We are going to talk about body decoration.

History

Centuries ago people had the need to decorate their bodies. There are many ways to do so: tattoos, piercings, scarification, bodypainting and so on.
All these things were applied a long time ago for instance in Egypt, Greece, China etcetera.
In fact all these methods to decorate your body haven't changed much. The only thing that has evolved is the technology. Now we use a machine to tattoo someone, while ages ago tattoos were set by hand.

Why?

Why do people have the need to decorate or mutilate their bodies?

1. In eastern countries such as Thailand, China and so on, the decorations were and still are to indicate in which class the people belong to. If your body is decorated with many tattoos it will mean that you have a high status.
2. The decorations are also the cause of religious motives. With some people it is about tradition or obligations! Just think of the Padaung women. You see them here on this picture.
3. In our culture the decorations are especially a fad. We see them everywhere: on television, in the street, on posters and so on.
4. Sometimes the decorations are made to be attractive to the other sex. This is common in Africa and in eastern countries.

Heart:

We shall now tell you a bit more about body decorations. We are going to talk about scarification, tattoos, piercings and hennatattoos.

1. Scarification:

First of all: scarification. This is a decoration that's getting very popular. Even Sharon Stone, a big film star, let a scar be placed in her neck by a surgeon. She claims that it’s very sexy. Especially young people between the age of 20 and 25 let a scar be placed. They also think it is sexy and attractive.

Luckily scarification isn't done very often in Belgium, at least up to now it isn't. Unfortunately this is already common in the Netherlands and of course in the United States of America!
You have lots of subdivisions of scarification. And we are going to explain 3 of them namely stapling, branding and carving or mutilation.

Stapling:

Stapling comes from the verb to staple. Stapling is when they staple staples in your skin. And when we are talking about staples we don ‘t mean the little ones which we use to staple paper but the ones which are used in hospitals: these are bigger and the material is stronger. The staples are shot into your skin with a special device and are removed after 3 or 4 weeks with an unstapler.
The designs that can be placed are more primitive and simple such as arrows or circles. The reason why the designs have to be simple is that when you make it too complicated the 2 spots that the staples leave on your skin are no longer visible. This is one of the many designs.
The result of stapling is each time 2 blood-red little spots. Afterwards these little spots colour brown or white depending on your skin colour.
As you can imagine this is a very painful technique, in which a very annoying itch appears after about a week.
It's also obvious that stapling leaves a scar for the rest of your life.
The most common place to put on a scar is on the upper arm. But with some exceptional cases designs were even put on the back of the neck and head.

Branding:

Another subdivision of scarification is branding. This is actually like they brand or mark a cow with a stamp.
This is a ritual used a long time ago in the times of slavery. It was also applied in the thirties-forties in South-America. Then the putting on of brands was popular and the black students branded themselves to confirm their brotherhood.
The technique is also very terrifying: they heat up a shaped metal to about one thousand degrees, then they push this metal about 1 millimetre deep in your skin and hold it there for about 2 seconds.
The designs have to be bigger than with tattoos, otherwise the technique can't be applied because...








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