Early Tattooing Methods

Different cultures developed a vast variety of different tattooing
methods.

In many North and South American Indian tribes the tattoos were
applied by simple pricking. Other tribes simply rubbed
color, mostly made out of ash into scratches they carved into
their skin and many Arctic and Subarctic tribes mostly Intuit.

Some tribes in eastern Siberia made needle punctures through
the skin, and a thread was drawn under the skin coated with pigment to
apply the color.

In Polynesia and Micronesia the pigment was pricked into the
skin by tapping on a tool shaped like a small rake. A similar method
is still used today by famous tattoo artists in Asia and other
different countries. It still is almost the same procedure than it was
300 years ago, except for the sterilizing, and it is considered
a honor to receive a tattoo that way by a Japanese Tattoo
Master.

The Maoris of New Zealand, who are probably the most famous
people in the world for their tattooing, used the same technique for
tattooing as they used to carve wood. A small bone cutting tool
was used, to carve shallow, colored grooves in complex designs on
face and buttocks, by striking it into the skin.

In the 1700s, after the Europeans arrived and introduced metal to the
natives, the Maoris began using the metal settlers brought for a more
conventional style of puncture tattooing.