The only problem with this official version is that it omits the actual story of the introduction of tattoos to the west, abundant evidence suggesting that it long predates Cook’s voyage—and that it arose from the most sanctified, even sanctimonious, impulses of civilized society.

V

Toward the end of the nineteenth century—at the same time as Europeans and Americans were shying away from tattoo-emblazoned sailors and flocking to gawk at primitive people covered with inky designs—a veritable tattoo craze was underway among pilgrims in Jerusalem. It followed hundreds of years of less flamboyant dissemination of the practice among westerners visiting the Holy Land.

An Armenian known as “Prickly Jack” haunted hotels in the vicinity of the Holy Sepulcher, presenting certificates of endorsement from former clients to every traveler he could accost. One of these read: “This old fellow picked my arm until it was ‘deeply, darkly, beautifully blue,’ thereby giving me a deep and everlasting impression of Jerusalem.” Pairs of men hovered in the doorways of churches inquiring among passing pilgrims whether they would like to have the representation of a sacred object pricked into them. Young ladies pleaded with their fathers to approve their getting inked and suffered distress of mind as to where to place the mark so that it would neither stain the effect of a sleeveless décolleté costume, nor prove too inconveniently concealed to flash to a friend. When fathers objected, the maiden petitioner would counter, “Why, Mrs. So-and-So, and Lady So-and-So, and the Prince of Wales were tattooed.” It was the latter’s decision to have gotten a tattoo in Jerusalem during his visit in 1862 that gave punch to the appeal. As one observer noted, “By the time paterfamilias has a day or two of this, he usually gives in, and not only allows his fair teasers to follow the illustrious example of England’s future king, but like as not goes through the same operation himself.”8

The city’s tattoo shops, centered near the Holy Sepulcher, did the bulk of their business in the high pilgrimage season, and were only open in winter and spring. The workers were mostly Armenian and Syrian Christians, along with a smattering of gypsies and barbers of almost any faith.

The most common symbol was the Jerusalem Cross (one big crucifix with four tiny crosses set inside its right angles). The Star of Bethlehem—composed of a star, its rays, and three dots signifying the Holy Trinity—was also popular, though Christian visitors to Jerusalem could also choose to be inscribed with birds, fish, or fabulous animals. Muslims favored tattoos of names and sentences from the Koran, sometimes with a sword or anchor embellishing the inscription.

Documentation of the Jerusalem practice goes back at least to 1680, when a Lutheran theologian wrote that Christians from all over Europe making pilgrimages to the Holy Sepulcher would procure marks on their bodies “because of the special sacred awe associated with the place and because of the desire to prove that they had been there.”9 Henry Maundrell’s famous 1697 account of traveling to Jerusalem includes a description of an idle Saturday morning that “gave many of the pilgrims leisure to have their arms mark’d with the usual ensigns of Jerusalem. The artists, who undertake the operation, do it in this manner. They have stamps in wood of any figure that you desire, which they first print off upon your arm with powder of charcoal: Then taking two very fine needles ty’d close together, and dipping them often, like a pen, in certain ink, compounded, as I was informed, of gunpowder and ox-gall, they make with them small punctures all along the lines of the figure which they have printed; and then washing the part in wine, conclude the work.”10

The legendary roots of the Jerusalem tattoo ritual lay in an incident in the life of King David. After David slept with Bathsheba, and dispensed with her husband Uriah by sending him to battle, he became seized with remorse. Anticipating Kafka’s In the Penal Colony, David arranged for the tale of his treachery to be pricked upon his arms and legs with a sharp iron stylus so that his crime would be constantly recalled to him. Even if not quite so ancient, the practice almost certainly began before the seventeenth century, and some believe that returning Crusaders were the first to import tattoos to Europe in a manner that became contagious.