Tattooing has been popular for an extremely long time, in fact, statues from ancient Egypt reveals the addition of tattoos upon sculptures with the earliest tattooing found to be over 5,000 years old. War is a hostile struggle traveling down the continuum from tribal to contemporary warfare leaving deep emotional scars on not only individuals but also tribal to an entire race of people. People from the ancients to present times, as long as there has been war, there have been individuals adorning themselves with war tattoos; it remains a popular and fashionable theme today.
There are three general types of tattooing in the subject of war.
Tattoos depict war by memorializing and demonstrating strength and suggestive themes. Suggestive would be the variation of tribal that expresses preparation for war including totems representing powerful characterizations portraying deities, powerful animals and other effigies of war. Memorial tattoos are just that, commemorating fallen warriors and celebrating a particular war the bearer of the image once participated. Each war yields its own body art for the warrior.
Symbolism is intense in warfare tattoos and serves a purpose of unity for those involved, from representing an entire war to smaller groups of warriors that served together. In the present times, those acquiring tattoos of war decide to get their tattoos to depict to others the things that they have encountered in their personal lives. The third type of war tattoos can represent internal struggles such as divorce, death or other personal conflicts. The choice of style depends upon the personal tastes of individuals and can even jump to other civilizations such as Mayan, Celtic, Egyptian, Tribal or Asian.
Modern man has little opportunity to involve the warrior within himself; modern civilization suppresses the hunter inside that no longer can emerge. On a physiological level, the use of war tattoos can pacify an uncivilized deficiency that man holds inside himself or passively rebel against the societal quelling in which he belongs and possibly needs those around him to empathize his plight.
Some become judgmental towards war tattoos stereotyping outward physical appearance leading to disrespectful, naive, and delusive assumptions. Most tattoos that people ornament themselves with carry cryptic meaning. Some become a mystery unknown to anyone but the bearer to the point that their war tattoo contains significance beyond understanding even to them. The blood of war is monumental to those that have witnessed its destructive forces and the violent signature it leaves within the very soul of the tattooed warrior.
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