riteBearing it

Opium in Burma, friends shouting advice among the Shan, a straight face in the ring

What it is

In tradition after tradition the pain is not a side effect of the mark. It is the thing being demonstrated.

The long version

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.

Samoa: 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.

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.

Connected to

• Htoe kwin Where the opium comes in.
• Shan leg tattooing Where the friends do.
• Tatau And where stopping has a name.

Named here by

• The needle now What it used to cost.

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