Did Captain Cook Have Tattoos ?

Solarglide explore the history of Tattoos with Captain cook.

Solarglide Explore The Outline . . .Believe it or not, but Captain James Cook had a large part to play in Tattoo culture, as we currently know it today.The oldest found evidence that people ‘tattooed’ each other dates from Neolithic times : ‘Otzi the Iceman’, a well preserved natural mummy from the 4th Millennium BC, which was found in Otz Valley in the Alps. On closer inspection of ‘Otzi’, he was found to have a series of Carbon Tattoos in the shape of lines and dots around his hands and legs.

Captain James Cook was an explorer for the British Royal Navy. His first voyage to the Tahitian Islands took place from 1768 – 1771. It was during this exploration that Cook was first introduced to the practice of Tattooing.

The word Tattoo, is derived from the Tahitian / Polynesian word ‘Tatau’, which means to ‘Mark’.
The tribal term, had been in use for centuries – and long before the Captains shoe buckles ever touched dry land, however, this did not stop Captain James Cook eventually using the word Tattoo and turning it into what we now know, and love, as a form of artistic expression.