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TATTOO (v) To mark Skin with indelible patterns by puncturing it and inserting a dye to make a pattern in this way - (n) a tattooed pattern The body-marking techniques of tattooing, have been used in a vast range of cultures, both ancient and contemporary, for dec ....

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.... among seamen. Tattooing techniques vary widely--for example, the Eskimo use bone needles to draw soot-covered thread through the skin, and the Japanese use fine metal needles and multicolored pigments. Scarring, or cicatrization, is most common in the cultures of Africa, Australia, and Melanesia. In the initiation rites of boys among the Nuer of the Sudan, six cuts are made across the forehead and remain for life as scars. Finer tattoolike patterns are chiseled onto the faces of young female initiates of the Kaoka-speakers of the Solomon Islands. In each case the practice serves to mark a new stage of life. In some African and Australian societies ra ....