Encylopedia of Body Adornment.pdf - Print My Tattoo

162 INUIT
like most societies, is still firmly committed to the idea that there are only two
sexes, and that anything otherwise represents a deviation.
Interestingly, prior to the modern period, those who assigned gender to intersex
persons did so in a more humane fashion than today, often waiting until puberty
to observe the direction in which an intersex person was developing, only then
assigning them their sex and gender identity. Today, physicians make this decision
and typically do it right at birth, making a decision that will affect the child for his
or her life based on functionality and expected fertility.
The modern medical practice of determining the sex of an intersex infant via
medical intervention is notable in not only what it does to intersex people (making
them one or the other sex without their knowledge or consent, and without an
understanding of whether or not their own gender and sexual identity will conform
to the choice that was made for them), but also in the fact that it effectively
erases and suppresses intersexuality, and all forms of sex that do not conform to
a male/female binary. This is a good example of bio-power: when the medical
profession can control the very sex and identity of a person.
See also: Sex Reassignment Surgery; Transgender
Further Reading: Sytsma, Sharon. Ethics and Intersex. Heidelberg, Germany: Springer Press,
2006; Tine Cohen-Kettenis, Peggy. Transgenderism and Intersexuality in Childhood and Adolescence:
Making Choices. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2003.
INUIT
Inuit refers to the indigenous peoples who live along the Arctic coasts of Siberia,
Alaska, Greenland, and Canada. These people practiced a unique form of tattooing.
Some tattoos were individualistic, marking something important about the
individual, and others were worn by all members of a clan or other subgroup. In
either case, tattoos were used to convey important information about the individual
as well as to act as a form of magical protection against a variety of ills.
Tattooing has been practiced among the Inuit for at least 3,500 years, according
to archaeological evidence, and, as in the nearby Pacific Northwest, was primarily
worn by women.
Elderly women did the tattooing, using bone or ivory needles threaded with
needles blackened with soot. The women literally sewed the thread through the
skin, leaving the black color in the skin, a skill that they developed through sewing
clothing.
The first European descriptions and depictions of Inuit tattoos date to the midsixteenth
century, and describe women’s facial tattooing which partially covered
the forehead, cheeks, and especially the chin, and which was made up of lines
and geometric patterns. As with other tribes, chin tattoos, which were received
after puberty, were used to show that a woman was marriageable, and were also
thought to protect women from enemies. They also showed that she was able to
endure pain, which was an attractive feature to look for in a wife. Women also
sometimes received tattoos on the thighs, as a way to make childbirth easier and
to show infants something of beauty when they emerged from the womb.