Insect Tattoos on Humans: A â•œDermagraphicâ•š Study

Insect TattoosOD HamaDS:

A "Dermagraphic" Study

By G. A. Pearson

Editor's Note

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Traditional tattoo and cicatrization design from Asia and Africa. (A) Yoruba cicatrizationpattern of a centipede (0 rewa I 1988). (B) Yoruba cicatrization pattern of a butterfly (Drewal1988). (C) Tiv cicatrization pattern of a scorpion (Bohannan 1988). (D) Mentawi Islandertattoo of a centipede (a/upat). (E) Mentawi Islander tattoo of a dragonfly (toropid). (F)Mentawi Islander tattoo of a scorpion (terenganga). (G) Mentawi Islander tattoo of a crab(saggesagged). (H) Samoan tattoo symbolic of a worm or caterpillar (anufe). (I) CeramIslander tattoo symbolic of a spider web (Designs 0-1 are after Hanky Panky, in Vale &Juno 1989). (J) Scorpion tattoo design from Guajaratlndia, ca. 1984 (Rubin 1988b).

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-J. E. McPhersonEdit01; American Entomologist

The following article is rather 1It/lIsllaland maybother some readers. Howeue1',it receiued Uf!1Y fa-l/orable reuiews, and it was so entomologically ap-pealing to me that I cOllld not ttlm it down.Hopeflllly, YOIlwill not uiew it as grollnds for my"impeachment ... [would appreciate receiuing com-ments on this article, whether positiue or negatiue.

INRECENT YEARS, TIlE TATIOO HAS UNDER-gone a renaissance in America. Musi-cians, movie stars, and athletes all

adorn themselves with artwork, and theirfans follow suit. Self-modification, though, ishardly a new phenomenon. Tattooing hasbeen practiced for at least 6,000 years, possi-bly longer (Brain 1984). What do tattoos re-veal of the owner's personal imagery andvalues? Is a tatoo the human equivalent ofaposematic coloring? Perhaps a signal saying:"Beware! 1 might be dangerous," or a symbolproclaiming "Warning! I'm deviant." In a cul-ture that values physical attractiveness sohighly, why would someone choose to be ab-errant? What pictures would you choose as arepresentation of yourself?

A tattoo represents a painful and usuallyirreversible process. Studying the individualswho choose to permanently mark themselveswith insects (my reveal the underlying sym-bolism that insects have been invested with incultures past and present. In non-Western in-digenous cultures, body modification often isconsidered necessary to assume a social roleor to become an adult. It is a sign of attain-ment of puberty, wealth, or beauty. But whatdoes it mean to be tattooed with an insect inWestern culture today?

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port of the attitudes of their day.) EvenCharles Darwin mentioned tattoos (Vale &Juno 1989): "Not one great country can benamed, from the polar regions in the north toNew Zealand in the south, in which the ab-origines do not tattoo themselves."

Tattoos often functioned as group identifi-cation. An 1898 Cambridge expedition to theTorres Strait (New Guinea) described themarks of the indigenous peoples:

Among the totemic western islanderssome of the cicatrized marks represent atotemic animal, either realistically or in aconventional manner .... Women cicatri-zed on the upper arm a figure of the centi-pede. Other totemic animals were birds,snakes, the crab, and crocodiles (Hambly1925).

Spiderweb tattoo on the elbow oftattooist Stephane Chaudesaiges(artist unknown).

Representative nature scenetattoo, with a tiger beetleincorporated. An orb-weaverspider is also part of the design(artist unknown).

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Body Art History and Insects

Over the course of history, tattooing haswaxed and waned in fashion (Rubin 1988a).The canvas for this artwork is of an ephemer-al nature, however, and has been preserved inonly a few cases. Mummies from Egypt asearly as 2600 B.C. have been found with tat-tooed skin (Bianchi 1988). A 5,000 year old"ice man" found in a glacier in Europe hadtattoos, believed to have been a form of tribalidentification (Rubin 1988a).

