{
 "schema": 1,
 "id": "the-pain",
 "type": "rite",
 "names": {
  "name": "Bearing it",
  "said": "Opium in Burma, friends shouting advice among the Shan, a straight face in the ring"
 },
 "region": [
  "worldwide"
 ],
 "facets": {
  "family": "poke"
 },
 "text": {
  "what": "In tradition after tradition the pain is not a side effect of the mark. It is the thing being demonstrated.",
  "story": "Burma: the boy is put under opium, and some parents refuse it, and a few boys have died of the dose. Three or four figures at a sitting. The Shan: the friends sit round in a circle telling him not to scratch, that he is wriggling too much, that no girl will admire a spoiled pattern. Lethwei fighters: up to twenty-four hours across both legs, and the point is the straight face.\n\nSamoa: a man who starts the *pe'a* and cannot finish wears *pe'a mutu*, an unfinished tattoo, and it is a mark of shame. Lanna: a man who will not bear the needle should put on a woman's skirt.\n\n*Inference —* every tradition that uses the mark to certify endurance also needs the mark to be visible and hard to fake. That is the same reason the work is put where it cannot be hidden and takes long enough to be witnessed.",
  "notes": "Anaesthetic, where it was used at all, was opium. No source here describes the modern options, and this site gives no advice about any of it."
 },
 "text_th": {
  "what": "ในธรรมเนียมแล้วธรรมเนียมเล่า ความเจ็บไม่ใช่ผลข้างเคียงของรอยสัก แต่คือสิ่งที่กำลังถูกพิสูจน์"
 },
 "kin": [
  {
   "to": "htoe-kwin",
   "as": "Where the opium comes in.",
   "rel": "tradition"
  },
  {
   "to": "shan-tattooing",
   "as": "Where the friends do.",
   "rel": "tradition"
  },
  {
   "to": "tatau",
   "as": "And where stopping has a name.",
   "rel": "tradition"
  }
 ],
 "sources": [
  "s:shway-yoe",
  "s:milne-shans",
  "s:wp-tattooing-in-myanmar",
  "s:wp-pe-a",
  "s:ms6968"
 ],
 "provenance": {
  "default": {
   "tier": "cited",
   "source": "s:shway-yoe"
  },
  "fields": {
   "text_th": {
    "tier": "inference",
    "note": "written in Thai by this project, not machine-translated"
   }
  }
 },
 "confidence": "high",
 "tags": [
  "initiation",
  "start-here"
 ],
 "updated": "2026-09-19",
 "kin_in": [
  {
   "from": "the-needle-now",
   "type": "issue",
   "name": "The needle now",
   "as": "What it used to cost."
  }
 ]
}