Who gets written about
For each tradition: how many Wikipedia language editions carry an article about the tattooing itself. A count of attention, not of importance.
No article about the tattooing 15
| Tradition | It is a section inside | Editions of that |
|---|---|---|
| Amazigh marks | Berbers | 103 |
| Ainu anchi-piri | Ainu people | 98 |
| Patutiki | Marquesas Islands | 78 |
| Hlai women's marks | Hlai people | 44 |
| Shan leg tattooing | Shan people | 41 |
| Chin facial tattooing | Chin people | 33 |
| Iban tattooing | Iban people | 33 |
| Sak kha lai | Lan Na | 33 |
| Atayal ptasan | Atayal people | 29 |
| Derung face marks | Derung people | 27 |
| Hajichi | Irezumi | 25 |
| Mentawai titi | Mentawai people | 24 |
| Kayan tattooing | Kayan people (Borneo) | 15 |
| Konyak marks | Konyak Naga | 15 |
| Cordilleran whatok | Kalinga people | 5 |
The measurement is crude and that is the point: it is a count of attention, not of importance. Each tradition here names its article, and the harvest asks the Wikimedia API how many language editions carry it.
Inference — the shape of the answer is predictable before you run it, which is itself the finding. The traditions with the most editions are the ones eighteenth- and nineteenth-century European voyages met first and wrote up in European languages; the ones with the fewest are inland, upland, and were written about, if at all, in an administrative report.
The Lanna leg tattoo does not appear at all. Not thinly — it has no article in any language, in a project with more than three hundred language editions, for a custom that covered the legs of every man in a kingdom.
For each tradition: the number of Wikipedia language editions carrying an article ABOUT THE TATTOOING (own_article), and, where there is none, the editions carrying the article the tattooing sits inside (host_article). A count of attention, not of importance. Counted 2026-09-19.