The majority of the evidence for tattooingin the past lies in the artwork and writing ofpast societies and visitors to them. Historicwritings from 1200 A.D. indicate young girlsof noble families were t3ttooed at the time ofmarriage on the island of Hai-Nan, near Chi-na. When the child attained puberty, therewas a feast, and pictures were tattooed on theface representing flowers, butterflies, and in-sects (Hambly 192.5).

European visitors to the East and Africadocumented local body art customs from thetime of Marco Polo to the present. (Becausethese records occasionally take on a censori-ous tone, they must be \'iewed as a biased re-

Each group purportedly sought to allythemselves with the animal of the totem andto claim its character-swiftness, deadlines,etc.

Other invertebrates served also as tattooedtotemic symbols. The Haida of northwestCanada used the squid as a totemic animal. In1910, a European explorer wrote that EasternPacific Islanders were decorated with "faith-fully rendered representations of sea urchins,quaint zoophytes, just like plates out of a nat-uralist's album" (Hambly 1925).

One interesting function of tattooed imag-es was described by Hambly (1925): tattooingdangerous arthropods on one's body as pro-tection from the real animals. One 19thcentu-ry author cited by Hambly went so far as tosay that tattooing functioned primarily as anornamental form of "insecticide." He wrote:

The centipede was a favorite design of theDaudai [New Guinea] women, who car-ried it upon their legs, but there is no evi-dence there of a centipede totem, andprobably the mark is a magical protectionagainst the bites of these creatures.

and on Indian tattooing at the turn of the cen-tury:

The Dombs of jeypur Uaipurl mark them-selves with the scorpion and others apply adesign which, they say, represents an in-sect cut through the middle in order to ren-der it powerless to harm them. This is ...a case of protective magic, or possibly atransference to the individual of any use-ful qualities the creature may possess ....[In Malay] tattooing with the design of apoisonous insect, such as the scorpion,may in one respect be compared with thetattooing of a totemic design, for in eachcase the wearer desires to show some

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aTattoo World, Skin and Ink, Tattoo, and Outlaw Biker Tattoo Magazine.

Table 1. The number (percentage) of invertebrate photographs seen in 14 tattoomagazinesa from January 1993 to May 1995 (n = 90)

Contemporary Western Tattoo

21 (39)20 (37)

5 (9)4 (7)3 (5)1 (2)

54 (60)24 (27)

8 (9)2 (2)1 (1)1 (1)

No. observed (%)

"Butterfly Man." Artist: ChuckEldridge.

BeetlesButterfliesDragonfliesWaspsFliesLeafhoppers, etc.

InsectsSpidersScorpionsCentipedesSnails, OctopiJellyfish

Common name

ColeopteraLepidopteraOdonataHymenopteraDipteraHomoptera

Insect Order

InsectaAraneaScorpionesChilopodaMolluscaCnidaria

Invertebrate group

mains relatively unchanged (Fellman 1986).Butterflies occasionally were included in tat-toos, serving as a symbol of the powers oftransformation and immortality and forbeauty arising from apparent death and cor-ruption. Dragonflies also appeared and wereused as a symbol of summer and instability.

In the late 1800s, Japan, sensitive to theopinions of foreigners, tried to suppress tat-tooing (McCuallum 1988). Westerners, how-ever, were enthralled with the colorful menworking on the wharves and in the streets,and ambassadors and princes, as well as sail-ors, began to sport tattoos. It is rumored thatPrince Albert of England had a green fly tat-tooed on his shoulder (Ebensten 1953). Thus,tattooing was exported to the Western world.

Contemporary westerners have a varietyof reasons for selecting permanent personal

nmount of respect nnd fenr for the animalrepresented.

Sm:ietally sanctioned tattooing currentlypracticed in some areas of the world reflectsancient traditions of body marking. For ex-ample, in some African cultures, a child isconsidered uncivilized until marked (Faris19RR). A Maori of New Zealand withoutmoko (t:1£toOS) is not considered a completeperson ((;athercole 1988). The colonizationof the East often resul ted in the suppression ordiscouragement of indigenous peoples' bodyart systems, but some are making a comebackas a sign of cultural pride and solidarity.

