A la the entry below, I came across a couple references to early “non-traditional” body piercing that I’d like to repost here. This first one, about a Madison piercing, is from Rack Rope And Red-Hot Pinchers: A History of Torture and Its Instruments by Geoffrey Abbott (Headline Book Publishing, 1993). It reads,

Chain through the Neck
In the more exotic parts of the world, more exotic punishments were administered. In China, monks who broke their sacred vows were punished by having a hole burned through their necks with a red-hot iron. A long chain was then passed through the hole and, stark naked, he would be led along the streets, any attempt to relieve the pain caused by the weight of the chain on the open wound being thwarted by the application of a whip carried by another monk bringing up the rear.

This also echoes the BME/News “dragon fish” feature on the more drastic but similar use of sub-clavical piercings.

Along those lines, Hieronymus Bosch’s Christ Carrying the Cross, painted in 1490, features a crowd scene that includes Moors (I think) wearing cheek and chin piercings.

This 16th century glazed ceramic plate of a face made of penises (bought by Ashmolean Museum in Oxford for about a half million dollars in 2003), created by Francisco Urbino in Italy, appears to have a Prince Albert type piercing in the “earlobe”. Whether that’s flight of fancy or something that’s representational of actual piercing subculture, I don’t know… That said, given the number of people I know that have pierced their genitals without any awareness of other people doing it, I assume it existed.

Ok, maybe he’s not vermicious, but he’s definitely piercing something worm-like.

(The dialogue is just brilliant!)

“Another fun day at Sid’s Silver Anchor shop - this time focused on piercing. I have this marked as 1981, but the date could be a bit off. This series of clips features the infamous “Big Ed” Fenster, who later went on to use the Silver Anchor name for his upstart body jewelry company. As always, I hope you enjoy these glimpses into our history.

There’ll be more coming soon! - Shawn Porter/SPCOnline”

Following on from the vintage Jack Yount footage Shawn kindly sent me, here’s a lovely video of Sailor Sid Diller tattooing a friend.

“This video dates to around 1985 and features Sailor Sid tattooing out of his Ft. Lauderdale, Silver Anchor tattoo shop. The lion’s share of Sid’s business came from the gay S&M community, and it wasn’t uncommon for both Sid and client to be fully nude during the process. The machine Sid is using is a rotary style tattoo machine, for those who’ve never seen one before - it was Sid’s preferred type.

Enjoy, and more later!

Shawn Porter - Scarwars.net”

You can read more about Sid and his life in this article written by Jim Ward, for BMEzine.com.

My old friend Damien, who started tattoos.com back at about the same time as BME, also from here in Toronto, went to China last fall for the Beijing Convention (he’s currently organizing NIX again for Toronto, and working on a convention in South Africa for next January). He took these pictures of facial tattoos on Dulong tribal women while he was there

Dulong facial tattooing died out in the 50s after China took over the region, and these days there are perhaps fifty people that still wear the tattoos, which were done as a coming of age rite. The designs vary from clan to clan, but their meaning has been largely lost to history. Continue after the break for more pictures by Damien.

Read more…

(At least this once)

Julias says that despite the thin wires he wears through them (there’s a closeup after the break of his dubious choice of jewelry), his nipple piercings haven’t rejected after a remarkable forty years. He did these piercings back in the mid/late 1960s on a dare (a friend did them for him at his home in the UK), and has worn them ever since!

Read more…

In a few days (just waiting back for a final set of questions) I’ll be posting an interview with Kamal Jeet Sharma about his tattoo studio in Ludhiana, Punjab and his efforts to professionalize tattooing in India. Mark from Everything and Nothing snapped this photo of some of Kamal’s typical “competition”, a street tattoo machine he saw in Northern India in the Himalayan foothills.

This winter Tyler and some friends went to Tanzania. He’s a social anthropologist as well as a ModBlog reader, so while he was there he snapped some pictures of the widespread body modifications they saw. The guy on the left in the photo below is Kerry, their guide, who they met in Dar Es Salaam — almost all young men in Dar have similar Western-style tattoos.

On the way to Ngorongoro Crater they stopped near a small Maasai village where they were approached by the women in the pictures here who were hoping to sell them various trinkets. The piercing holes they have were made with iron knives, and with no sterilization, they’ve been increasingly vulnerable to bloodborne problems such as HIV/AIDS.

Tyler adds that you do see hi-tech though even in the deepest areas of the country, where they met the “cyber Maasai” above left in a quiet Zanzibari village using his earlobes to hold up his headphones. His bottom front teeth are also knocked out, a traditional body modification liked to breastfeeding and udder sucking. Thanks to Tyler for the pictures and background!

I got this wonderful letter from Isabel (click the photos to enlarge) –

Hello ModBlog,

Thanks for all the great images and stories and for updating them so often. It’s always a fun place to visit.

In June 2000, my husband and I quit our jobs, put our stuff in storage, and traveled around for almost nine months. We started in Indonesia and came home (grudgingly) after South Africa. In the process we visited Syria and fell in love with the people and culture. So much in fact that our daughter’s middle name is Damascus. While there, we saw several older women with the traditional face and hand tattoos. This beautiful lady was selling vegetables in a market and was kind enough to let us take her photo. Unfortunately, the new generation seems to have left the practice behind and they’re either covered up or very Western looking.

The other two shots are from our visit to a Batonga village in Tanzania. They welcomed us, showed us how they milk their cows and we got a few pictures. After this visit we went to a small bushman settlement and the only body mod we saw was a young kid with scars from a leopard attack. But that doesn’t seem to really qualify — wasn’t voluntary.

Hope you enjoy the pics as much as we love reliving the memories of all the beautiful people we met.

Best,
Isabel

Ritual, not play, as photographed by Arco at last October’s vegetarian rituals in Phuket, Thailand. Lots more photos from him and others in the cultural rituals gallery on BME.

Shawn sent me this footage (from some point in 1988) of his old friend Jack Yount and included the following..

“My first contribution to BME back in 1995 was a memorial article for my friend and mentor Jack Yount. The images that accompanied the article, as well as hundreds to be posted in following years to my own spcOnline site (currently offline), gave you a glimpse of Jack’s extraordinary modifications. This video, taken some years before we met, shows the start of his iconic transformation. It’s my hope however that you look past what Jack has done to his body and listen to the kindness and warmth in his voice.”

Video footage © 2008 Shawn Porter - Scarwars.net