A Japanese Professional Tattooer.

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 374, 5 June 1889, Page 5

A Japanese Professional Tattooer.

A Hoxgkoxg journal gives an account of a Japanese who has lately set up in that colony as a professional tafctooer of pictures and designs on the body. In a room decorated with fans, hanging pictures, and scrolls, the visitor or patient is received. In a conspicuous place is hung a notice in the following words :— ' I do not business if fuddled.' Sample books are first pioduced for inspection and selection ; they are filled with coloured drawings of dragons, birds, insects, and scenes — comic and seiious. At the bottom is written the cost of tattooing each, the prices varying from about 12s for three butterflies to an elaborate group for £20. The operator himself was tattooed all over his body with groups of bright flowers here, the conventional Japanese girl's head there ; a femalo figure with long flowing robes wound round one arm from the shoulder to the wrist, while on .the other was a dragon, with every scale carefully shaded. On the breast was a picture of the god of storms, with inscriptions in Japanese characters, and similar representations all over the body, the hands alone being free. The apparatus consists merely of a small box containing a slab of black Chinese ink, some vermilion and dark red powders, and a drawerful of penholders,^on the ends of which were fixed tiny bunches of needles, numbering from three to 50, The customer chooses his design from the pattern-books, the operator draws it on the part desired, and then with a large bunch of needles for the heavy black and a small one for the fine lines the colours are punctured in. No blood is drawn and the pain is very little. A dragon, which would be tatooed for £4, would take five hours, on account of the number of scales. The part is then rubbed with vaseline to allay the inflammation, and in a day or two the skin would come off. After that the marks would be indelible. The Hongkong operator tatooed the arm of an English Prince, and, in Kioto/was engaged for a whole month reproducing on the trunk and limbs of an English peer a series of scenes from Japanese history. For this he was paid about £100. He has also tatooed English ladies, and seems to be especially proud of one picture, which was a tiny fan about the size of a halfpenny, on which was a complete^ landscape, with figures well - defined. His income from tatooing in Hongkong is about £1,200 per annum.