Several African populations use cicatriza-tion (scarring) to mark bodies in elaboratedesigns (Bohannan 1988). Formation of kel-oid scars are encouraged by putting ash intocuts. Yoruba peoples of Africa undergo exten-sive scarification to create designs aestheticand rel.igious in content (DrewaI1988). Sim-ple forms from na ture are combined into com-plex patterns. Animals are commonlyrepresented, induding the centipede and but-terfly. The Tiv people of Africa admire andscarify scorpions on men: "it never gives awayits position before it strikes; ... it is alwaysdangerous if disturbed" (Bohannan 1988).

In New Guinea and the nearby MenawiIslands, several invertebrates are representedin the traditional tattoo iconography. Samoantattoos are composed of traditional patternsand symbols, some of which represent cater-pillars and worms (Valen & Juno 1989).

In India, traditional tattooing still survives,although it is waning under the influence ofwesternization (Rubin 1988b). Traditionaltattoo designs focus upon religious themesand various natural designs, including scorpi-ons, bees, and flies.

The art of tattoo is generally thought tohave reached its greatest height in Japan. Chi-nese chronides dating from 238-247 A.D. re-ported that "men both great and small tattootheir faces and work designs upon their bod-ies," a practice uncommon in China until cen-turies later (Hambly 1925). Tattooing wasgenerally practiced only among the Japaneselower dasses until 1805, when Suikoden, a14th-century Chinese story, was published(McCallum 1988). It featured a heavily tat-tooed band of warriors in, essentially, abloodier Asian version of Robill Hood.

Suikoden was immensely popular andadapted to Kabuki. Ukiyo-e artists illustratedthe major scenes. Artisans moved from draw-ing on paper to skin, and the book and itsprints set a style for Japanese tatoos that re-

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Client Attitudes Toward Insects

if the tattoo is of exceptional quality (c. Eld-ridge, personal communication).

In the interests of furthering science, I alsoattended two tattoo conventions. Below Ipresent the opinions I gleaned from tattooartists and owners about their insect tattoos.

Clinton Sanders (1989), a sociological re-searcher,divided American motivations for get-ting a tattoo into fivecategories: as a symbol ofan interpersonal relationship; participation in agroup; self-identity/magicaVprotcctive signifi-cance; as a decorative/aesthetic statement; anda representation of key interests or activities.Individuals I interviewed fell neatly into thesemotivational divisions.

Symbol of an Interpersonal Relationship.Unfortunately, when arthropods were used inthis context, the imagery was always nega-tive. For example, a black widow with theface of a former girlfriend and a death's headmoth both symbolized failed relationships.One person said his black widow tattoo sym-bolized the women in his life, and how theywere "nothing but poison to me in my past."Often spiders and spiderwebs appeared incontext of sadomasochistic imagery-a spi-der web created out of whips, or a haplessmale nude stranded in a spider web.

Participation in a Group. A classic tattooicon is the spiderweb on the elbow, and ex-tremely painful place to tattoo. It has a vari-ety of meanings, but supposedly oncefunctioned to mark one as a murderer or a"Hell's Angel" member (c.Eldridge, person-al communication). One inmate said that hisspider web tattoo represented his being"caught up in time" and the four rings on theweb represented his four years in prison (].Marquez, personal communication). Today,it is often used as a connecting piece betweenforearm and upper arm work-it covers a lot

of space with very little ink.Several people I talked tochose it as a traditional tattooicon, an homage to earliertattooists of the century.

Tattoos may represent aform of sign language bywhich members of the under-world recognize each other'sspecific of occupation. Oftenthese tattoos are applied inprison, with hand tools andink from a writing pen. A but-terfly or a fly is said to repre-

adornments. Tattooing is a matter of personalchoice only; no cultural imperative or aesthet-ic demands it. In fact, "inked" men and wom-en are likely to be shunned or regarded withsuspicion. In Americar. society, about 20% ofcitizens are estimated to have tattoos (Sanders1989). In the military and some other occupa-tions, this proportion is higher. Generally,more men than women are tattooed (Sanders1989).

