Where the marks go
Every tradition here records which zones of the body it marks. Counted together, they sort into skin that clothing covers and skin it does not — and the bans land almost entirely on the second kind.
Skin a longyi, a sarong or a shirt covers
Skin nothing covers
The traditions a government stopped
| Tradition | Where the marks go | Stopped by |
|---|---|---|
| Ainu anchi-piri | face, arms, hands | prohibited under Japanese administration in the nineteenth century |
| Amazigh marks | face, chin, hands, arms, legs | religious discouragement and urbanisation |
| Atayal ptasan | face, chin | banned by the Japanese colonial administration in 1930, for its link to headhunting |
| Chin facial tattooing | face | banned in the 1960s by Burma's Union Revolutionary Council; discouraged by Christian and Buddhist missionaries |
| Hajichi | hands, fingers, arms | prohibited by the Japanese government in 1899 as part of the assimilation of the Ryukyus |
| Htoe kwin | waist to knee, legs, knees, thighs | no ban — colonial rule and town life, in Shway Yoe's own account and the Wikipedia summary of it |
| Sak kha lai | waist to knee, waist to ankle, belly, back, arms, fingers | nobody banned it — the volume this site quotes blames electric light and the end of the night courtship it lit up |
Zones that can be covered — thighs, back, chest, waist-to-knee — belong to traditions where the tattoo is a garment and the wearer chooses when it is seen. Zones that cannot — face, chin, hands, fingers — belong to traditions where the mark is an identification, and where a state that wanted the practice stopped could enforce the ban by looking at people.
Inference — the second group is where the bans land. Chin faces, Atayal faces, Okinawan hands, Ainu mouths, Māori chins. The leg traditions were not banned; they faded. A mark you cannot hide is easy to police, and a mark under a longyi is not worth the trouble.