Remembering and Uncovering Spiritual Medicinal Tattoos

Abstract

Abstract: How do cultures outside of the United States use tattoos for therapeutic medicinal purposes? How can we preserve these important traditions? This paper explores how cultures in South America, Southeast Asia, Greenland, Canada, The Great Lakes, and Alaska use tattoos for medicinal purposes and how these traditional, magical and spiritual tattoos are beneficial and need to be explored. Different cultural laws prohibit the practice of tattoos and cultural shifts suppress the growth and knowledge of medicinal tattoos. For thousands of years, people around the world have practiced tattooing because of its perceived effectiveness as a medicinal therapy. Specific body locations, such as the neck, spine, ankle, and knee joints, are where preventive, curative, and spiritualistic tattoo medicine were practiced. Since many of the practitioners have died, this cultural heritage is slowly becoming extinct. With the revival of medicinal tattoos, these tattoos can potentially be used internationally to heal people, would be widely known across the world, and accessible. Examining the paleopathological record of tattooed mummies and looking at the technical use of medicinal tattoos by indigenous tribes, like skin-stitching, guardian tattoos, and joint-tattooing (similar to acupuncture). These tattoos are meant to guide and protect human counterparts, to cleanse the body, and to heal arthritic ailments. The studied data is analyzed and discussed in terms of qualitative research through academic journals, articles, newspaper and the use of visual images, in order to understand the methods and purpose of these medicinal tattoos and to preserve the history of magical, spiritual, and medicinal tattoos.

Keywords: Traditional tattoos, Tattoos, Iceman, Ötzi, Medicinal tattoos, Culture, Anthropology, Southeast Asia, Russia, South America, Nigeria, Therapeutic tattoos, Joint-tattooing, Skin-stitching, Guardian tattoos