Of this select group decorated with bodyart, how many actually have insects on theirbodies? Bycounting the photographs in tatoopublications, one can produce a rough esti-mate. The tattoo magazines available at youraverage newsstand are basically picture-books of tattoos and various tattoo competi-tions, with a mean of 190 photographs perissue. Four magazines served as my sources:Tattoo World, Skin and Ink .•Tattoo, and Out-law Biker Tattoo Magazine. A random sam-ple of 14 of these magazines over a 2-yearperiod found that 3% of the photographswere invertebrate-related. Insects dominated,with 60% of the photographs depicting aninsect of some sort. Of the insects seen, mostwere beetles and butterflies. However, theremay be a bias in the magazines, as butterflytattoos on women are seen by magazine edi-tors as a "cliche," and thus are only depicted

Flock of beetles by artist JuliMoon.

B. Valverde's chest. Artist: JuliMoon. The right arm shows thetop of a work in progress,featuring a large centipede andinsecs wound around the arm.Artist: Paul Booth.

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sent a burglar (Ebensten 1953). In Russia, abeetle symbolizes a pickpocket, and insectscaught in a web mark a junkie, symbolizingan inability to eSGlpe an addiction (Bronnikov1993).

Self-Identity, or Magical/Protective Signif-icance. By far, the most common arthropodtattoos are scorpions and crabs, chosen be-cause of the individual's astrological sign (c.Eldridge, personal communication). The pop-ularity of scorpions, in part, also stems fromthe bad reputation of the animal.

Interestingly, the idea of magical protec-tion from arthropods by tattooing is found inAmerica. One woman had a giant dust mitetattooed on her wrist to try to repel the mitesshe was allergic to. Several individuals hadlarge bees or wasps tattooed on them to"scare away" an real venomous insects. Clin-ton Sanders (19~9) reports an interview witha man in his twenties: .

('111 aller~ic to bees. If I get stung by oneagain I'm goin~ to die. So I thought I'dcome in here and have a big mean-lookingbee put on. I want one that has this longstinger and these 'Iong teeth and is comingin to land. With that, any bee would thinktwice ahout messing with me.

Two people I interviewed indicated theychose a spider tattoo as a way of overcomingtheir fear of spiders. A pa ratrooper leaving forDesert Storm got tattooed with many small,flying insects, symbolizing their skillful flight.

Decorative/Aesthetic Statement. Insecttattoos arc often a small part of a larger na-ture scene, or decorative in nature. Butterflytattoo owners include actresses Drew Barry-more, Cher, and Melanie Griffith. Perry Far-rel, lead singer of the band jane's Addiction,has a large praying mantis on his shoulder. Ayoung woman I spoke to with lime-green hairand multiple piercings had a 3-cm greenblowfly on her wrist: "I saw it in a Calvin andHobbes book and I thought it was pretty."

.J. Peterson, known as the "Butterfly Man,"is covered literally from head to toe with butter-fly tattoos. When I asked him how he felt aboutbugs, he said he liked butterflies because they"arc free, like me." His first tattoo was a butter-fly, and he just kept collecting.

Representation of Key Interests or Activi-ties. The majority of individuals I spoke tohad a special appreciation for insects. In fact,I would have to describe several of them asthwarted entomologists, who for various rea-sons pursued other career paths. One womansaid she had wanted to be an entomologist,


but did not thi nk she was good enough at "sci-ence" to succeed.

The other surprising fact I learned duringthis exploration was that most individualswith insect tattoos were women. Convention-al wisdom proclaims that women are moreentomophobic than men. One woman wrote:

Since I was a young girl I have been fasci-nated by bugs .... Included in my tattoocollection are 7 ants, a horsefly, a bumblebee, a scorpion, a tarantula, and a hugecentipede .... I chose insects for my tat-too collection mainly because of theirconstant presence in my life and deepermeaning of an animal connectedness I amstill discovering.

