Social history of tattoos

Tattoos were once neither popular nor acceptable as a form of body modification. According to the Book of Genesis, the first tattooed man mentioned in history was Cain, the head of the cursed race. Tattooing has long been perceived as a reprehensible sign, often associated with prostitutes and marginals. Western culture was unaware of the practice of tattoos until they were introduced by the diaries of James Cook, who coined the term "tattoo" after returning from his first voyage to the South Seas. It is from the descriptions of eighteenth-century travelers that an exotic idea of ​​distant peoples emerges, and tattoos become an important element in defining the otherness of unfamiliar cultures.