
This explains why Kaur’s mother and grandmother did not want her to cut her hair, because to cut her hair would be like an adulterer breaking their vows. To be a Sikh meant to pledge your life to that God and those beliefs. So knowing all of this, the reader can understand to a greater extent why her mother and grandmother responded so harshly when Kaur finally succumbed to peer-pressure. Her mom had this to say: “[Your hair] is identity. It is your commitment to an honest life, to a compassionate life. It is your character, your credibility.” (p. 158). Kaur describes the immense guilt she felt and the inner discovery she found after cutting her hair.
Just as Kaur’s hair had a spiritual meaning for her, many other body modifications can hold spiritual meaning for different cultures, groups, and individuals. Schildkrout discusses a few of these in her essay, Body Art as Visual Language. Matter of fact, she has a section on “Cultural Significance of Body Art” which addresses the spirituality of body art. She elaborates, “Besides being decorative, tattoos, paint, and scars can mediate the relationships between people and the spiritual world. The decorated body can serve as a shield to repel evil or as a means of attracting good fortune” (p. 106). It is important to separate spiritual and religion here. For Kaur her decision to cut her hair was a spiritual one, although the choice not to cut her hair had been a religious one. Religious symbolizes an oneness with a group, rituals, and worship, and spirituality symbolizes an inner being, a knowing of one’s self, and a path of discovery. Body modification can be attached to either religious or spiritual journeys, rites, or rituals. Micah Martin (2001) quotes another work which puts it this way:
The concept of religion is often viewed as a societal phenomenon, involving social institutions with rules, rituals, covenants, and formal procedures. By contrast, a typical view of spirituality refers to the individual’s personal experience, commonly seen as connected to some formal religion but increasingly viewed as not necessarily associated with any organized religion.
Tattooing is one of these modifications that can be interpreted as spiritual or religious.
Some critics of tattooing accuse tattoees or tattoo artists of “playing Indian” (Schwarz, 2006), or link tattooing to other self-mutilating practices, but the truth is that tattooing has been around for millennia. And most tattooing can be traced back to religious groups, such as in Arab nations, but not all religions believed in tattooing. Christianity and Judaism both hold the belief that tattooing is a heathen act, and against God. Christians who read their bibles will note a scripture in Leviticus that tells the Christian follower not to “make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print any marks upon you” (Vanishing tattoo crew, 2010), but ancient Hebrews wore religious tattoos. Jews do not believe in tattooing because of the Leviticus scripture; however Moslems would receive tattoos to commemorate their visit to Mecca or Medina. Another religion with the sun god, Baal, required the worshippers to be tattooed. And, in 787 a church group, known as the Fathers of Church “distinguished between profane tattoos and Christian tattoos. They wrote: ‘When an individual undergoes the ordeal of tattooing for the sake of God, he is greatly praised. But one who submits himself to be tattooed for superstitious reasons in the manner of the heathens will derive no benefit there from.” (Vanishing tattoo crew, 2010). Even today, many religions do not agree with tattooing, which adds to the negative stigma of tattoos.
According to Schwarz tattoos were “stigmatized as something only marginalized, lower-class people would have”, but I am a middle-class working nurse and mother of four; and I am still getting tattoos. They tell the world a little bit about who I am, they show an artistic side of me, and they are beautiful. During my lifetime, I have watched the trend of tattooing to move from a person walking into a tattoo parlor (in a neighboring state) and wait in line for any random tattoo selected from the artist’s work to a trend where a person (such as myself) has to make an appointment, and can get their work personalized. For instance, my tattoos are all personalized to fit my personality and my life. They essentially tell a story about my life. I do not have to worry about someone else having the same tattoo as me. Schwarz states that these changes were influenced by different cultures and the way they tattooed. Places like Japan (who were doing full body tattooing), New Zealand (facial tattoos), Melanesia, and Micronesia are just a few countries and cultures which influenced the western world and our tattooing habits and trends. The days of getting a few small tattoos “with little or no concern for their placement or relationships between or among them” (Schwarz, 2006, 224) are over. Today, we want larger tattoos, and we want them interconnected and relatable to each other. They have to have meaning – not just be the run of the mill, cookie cutter tattoo. “Thus, the current renaissance of tattoo as fine art that is taking place across North America provides an occasion to reconsider, in a provocative way, the fascination of Americans with ‘playing Indian’ and with all things Indian” (p. 225). I can see where someone would see that, since there does seem to be a fascination of tribal tattoos. Take a cruise through online tattoo albums, and you find thousands (or more) tattoos which are tribal or related in some way to American Indians – whether it be a wolf, an eagle, a dream catcher, or totem pole. Personally, I have not found a connection with the tribal or Indian tattoos, even though part of my heritage is Cherokee Indian. This is what makes tattoos a personal decision, though. Also, it has been established that American Indians were not the only influencers of tattooing.
