“far down into the middle ages, tattooing seems to have been confined to criminals.  It was used as branding was formerly in Europe, whence probably the contempt still felt for tattooing by the Japanese upper classes.  From condemned desperadoes to bravoes at large is but a step.  The swashbucklers of feudal times took to tattooing, apparently because some blood and thunder scene of adventure, engraven on their chest and limbs, helped to give them a terrific air when stripped for any reason of their clothes.  Other classes whose avocations led them to baring their bodies in public followed—­the carpenters, for instance, and running grooms; and the tradition remained of ornamenting almost the entire body and limbs with a hunting, theatrical, or other showy scene.”

Shortly after 1808 “the government made tattooing a penal offence.”

It will be noticed that in this account the fantastic notion that the custom was ever indulged in for the purpose of beautifying the body in order to attract the other sex is, as in all the other citations I have made, not even hinted at.  The same is true in the summary made by Mallery of the seventeen purposes of tattooing he found.  No. 13 is, indeed, “to charm the other sex;” but it is “magically,” which is a very different thing from esthetically.  I append the summary (418): 

“1, to distinguish between free and slave, without reference to the tribe of the latter; 2, to distinguish between a high and low status in the same tribe; 3, as a certificate of bravery exhibited by supporting the ordeal of pain; 4, as marks of personal prowess, particularly; 5, as a record of achievements in war; 6, to show religious symbols; 7, as a therapeutic remedy for disease; 8, as a prophylactic against disease; 9, as a brand of disgrace; 10, as a token of a woman’s marriage, or, sometimes, 11, of her marriageable condition; 12, identification of the person, not as a tribesman, but as an individual; 13, to charm the other sex magically; 14, to inspire fear in the enemy; 15, to magically render the skin impenetrable to weakness; 16, to bring good fortune, and, 17, as the device of a secret society.”

SCARIFICATION.

Dark races, like the Africans and Australians, do not practise tattooing, because the marks would not show conspicuously on their black skins.  They therefore resort to the process of raising scars by cutting the skin with flint or a shell and then rubbing in earth, or the juice of certain plants, etc.  The result is a permanent scar, and these scars are arranged by the different tribes in different patterns, on divers parts of the body.  In Queensland the lines, according to Lumholtz (177),