Shadowhunters and Downworlders: A Mortal Instruments Reader(36)

You can just imagine the silence at a lavish Scythian party when some untattooed nobody shows up; no need to ask for his invitation, is there? The rest of the guests have their invitations to the important events preinked into their skin. Awkward!

Pre-Roman Britons were also fond of the same types of animal tattoos as the Scythians, which might have been what led to the Romans calling them “Picti”—the painted people. They weren’t legendary for their parties; even the Romans steered clear unless they absolutely had to fight them, because the Picti were kinda…fierce. And probably they looked fantastic, if you were into heavily flashed-out bods.

In modern Western civilization, we often look to Greece and Rome for our cultural cues, though, and those guys? Not notable fans of body art. In their highly rigid societies, tattoos served instead as convenient identification. Hence, you only got a tattoo if you were initiated into a religious sect or, more likely, were a slave, in which case you could be easily returned to your owner should you stray. Having no tattoos meant you were important—the absolute reversal of the Scythians, which must have made diplomatic meetings weird for newcomers, and probably led to a few major wars just because the ambassadors didn’t know whom to shake hands with.

But eventually some of those Romans—specifically the soldiers—came away from their encounters with other cultures intrigued by the whole notion of body art. You can’t keep a cool flash down, and by about AD 250, Roman soldiers had discovered the ancient charms of plunking down coin in a foreign port and getting MATER tattooed on their arms—which was cool at least until Emperor Constantine got religion and forbade the whole practice. Probably not the slave tattooing, though, just the voluntary stuff. The only laws Constantine made about slavery had to do with Jews not owning Christian slaves. Other than that, it was likely business as usual.

In banning tattoos, Constantine was following accepted theological interpretation of a biblical restriction: “Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print or tattoo any marks upon you” (Leviticus 19:28). Interestingly, this kind of supports the idea of magic being an inherent part of the tattoo process…that there could be a certain power in it that was forbidden to humans (but not, it could be argued, to Shadowhunters, who have the blood of angels in them and operate by a whole different set of laws). But, just as a thought, what if the whole reason behind making tattoos anathema was not just a desire to keep a cultural separation but for real and sound reasons? What if tattoos really could be magical? In some of the darker corners of the internet you’ll find people who still support that theory—that inking a design on your body, especially one that might have some kind of malicious intent, provides a gateway for something more sinister. Like demons.

I’m not saying it’s so. I’m just saying you might want to reconsider that death’s-head design in favor of something more…Care Bear friendly.

Even today, there’s still a raging debate about what the Bible really says about tattoos. Some theologians say that tattoos are completely forbidden while others interpret the verse to mean that mourning practices that involve self-mutilation and/or tattooing are out, but fashion tats are a-okay. Me, I’ll let the responsible parties duke that out while I get something from the craft service table. Mmm, donuts!

Not all tattoos were about fashion, status, or therapy; some were about information. Vital and secret information. Imagine if you could supply a warning about an impending Pearl Harbor attack whether you were alive or dead, simply by having it tattooed in code on your forearm? Not only did you not have to survive, you just had to make sure a recognizable body part made it out intact. Spies sometimes identified themselves to each other via their tattoos, which also served as ranks—they helped sort out which spy was in charge. Very useful things, these tats. Today in our own culture, some soldiers are following the ancient practice of having their essential info tattooed onto their bodies, just as Japanese samurai used to do so their bodies could be returned to their families. Not only that, some soldiers have taken to having their ranks tattooed on as well. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the Shadowhunters had some kind of ranking system mixed in with all those runes too. Not that Jace would ever pay the least bit of attention to them, of course.

Everything old is new again, and so’s the idea of tattoos being a great spy/espionage tool. You can now get a tattoo that’s visible only under UV light, and the newest fad is getting a tattoo in an ink shade that matches your skin, so the tat is visible only at certain angles. But as usual, Chinese innovation has gone beyond the call of duty and developed an “electronic tattoo,” at least in theory. It’s basically a temporary tattoo that can be applied to skin, but it contains circuits, sensors, wireless antennas, and power cells…and it’s ultra-thin and stretchable. Put one on and you can hack into a protected system while looking like you’re wearing nothing but your birthday suit. (Oh, and also? You can use it as a hospital monitoring device, a less-bulky ankle bracelet for house-arrest criminals, and even as a wearable gaming device. SCIENCE!)

Carrying on with the information theme: Ancient (and some relatively modern) sailors used to ink their resumes onto their arms by getting tattoos that represented their journeys: a full-rigged ship to show they’d gone around Cape Horn, a dragon to show they’d visited China, a turtle to show they’d crossed the equator. So if you were hiring sailors, you obviously wanted sailors with the ink to prove their worth. At least you knew they’d survived a few journeys.