Barbara V. has a beautiful chest tattoo byJuli Moon that depicts autumn leaves and sixdifferent beetles, large and small, and a shoul-der tattoo of a web and a spider. Also, she hasan entire sleeve of bugs in progress. She worksat a bird sanctuary and is wonderfully enthu-siastic about insects:

The stuff I'm wearing isn't weird to me...[My artistl says I'm a creepy broad but I'vealwa ys loved things that other peoplethink are scary.

juli Moon also is responsi-ble for the intricate spiral ofbeetles down another insectfancier's arm. Several individ-uals admired dragonflies andchoose them as tattoo sub-jects:

I really like my dragonfly. Tome, it means the forest, it's asymbol of the woods drag-onflies are so elegant! Tome, Libelulas are happiness.

I admire their skillful flightand freedom .... They are thehardest bugs to catch, but nowI have one permanently!

Dragonfly on tattooist Sara Lee'sthigh. Artist: Linda Lee Privacek.

One of the "Bug Girl's" ceramby-cids. Artist: Scotty Lowe.

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Tattoo on an ESA member. Artist:Marshal Bachelder.

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They are an integral part of the island ec-osystem. I have been interested in thesecreatures since the first dragonfly lit on myarm .... It is for all these biological andspiritual observatiop.s that I am proud towear a permanent dragonfly.

Laurie M. has a large firefly on her back:

The lighting bug I g.ot because I was sohomesick for them when I moved to theWest Coast. I think it's tragic that peoplewho grew up out here have never seenlightning bugs sparking in the summernight.

Some quite astonishing art work belongs toKat, the "Bug Girl." Although not a scientist,the Bug Girl belongs to an entomological soci-ety and is an entomological aficionado. Someprofessional entomologists also sport somehighly realistic insect tattoos.

Ray P., nurse and butterfly collector, sayshe is:

... not planning to stop until I'm wearingall 250 species of butterflies known to ex-ist in the U.S.... The beauty and freenessof them made me start doing research ontheir life cycles many years ago and what Ilearned about them made me want to havea butterfly on my torso as my first tattoo.

I counted about 13 species above the waiston him.

Paul D. has a tattoo on the back of his legof the "Insect God" from a children's book byEdward Gorey:

Insects steal this half-babylhalf-cocoonand sacrifice it to their god. It's a creepyfigure .... I have a serious affection for in-

sects. They're the most misunderstoodcreatures, but I think they're cool. They cancarry a hundred times their body weight,and their survival instincts are intense.

Peter O. has a large orb spider on his leftforearm. He says:

I decided on a spider tattoo while livingin... British Columbia .... There were alot of flies and mosquitoes in the place andone of the way [sic] that they were keptunder control was by the spiders so I de-cided to make a piece of art out of thismuch misunderstood arachnid.

Artists' Attitudes Toward Insects

In conversations with tattoo artists, it be-comes clear that many have an appreciationfor the beauty and diversity of insect forms.Tattoo artist Kevin Veara has developed anelaborate style that blends insect and othernatura] forms into his own unique tattoo ico-nography.

I'm creating my own symbolism, workthat means something to me.... I likevariations on a single theme; like flames,beetles, flowers-they look like littleicons-very symmetrical, stylized.

Other artists indicated that they like doingcustom insect work:

Are you crazy? I love doing insects-a hellof a lot better than doing Tweety-bird onsomeone's ass .... Bugs are cool. It's moreof a challenge for me [as an artist].

I've done tattoos of a squashed bug on thebottom of a foot and a roach on someone'sankle .... It was interesting.

Matthew Wojciechowski of Scorpion Stu-dios in Houston was extremely knowledge-able about the history of the Egyptian scarabgod Kefra, a symbol of protection. He says hedoes a lot of mantis and scarab pieces, mostlyon female clients:

They are like real monsters ... they have aform I can play with. Sort of like aliens.I'm also scared of bugs-it's my way ofbecoming at ease with them. When they'redone with humans and take over, maybethey will spare me. 'This human has bugson him-he's ok.'

