TATTOO IN EARLY CHINA.

• Author: REED, CARRIE E.
• Position: Bibliography included

The paper introduces various modes of tattoo as described in several types of pre-modem Chinese texts. Although the study takes a widely cross-temporal view, covering texts from the Zhou to the Ming dynasties, its organizing focus is the twenty-five entries on tattoo found in the ninth-century miscellany, Youyang zazu. The author of this work, Duan Chengshi (c. 800-863), is remarkable because of his extraordinary interest in all types of tattoo, but particularly for his meticulous description of the voluntary decorative tattoos of his contemporaries. Given the fact that in China permanent body-marking was highly stigmatized, and cause for social ostracism, the information given in the Youyang zazu and other texts on tattoo is thought-provoking and valuable.

An aggressive Lord who wants to rise in power will be forced to employ his own people. They will then love me with the love of parents, and will find my scent like that of the iris and epidendrum. They will turn from their lord and look upon him as if he were tattooed, and as if he were their sworn enemy.

Xun Qing [CHINESE CHARACTERS NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (ca. 313-ca. 238 B.C) [1]

TATTOO IS REPRESENTED IN SEVERAL types of early Chinese texts, including early prose works such as the Shang shu [CHINESE CHARACTERS NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] historical works such as the Shiji [CHINESE CHARACTERS NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] and later dynaslic histories, dynastic penal codes, zhiguai [CHINESE CHARACTERS NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] and biji [CHINESE CHARACTERS NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] works and miscellanies. This paper introduces a selection of representative passages from Chinese texts that mention tattoo and is intended partly to serve as a starting point for further study of this largely neglected topic. The twenty-five entries on tattoo found in the ninth-century miscellany, Youyang zazu [CHINESE CHARACTERS NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] are both stimulus for and focus of the paper; it is, in fact, their content that determines the types of tattoo to be considered. The author of Youyang zazu, Duan Chengshi [CHINESE CHARACTERS NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (c. 800-863), deserves our gratitude be cause of his extraordinary interest in all types of tattoo, but particularly because of his meticulous description of Tang-dynasty figurative and textual tattoo. His beautiful descriptions of full-body tattoo raise many questions, questions of immense interest for students of Tang life and culture, as well as of informal narrative literature. What do we learn from the entries in a collection of informal narratives, such as a miscellany, that we do not learn from other types of texts? In what way does this collection of entries augment information already available? Besides communicating fascinating and educational data about the socio-cultural world of his time, Duan's tattoo entries may reveal something of Duan's own interests and world-view in general. Their place in his larger collection is of interest--why did he place them where he did, in Juan eight, with entries on dreams and lightning?

For the sake of organizational convenience, the paper treats separately several types, or modes, of tattoo, with some inevitable overlapping of types. The specific Youyang zazu entries that represent each type are presented after a brief discussion of that type. Since the pieces do not appear in their original order, I have given the entry number of each for easy reference.

The types of tattoo that are most often mentioned in early Chinese sources are: tattoo as one defining characteristic of a people different from the majority population, tattoo as punishment, tattoo of slaves, tattoo as facial adornment, tattoo in the military, and figurative and textual tattoo. Although the last two types are not always related, in Youyang zazu they seem to be taken up together and so they will not be treated separately here.

As this study takes a widely cross-temporal view, and since the original texts describe tattoo of many peoples and places, naturally the terms found used for tattoo vary widely as well. There is not great consistency in terminology; it is not the case, for example, that tattoo as punishment is always called by one name and tattoo as decoration by another name. Nor is it the case that one term is exclusively used in one era and a different term in a later period. Some of the terms encountered in these early texts are qing [CHINESE CHARACTERS NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (to brand, tattoo), mo [CHINESE CHARACTERS NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (to ink), ci qing [CHINESE CHARACTERS NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (to pierce [and make] green), wen shen [CHINESE CHARACTERS NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (to pattern the body), diao qing [CHINESE CHARACTERS NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (to carve and [make] green), ju yan [CHINESE CHARACTERS NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (to injure the countenance), wen mian [CHINESE CHARACTERS NOT REP RODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (to pattern the face), li mian [CHINESE CHARACTERS NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (to cut the face), hua mian [CHINESE CHARACTERS NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (to mark the face), lu shen [CHINESE CHARACTERS NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (to engrave the body), Iu ti [CHINESE CHARACTERS NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (same), xiu mian [CHINESE CHARACTERS NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (to embroider [or ornament] the face), ke nie [CHINESE CHARACTERS NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (to cut [and] blacken), nie zi [CHINESE CHARACTERS NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (to blacken characters), and ci zi [CHINESE CHARACTERS NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (to pierce characters). These terms are sometimes used together, and there are numerous further variations. In general, if the tattooing of characters [CHINESE CHARACTERS NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] appears in the term, it refers to punishment, but this is certainly not true in every case. Likewise, if a term literally meaning "to ornament" or "decorate" is used, it does not necess arily mean that the tattoo was done voluntarily or for decorative purposes.