Schwarz states, “Individuals frequently seek to form and reclaim themselves through the act of becoming tattooed” (p. 229), and this could not be further from the truth for me. I began with a self-etched tattoo when I was just fifteen years old, a very difficult time for most teenagers; but even more difficult for a teenager who was feeling abandoned, abused, and neglected. I wanted desperately to fit in anywhere I could find a place, and when a friend introduced me to Indian ink, I was hooked. Years later when I was tired of explaining the cross on my hand (which did not look anything like a cross); I got it covered up – along with the initials on my upper arm. Then, because I have been going through such turmoil and change in my life, and because I love everything about tattooing – I decided to connect the two tattoos. My tattoo is large, very visible, and would be a shock to almost everyone who knows or knew me. It is beautiful to me and expresses my love of roses, vines, and butterflies (and a certain couple of monkeys!). I do not regret my decision, and am constantly told by others how much they love my art. Ironically, I started tattooing to belong,, and now continue tattooing to be different.
Whether we look at body art from a personal aspect or an aesthetic perspective, such as in the story by Kaur or the essay by Schildkrout; we need to examine our own attitudes about body modification. I would invite the reader to remember that body modification is just a more permanent form of the fads and trends that plague the American culture. Much like cutting our hair, changing our clothes, or buying the newest shoes and pocketbook, tattooing and piercing says to the world, ‘Look at me’. For some people it can be a spiritual and religious journey, like it was for Kaur when she made the decision to cut her hair although she knew it was against the beliefs she had been taught during her lifetime. Kaur’s story just further proves the point that peer pressure can be a stronger influence than family beliefs and religious beliefs; which also was a fact in my life. For Schildkrout body modification is an art form displayed on flesh, but for Kaur’s mother the body was committed to an entity higher than herself. She instilled in her daughter that her body was not hers to change or modify at will. From these two very different writing styles, one could ascertain that it is best for an individual to be true to their selves, especially when it comes to permanent body modifications. In Kaur’s case, hair can grow back, but a hole in the body is a lot harder to mend.
References
Demello, M. (December, 1995). “Not Just for Bikers Anymore”: Popular Representations of
American Tattooing. Journal of Popular Culture, 29 (3): 37-52. Retrieved from EBSCO.
Hirsschberg & Hirschberg, (Eds) 2009. One World, Many Cultures seventh edition. Pearson
Education, Inc. Rutgers, New Jersey.
Kwintessential Ltd 2008. A Brief Introduction to Sikhism. United Kingdom. Retrieved online at
Martin, M. L. (2001). Body Modification and Its Relation to Religiosity and Spirituality.
Samford University. Retrieved from www4.samford.edu/schools.artsci.scs/martin.html.
Schwarz, M. T., 2006. Native American Tattoos: Identity and Spirituality in Contemporary
America. Visual Anthropology, 19:223-254. Retrieved from EBSCO: Doi: 10.1080/08949460500297398.
Vanishing Tattoos Crew. (2010). Tattoo History: Religious Tattoos. Retrieved from
www.vanishingtattoo.com/tattoo_museum.
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