Tattoos And Identity

            Expressing yourself in a unique way is something that everyone strives for in life. The most common ways of self expression is body modification. Body Modification can be classified as anything from plastic surgery to clipping your finger nails and everything in between. Modifing or bodies is something we all do to a certain extent be it dying or hair, going sun tanning or piercing your tongue. These are conscious choices people make to change there appeirence. Apperience is something that carries heavy emphasies on who a person is and wants to be that's why people go to such great lengths to look certain ways or to portray a certain style. One of the more popular ways of expressing who you are through modifying your body is by getting tattooed. Tattoos give people the opportunity to show society with out speaking a part of who they are or what they believe by simply having a design or symbol permanently applied to the skin for a fairly reasonable one time fee. Though tattoos have some negative conotaions they seemed to bethe most popular and effective way of self exspression for the youth but also other generations. .
             In today's society tattoos are used for purely personal reasons. Today there are 42 million Americans with tattoos that is about 1 out of every seven people in the U.S. have a tattoo and the number is growing. This is shown through out the number of tattoo shops that are now open and continue to open at about an average of one new shop opening per day. But how have Tattoos come as far as they have up to this point.
             Tattoos are the oldest form of body modification they have been around for many centuries dating back to the Bronze Age in 3300 B.C. according to Catherine M. Barttash, a behavioral scientist. Throughout history tattoos have served many different purposes. Almost all of them were to easily identify a person as a member of a certain group. For the Morati tribe of New Zealand the tattoo art form is a rite of passage being given to the tribes members only when they have proved they have earned it.