LITMIR.BIZ

      INTRODUCTION

      EXPLORING JAPAN’S TATTOOING TRADITION

      THE WORLD OF JAPANESE IREZUMI

      It was early spring. The weather was still too cold for the cherry blossoms to cover Japan in hues of pink and white. My coauthor Hori Benny, an American-born Osaka-based tattooist, and I took an early morning bullet train to Horiyoshi III’s Yokohama studio. Our interview with the world-famous tattooer was supposed to be only an hour, but we ended up spending the day with him, the first of several visits.

      During our talks, Horiyoshi III, who was busy working on a succession of clients, generously shared his insights. One of them in particular stuck with me as I wrote this book: “In a funny way, everything in Japan is connected to irezumi,” he said, using the Japanese word that refers to tattoos. The statement couldn’t have have been truer. In irezumi you’ll find expressions of the seasons, the folklore, the religions, and many other aspects of Japanese culture.

      WHAT DOES “IREZUMI” MEAN?

      Irezumi isn’t simply the Japanese word for “tattoos.” Throughout the country’s history, different words have referred to tattoos, and the word irezumi itself has been written with different characters, each having a separate meaning or nuance, whether that was the irezumi (入れ墨) that was a branding mark, meted out as punishment to criminals, or the irezumi (刺青) that was done of free will. Other words have been used, such as irebokuro (入れ黒子), which dates from the 1700s. Additional old terms include mon mon (紋々), where “mon” refers to a crest; or monshin (紋身), which literally means a crest on one’s body. These are not used today. The word horimono (彫り物), however, still is; it can refer to tattoos or any other engraved thing. More recently, the term wabori (和彫り), which means “Japanese engraving,” was coined in the 20th century to refer specifically to Japanese tattoos.

      AN ANCIENT TRADITION

      Tattoos go back as far as Japan’s recorded history. Japanese accounts as early as the fifth century mention punitive irezumi, but tattoos had other purposes before that. For example, a third-century Chinese account mentions that Japanese people tattooed themselves to mark social class and protect themselves from harmful sea creatures. If true, this would support the theory that the patterns on the faces of the prehistoric Japanese terracotta burial figures known as haniwa are not painted, but tattooed.

      There are other tattoo traditions in Japan with a long, rich history, such as that of the Ainu people in Hokkaido. Their facial and hand tattoos are from a different tradition than those found on Japan’s main island in cities like Osaka and Tokyo, and they fall outside the purview of this book.

      BECOMING A HORISHI

      In Japan, horishi (tattooers) study and train for years to master their craft. In the past, that meant a lengthy apprenticeship in which the apprentice, or deshi, would clean up the studio and practice drawing and tattooing himself (or, more recently, herself). This would continue until the day the master, or shisho, finally deemed the pupil good enough to work on actual clients.

      Some tattooers stick close to the master’s style or continue to work from iconic designs, while others might try to add their own interpretation or go off in another direction altogether. Once a tattooer debuts,

Скачать книгу