Japanese Tebori

One of my favorite things about tattoos is the different methods used around the world. It is, to me, something that links all tattooed people together, across continents and cultures. We have different motives and methods, but we all wind up covered in ink.
My favorite method of tattooing is the tebori method used in Japan. The tebori method originated between the late 1800s and early 1900s and employs a small group of needles attached to a bamboo rod; Unlike the electric tattoo machine, tebori is done by hand. One hand holds an area of skin taut while the other hand repeatedly drives the needles into the skin. Typically this method is used on large pieces with many layers and minute details.

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Throughout most of the country's history, tattoos have been reserved almost exclusively for members of the Yakuza, an elusive Japanese mafia. Members would show their allegiance by covering themselves in entire body suits, typically cut off right before they reach the wrists and ankles. These body suits depicted mostly traditional Japanese imagery- dragons, lilies and blossoms, koi, samurai, etc. 

"...ladies." (image source)

Because tebori is done by a hand using individual strokes, the process takes much longer and is considerably more painful than a traditional western electric machine. I have a hard enough time with the electric machine covering most of my body that only in another life would I have the capacity to do a body suit in tebori style. But in that life, my suit would be awesome.

miss broadbent herself

The title of this blog is 'Little Betty Broadbent,' and for good reason. She was exquisite. Covered in 565 different tattoos by the end of her career, she was the ultimate Tattooed Lady. 

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Betty began her love affair with tattoos when she was 14 years old. Within a handful of years she had a full bodysuit and a job with the Ringling Brothers Circus. She travelled the world with various sideshows and occasionally tattooed people herself. 

This is a woman to whom I am eternally grateful. She was beautiful, talented, and of course way ballsy. In a move of total badassery and an effort to challenge the traditional idea of beauty, Betty entered a beauty contest during a World Fair in the 1930s. In a time when tattoos were reserved almost exclusively for sailors and vagabonds, she was undeniable beautiful. Although she didn't win the pageant, she played a major role in paving the way for future tattooed ladies to be seen for living art pieces they are. 

In the 1930s, and still today for the most part, tattooing was a boys' club. Betty was one of very few women to initially enter that world, and it all paid off when she was the first person, not just woman, to be inducted into the Tattoo Hall of Fame in 1981, sixteen years after her retirement and two years before her death.
When asked about her countless hours under the needle, Ms. Broadbent is quoted as saying “It hurt something awful, but it was was worth it.”

it sure was (source)