Body Modification Research Paper

Body modification is the act of altering one’s body for several different reasons such as aesthetic pleasures, self and identity expression as well as religious beliefs and even significant changes in one’s life such as rites of passage or affiliation1. The act of body modification has been around for centuries, some can be traced back to the Predynastic period in Egypt. The concept of body modification is quite an umbrella terms, under are hidden a number of different categories such as scarification, implants, tongue splitting, branding and even, common as it may seem, tattoos and piercings etc1. For the purpose of this paper, we will ignore several of these categories, only focusing on tattoos. The history and most importantly reason hidden behind a tattoo is just as interesting and complex as the design of the tattoo itself. Tattoos vary from person to person and also from culture to culture, meaning that the number of possible reasons hidden behind a tattoo is over a hundred.

The upper part of the human body was closest to spirituality, to the world above while the lower part was closer to the earth, to the material world beneath their feet. Māori people were said to descend from two specific gods, Rangi the Sky Father, Heaven and Papa the Earth Mother, Earth3. As descendants, they believed they held quite a close relationship with these celestial beings and therefore their human bodies were seen as the essential link between Rangi and Papa. As Horatio Gordon Robley described in his book titled Māori Tattooing, the head of the person was considered sacred even after death and burial. The head is placed apart and upon visitation of the grave, it is taken out so that the visitor(s) may mourn over their death4. During this time, since the head was considered the most important part of the body, tattooed Māori heads were even as