episodeWhere the marks go
Counted across every tradition on the site
What it is
Each tradition here records which zones of the body it marks. Counted together, the zones sort into two kinds.
The long version
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.
Notes
Counted from the `placement` field on every tradition record; the chart prints how many records carried the field.
Connected to
- The tattoo is clothing The other half of the same argument.
- Hajichi The hands, and the 1899 prohibition.
Named here by
- The tattoo is clothing Which is why the body map is the argument, not the decoration.
Where each claim comes from
| Field | Tier | Source | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| default | inference | ||
| text_th | inference | written in Thai by this project, not machine-translated |
Sources
- Chin people — Wikipedia (en)
- Atayal people — Wikipedia (en)
- Irezumi — Wikipedia (en)
cited Cited — a named source, linked · harvested Harvested — fetched from an open dataset, with its licence · tradition Tradition — general knowledge of the tradition, hedged · inference Inference — this project's own reasoning from the above · field Field — someone stood there