IX

identification

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" WHY do I get tattooed? So they'll know me

if I get bumped off," swaggers the sailor, the soldier, the thug.Thus runs the motive of identification through the varie-gated canvas of body- decoration.

Sailors in the early American navy used to tattoo, withgunpowder, their names as well as dates and birthplaces ontheir bodies. Lonely prospectors in the Southwest did thesame, advancing the same reason. Frank Graf, the tattooerof Coney Island, tells me that he has customers for identifica-tion marks to be placed between their toes. They are batherswho presumably fear drowning and do not want their bodiessent to nameless graves.

It is not a bona fide motive. It is a pseudo- motive. It isthe conscious, guilty rationalization of other, deeper anddarker motives. It is, however, one of the most" honorable"of pseudo- motives for tattooings; it is easy to believe; it isoften supported by actual cases of identification through tat-too marks, of the dead or of claimants to relationship andestates. Therefore, it is one of the most frequently given" reasons" for tattooing.

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