Artist Stephane Chaudesaiges of Paris(speaking to me through a helpful bilingual-bystander) said he frequently tattoos insectson clients, usually ladybugs, butterflies, andpraying mantids.


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In conclusion, insect tattoos seem to be onthe rise, signifying a more positive attitudetow~ud :uthropods in a small segment of thepublic. Whatever your feelings about the ap-propri:lteness of marking human flesh perma-nently, one must appreciate the beauty ofsome of the artwork. A common expression inthe tattoo community is that "the ink rises upfrom your soul." In other words, the innerworld becomes outer through a nonverbal,symbolic marking. Perhaps modern tattooingis just a mass atavistic impulse, connectingpast and present generations. Insects and oth-er arthropods presumably will playa role inthe future tClttoo iconography of humans, aswell as the present one.

Acknowledgments

I tbank Chuck Eldridge (Tattoo Archive Re-search Center. Berkeley, CAl, Tattoo Magazine,and the National Tattoo Association for their greathelpfulness and friendliness in my quest for insecttattoos. I also thank the many wonderful tattooedpeople 1 met in person and through the mail whowere amazingly kind and patient and allowed meto photograph and interview them.

References Cited

Bianchi, R. S. 1988. Tattoo in ancient Egypt, pp.21-28. III A. Rubin led.], Marks of civilization:artistic transformations of the human body.Museu1ll of Cultural History, Los Angeles, CA.

Bohannan, P. 1988. Beauty and scarificationamongst the Tiv. pp. 77-82. III A. Rubin [ed.],Marks of civilization: artistic transformationsof the human hody. Museum of Cultural Histo-ry, Los Angeles, CA.

Bronnikov, A. G. 1993. Telltale tattoos in Russianprisons. Nat. Hist. 102(11): 50-59.

Brain, R. 1984. The decorated body. Harper &Row, New York.

Drewal, H. J. 1988. Beauty and being: aestheticsand ontology in Yoruba body art, pp. 83-96. InA. Rubin led.], Marks of civilization: artistictransformations of the human body. Museumof Cultural History, Los Angeles, CA.

Ebensten, H. 1953. Pierced hearts and true love.Derek Verschoyle, London.

Faris, J. 1988. Significance of differences in themale and female personal art of the SoutheastNuba, pr. 29-40. III A. Rubin [ed.], Marks ofcivilization: a rtistic transformations of the hu-man body. Museum of Cultural History, LosAngeles, CA.

Fellman, S. 1986. The Japanese tattoo. Abbeville,New York.

Gathercole, P. 1988. Contexts of Maori Moko, pp.171-178. Til A. Rubin [ed.], Marks of civiliza-tion: artistic transformations of the human

AMFRICAN EmOMOLOGIST • Slimmer 1996

body: Museum of Cultural History, Los Ange-les, CA.

Hambley, W.1925. The history of tattooing and itssignficance. Witherby, London.

McCallum, D. 1988. Historical and cultural di-mensions of the tattoo in Japan, pp. 109-134.III A. Rubin [ed.], Marks of civilization: artistictransformations of the human body. Museumof Cultural History, Los Angeles, CA.

Ruhin, A. [ed.]. 1988a. The tattoo renaissance, pp.233-264. Marks of civilization: artistic trans-formations of the human body. Museum ofCultural History, Los Angeles, CA.

1988b. Tattoo trends in Gujarat, pp. 141-154.Marks of civilization: artistic transformationsof the human body. Museum of Cultural Histo-ry, Los Angeles, CA.

Sanders, C. R. 1989. Customizing the body. Tem-ple University Press, Philadelphia.

Vale, V. & A. Juno. 1989. Modern primitives: aninvestigation of contemporary adornment andritual. RE/Search #12. RE/Search Publications,San Francisco, CA. •

G. A. Pearson is a former assistant professorin the Department of Life Science, University ofTexas, Permian Basin, 4901 E. University, Odes-sa, TX 79762. Her current address is at the De-partment of Entomology, Box 7626, NorthCarolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27695.

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Insect Tattoos on Humans: A â•œDermagraphicâ•š Study

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