Everyone has seen pictures of different tribal people with stretched earlobes, and it is done the same in South America; the Aztecs and Mayans were into it, and you can see sculptures and paintings of Tibetan Buddhists with stretched earlobes (Evenson). Not only were earlobes stretching common, more extreme things were performed. Just a few examples are; the process of sloping foreheads, the stretching of the upper and lower lips, and even the most excruciating genitalia mutilation! These traditions, though some have disappeared through time, are cross-cultural and very universally consistent across the world. .
The history of body modification dates back to when man first started forming tribes. Cultures that practice piercing, scarring, tattooing and other radical body manipulations believe that a person is not fully human and can not exercise the innate abilities that distinguish humans from other animals if the body is not properly adorned or altered. Landow notes that: "scarification and other forms of body decoration were traditionally considered marks of civilization." Tribes such as the Baifi of the Cameroons say, "A man who is not scarred looks like a pig or a chimpanzee" as well as the Cadureo Indians that say "An unpainted body is a stupid body" (The"voz, 1984, p. 50). From these statements one can see that body modification has more of a purpose then just appearance, but it is symbol of civilization. With all this said, peoples till have mixed reviews on the subject. Some still call it nothing more then a form of rebellion, and a trend that will die out soon. While more and more others embrace it for the beauty and history it possesses, which is apparently helping the growth of this new/old phenomenon in the western societies. .
When tattooing came to America in the late1800s, it was the elite that brought it over here from France, and England and from Japan (Willis).