All of the types of tattoo are usually described as opprobrious; people bearing them are stigmatized as impure, deviant, and uncivilized. There does not ever seem to have been a wide-spread acceptance of tattoo of any type by the "mainstream" society; this was inevitable, partly due to the early and long-lasting association of body marking with peoples perceived as barbaric, or with punishment and the inevitably subsequent ostracism from the society of law-abiding people. Another reason, of course, is the belief that the body of a filial person is meant to be maintained as it was given to him by his parents.

The exception to this negative textual assessment lies in the collection of informal narratives of Duan Chengshi, a collector of curious information who usually simply observes and records, who occasionally allows himself openly to reveal his sense of wonder. Tattoo does not give rise to revulsion in this unusual man; like much of what he observed and recorded he finds it fascinating and marvelous; an aberration, perhaps, but a lovely one, often skillfully done and worthy of attention, and even of admiration.

TATTOO AS A DESCRIPTIVE FEATURE OF NON-HAN "BARBARIAN" TRIBES

The first kind of reference to tattoo to be discussed is probably the most widely known among sinologists. We know from historical records, poetry and other sources that many peoples in the areas surrounding the "central kingdoms" tattooed their bodies. Most of the records refer to Man [CHINESE CHARACTERS NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] or Yi [CHINESE CHARACTERS NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] barbarians, broad terms that refer to various tribes located mostly in the regions south of the Yangzi river, such as present-day Guangzhou, Zhejiang, and northern Vietnam. One commonly mentioned group is the Yue [CHINESE CHARACTERS NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]; this is again usually understood as a general term for the non-Chinese peoples south of the Yangzi, extending all the way to Guangdong and Vietnam to the south, and to Zhejiang, and Jiangxi to the north. [5] In some cases the comments made by Chinese literati about these people indicate a fairly disinterested curiosity, and sometimes they are straightforward records of the important details that separated these peoples from the majority (viz., civilized) people. Sometimes the tattoo is information peripheral to an anecdote or lesson of some kind. In the first section of Zhuangzi, a text of the third or fourth century B.C., for example, we read of the futility of a man of Song attempting to sell ceremonial caps to the short-haired, tattooed men of Yue. [6] The Hanshi waizhuan contains an amusing anecdote about an emissary sent by the King of Yue to Jing [CHINESE CHARACTERS NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]. [7] A certain official of Jing asked to be allowed to receive the Yue emissary first, since the Yue were a barbaric people. The Jing official instructed the Yue envoy that he would have to wear a hat if he wanted to have a proper audience with the king of a civilized land. The Yue envoy countered that the Yue people had originally been compelled to settle in a riverine environment, and presently associated not with great and civilized people, but with various water creatures. He co ntinued that the Yue people only settled there after tattooing their bodies and cutting off their hair (presumably as apotropaic aids to living in this dangerous environment). "Now I have come to your esteemed country and you insist on saying that I will gain audience only if I wear a hat. Since it is like this, how would it be if, when your noble country send an emissary to Yue, he for his part will have to cut off his nose, be branded, tattoo his body, and cut off his hair before being granted audience?" The King of Jing came out and, in full court regalia, granted audience to this intelligent and witty Yue envoy. [8] The Tang commentator Kong Yingda [CHINESE CHARACTERS NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN...