1000 BODILY MARKS
Four further perfections are added to the basic six of Sanskrit
Buddhism, correlating to the last four bodhisattva stages
(compare also the Pali ten).
At the seventh stage a bodhisattva is said to become irre-
versible. The last three stages are thus termed “pure.” At the
tenth stage the bodhisattva appears on a lotus seat, surround-
ed by other bodhisattvas and buddhas, light rays fill the sky,
and he (there is little evidence in Indian Buddhism that it
could be a woman) is consecrated to full buddhahood. A
tenth-stage bodhisattva is extraordinary. For example, he can
emanate innumerable forms to help others or place whole
world systems inside each pore of his skin. It is at this level
that commonly Mahāyāna practitioners locate bodhisattvas
like Avalokiteśvara (the Bodhisattva of Compassion) or
Mañjuśrı̄ (the Bodhisattva of Wisdom), iconically represent-
ed bodhisattvas to whose compassionate care prayers for help
can be made.
Becoming a buddha is to attain the fifth path, the path
of no more learning (aśaiks: amārga). Kamalaśı̄la observes that
even buddhas could not fully tell of the wonderful qualities
possessed by buddhas for the welfare of all sentient
beings.
This description of the path of the bodhisattva has been
in accordance with exoteric Indian sources. But in later Indi-
an Buddhism esoteric Tantric materials and practices begin
to emerge. Two elements in Tantric doctrine taken as a
whole make considerable difference to the bodhisattva pic-
ture. First, through certain Tantric practices it is possible to
follow the whole bodhisattva path from beginning to end in
just one lifetime. Second, no matter how much one practices
the path described above, it becomes necessary to engage in
Tantric practice to attain full buddhahood. Great summas
of Buddhism, concentrating on the bodhisattva path and in-
tegrating Tantra at the appropriate point, are found particu-
larly in Tibet. An example would be the Lam rim chen mo
(Greater stages of the path) by Tsong kha pa (late fourteenth
century and early fifteenth century). This tendency to short-
en (or even sideline) the lengthy bodhisattva path is also
found in some East Asian Buddhist traditions, such as Zen.
SEE ALSO Amitābha; Buddha; Buddhism, Schools of, article
on Mahāyāna Philosophical Schools of Buddhism; Iconogra-
phy, article on Buddhist Iconography; Jñāna; Karun: ā;
Merit, article on Buddhist Concepts; Pāramitās; Prajñā;
Śāntideva; Soteriology; Stupa Worship.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Beyer, Stephan V. The Buddhist Experience: Sources and Interpreta-
tions. Encino, Calif., 1974. Includes a translation of the first
Bhāvanākrama.
Bodhi, Bhikkhu. A Treatise on the Pāramı̄s. Kandy, Sri Lanka,
1996. Partial translation of Dhammapāla’s commentary on
Cariyāpit:aka.
Buddhadatta. The Clarifier of the Sweet Meaning
(Madhuratthavilāsinı̄). Translated by I. B. Horner. London,
1978. Translation of Buddhadatta’s commentary on
Buddhavam: sa.
Cleary, Thomas, trans. The Flower Ornament Scripture: A Transla-
tion of the Avatamsaka Sutra. Vol. 2. Boulder, Colo., and
Boston, 1984–1987. Includes the Daśabhūmika Sūtra trans-
lated from the Chinese.
Horner, I. B., trans. The Minor Anthologies of the Pali Canon. Part
3, Chronicle of Buddhas (Buddhavam: sa); Basket of Conduct
(Cariyāpit:aka). London, 1975.
Jayawickrama, N. A., trans. The Story of Gotama Buddha. Oxford,
1990. The Nidānakathā.
Mahāvastu. The Mahāvastu. 3 vols. Translated by J. J. Jones. Lon-
don, 1949–1956.
Norman, K. R. Collected Papers. 6 vols. Oxford, 1990–1996.
Śāntideva. The Bodhicaryāvatāra. Translated by Kate Crosby and
Andrew Skilton. Oxford, 1996.
Sinor, Denis, ed. Studies in South, East, and Central Asia. Delhi,
1968. Includes the Daśabhūmika Sūtra translated from the
Sanskrit by Megumu Honda.
Tucci, Giuseppe, ed. Minor Buddhist Texts. Part 2. Rome, 1956–
1958. An English summary of Bhāvanākrama.
Williams, Paul. Mahāyāna Buddhism: The Doctrinal Foundations.
London and New York, 1989.
Williams, Paul, with Anthony Tribe. Buddhist Thought: A Com-
plete Introduction to the Indian Tradition. London and New
York, 2000. Contains a full bibliography.
PAUL WILLIAMS (2005)
BODILY MARKS. The human body is constantly al-
tered by natural and cultural processes. These alterations
leave visible traces, which in many societies are associated
with religious ideas, beliefs, and forces. Biological growth it-
self leaves marks on the body. Adolescence brings changes
in physical structure to members of both sexes. Aging alters
the coloring and density of body hair. Firm flesh wrinkles;
teeth drop out. Furthermore accidents at work and play mar,
scar, mutilate, and deform the body. Such biological and ac-
cidental changes may in many cultures be evidence of the op-
eration of invisible beings or powers, such as deities, ances-
tors, or witchcraft. Or compensatory, supernormal powers
may be attributed to the lame, to the malformed, to the
blind, and to albinos. Just as certain kinds of diviners may
read hidden meanings in such natural phenomena as the
flight of birds or the spoor of foxes in sand, so too may the
will of invisible entities be read into the natural marks left
on the body by growth, illness, and violent mishap.
But nature lags far behind culture in the use of the body
as a “canvas,” as manipulable material for the expression of
meaning. Clothing, headgear, ornaments, and regalia are of
course salient agencies for the situational communication of
personal and social identity, religious and secular values, and
social status. Masks too have similar functions. Such external
coverings indicate cultural transformations, particularly
those of a transitory and repeatable character. It must be
stressed, however, that in ritual settings in many cultures the
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGION, SECOND EDITION

same concepts and beliefs may be expressed by the marking
of the body and by its clothing and masking. Ritual enlists
many sensory codes, nonverbal and verbal, and orchestrates
them to convey many-layered messages about the meaning
of the human condition.
Bodily marking proper may be divided into two main
types. The first, permanent marking, involves surgical or
quasi-surgical operations on the surface of the body by means
of cutting or piercing instruments, such as knives, needles,
or razors. The general purpose here is to leave indelible marks
on the body, mute messages of irreversible status change, per-
manent cultural identity, or corporate affiliation. The second
category, temporary marking, includes the application to the
body of decorations through such media as chalk, charcoal,
paint, or other substances that can readily be washed or dust-
ed off. In a sense such bodily marks are less durable than
clothing, but when they are used in ritual contexts, they may
convey more tellingly important aspects of the cosmological
order.
Radical alteration of the genitalia is common to many
cultures. It should be noted, however, that such operations,
both in preindustrial societies and among adherents of some
of the major historical religions, take place in a religious con-
text, often to mark an important stage of the patient’s life
cycle. Symbolic action reinforces the surgical message that
the patient, also an initiate, is undergoing an irreversible
change in status and mode of being as culturally defined. Re-
ligious as well as cultural definitions and evaluations—
gender, age, social segmentation, and cultic, tribal, and na-
tional affiliation—are given permanent expression precisely
in the surgical refashioning of those bodily parts through
which the very existence of the patient’s group is genetically
transmitted.
Many authorities hold that, generally speaking, tattoo-
ing has flourished most among relatively light-skinned peo-
ples, whereas scarification and cicatrization are mostly found
among dark-skinned peoples because raised scars and keloids
are more easily seen as pattern elements than the darker pig-
ments. In contrast to body painting, however, all forms of
piercing, cutting, or cauterizing the body involve contact
with nerve endings resulting in pain, hence their not infre-
quent association with initiatory ordeals, in which respect
they find common ground with such practices as genital exci-
sion, scourging, and knocking out teeth. Neuroscience may
someday discover the precise effects on the central nervous
system and on such concomitant psychological functions as
memory and sexuality that are produced by these often pro-
longed operations on the subcutaneous neuronic network.
With the spread of Western culture, many societies that
formerly practiced surgical bodily marking in religious con-
texts have abandoned these customs. Certainly the three
major religions “of the book”—Judaism, Christianity, and
Islam—have interdicted tattooing since early times. Body
marking was forbidden to Jews by God in the Torah (Lv.
19:28; Dt. 14:1). In 787 CE a Roman Catholic council for-
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGION, SECOND EDITION
BODILY MARKS 1001
bade tattooing. Tattooing was also forbidden by
Muh: ammad. Nevertheless tattooing has been frequently
practiced, for therapeutic or decorative reasons, by nominal
adherents of these three religions: for example, by Bosnian
Catholics, where it may be a survival of an ancient puberty
rite (reported by Mary Durham, 1928, pp. 104–106), by
Muslims in the Middle East (exhaustively discussed in Henry
Field, 1958), and (rarely) among Middle Eastern and North
African Jews.
TATTOOING. European explorers during the fifteenth to
eighteenth centuries were struck by the marks they found on
the bodies of the peoples they encountered in hitherto un-
known lands. Captain John Smith in Virginia and Captain
James Cook in Polynesia (who coined the term tattoo from
the Tahitian word tattau, meaning “to mark”) were struck
by this form of body marking “by inlaying the Colour Black
under their skins in such a manner as to be indelible” (Cook,
1893, p. 93). European explorers found tattooing in general
practice among the Maori of New Zealand and most other
Polynesian islands. The custom was also common through-
out New Guinea, Melanesia, Micronesia, the Malay Archi-
pelago, and the Malay Peninsula. On mainland Asia certain
peoples of India, Burma, and the fringes of Tibet employed
tattooing. Some African groups, including the Nama Khoi,
also practiced the art. Tattooing was relatively frequent
among North and South American Indians.
Tattooing resembles painting, with the face and body
as canvas, while scarification resembles sculpture or woodcar-
ving. Both processes can be painful, but tattooing seems to
be less so than scarification, though a full design may take
longer to apply. Perhaps the relative quickness of scarifica-
tion and cicatrization is one of the reasons they figure so
prominently in rites of passage and other religious and thera-
peutic rituals, because they literally mark a sharp contrast be-
tween the initiate’s previous and subsequent state and status.
Nevertheless if such rites include a lengthy period of seclu-
sion from the mundane domain, the slower, more cumula-
tive operation of tattooing may proceed at a more leisurely
pace.
Full-body tattooing may take years to complete and may
be accomplished in several ritually significant stages. Wilfrid
D. Hambly (1925) reported, for example, that among the
Motu Koita of New Guinea tattooing played a prominent
role in rituals celebrating the physical development of the fe-
male body. At about five years old, the hands and forearms
were tattooed. Between five and ten years of age, the chin,
nose, lower abdomen, and inner thighs were tattooed as they
lost their infantile appearance and grew firmer. At puberty,
the breast, back, and buttocks were tattooed as they took on
adult contours. During marital rites and then at mother-
hood, the final designs were placed. Each phase of matura-
tion had its own design. Indeed the Motu believed that tat-
tooing not only signified growing up but even helped to
cause it (Hambly, 1925, p. 32).
1002 BODILY MARKS
In a religious context, as distinct from a purely decora-
tive context, tattoo marks are clearly symbolic. Hambly, for
example, showed how the tattooing of initiates in girls’ pu-
berty rituals among the Omaha of North America was origi-
nally associated with rites devoted to the sun, the dominant
power in their universe. The Omaha deified day and night
as the male and female cosmic powers, akin to the Chinese
opposition of yang and yin. At the apogee of solar ritual, a
nubile girl was the focus of ritual dances, painting, and tat-
tooing. She was tattooed with a disk representing the sun and
a star standing for night. Four points on the star signified the
four life-giving winds. The two marks together expressed the
message that night gives way to the sun, a presage of the girl’s
marriage. The tattoos were believed to confer life energy and
potential fecundity on the developing woman during this li-
minal phase. If her tattoo sores did not heal quickly, this was
thought to indicate the displeasure of spirits because she had
been unchaste (Hambly, 1925, pp. 83–84). This example il-
lustrates how ritual tattooing inscribes—or one might even
say incarnates—cosmological ideas and forces, leaving a per-
manent impress, both subjectively and objectively.
There is archaeological evidence for puncture tattooing
in the Middle East at least as early as the second millennium
BCE. Puncture marks on mummy skins with duplicate signs
painted on figurines have been found in Nubian burials from
this period. Just as in preliterate societies, the polytheistic
cultures of the eastern Mediterranean world saw tattooing as
an efficacious means of communication between the invisi-
ble and visible domains, here regarded as divine and human.
For example, the pharaoh Akhenaton (Amenhotep IV) is
represented in reliefs as bearing the name Aton on his body.
Although Akhenaton was reared in a polytheistic tradition,
he tried to develop a solar monotheism and encouraged natu-
ralistic art at the expense of symbolism. Hence his tattoo was
a name, not a symbol. The great monotheistic religions went
even further in forbidding the marking of symbols of deities
on the body. Field (1958, p. 4) supplied further evidence of
rapport between humans and deities effected by tattooing.
The symbol of the goddess Neit, for example, was tattooed
on the arms and legs of Libyan captives figured on the tomb
walls of Seti I (1318–1304 BCE). Even in modern North Afri-
ca a tattoo pattern called Triangle of Tanit has been identi-
fied as the symbol of the Carthaginian goddess Tanit, who
was perhaps the Libyan goddess Ta-Neit taken over by the
Carthaginians. Field also mentioned that the devotees of
Dionysos were stamped with that god’s symbol, the ivy leaf.
In Syria-Palestine the worshipers of the moon goddess Mylit-
ta were tattooed with her figure or symbol on their hands or
the backs of their necks.
Subsequently, despite religious interdictions, both
Christians and Muslims bore tattoos as evidences of pilgrim-
ages to the sacred places. This practice apparently derived
from the time of the Crusades. Coptic pilgrims were tattooed
with the word Jerusalem with the date of the visit beneath
it or a standardized religious emblem. Moses Maimonides
(1135/8–1204), commenting on the prohibition against tat-
tooing in Leviticus, reiterated the central Judaic argument
against idolatry as its motive force, whereas other scholars in
his tradition stressed the integrity of the human body made
in the express image and likeness of God as justification for
the ban.
In the cultural history of tattooing, certain main trends
are discernible. In antiquity and in many of the reports of
travelers in the early modern period, tattooing in preindustri-
al societies dominantly relates the tattooed person to a social
group or category (totemic clan, age or sex category, secret
society or warrior association, unmarried or married catego-
ries, the widowed, and the like). Sometimes the tattooing
process is embedded in an encompassing ritual process. In
other instances, as discussed, cumulative tattooing may oper-
ate independently from rites of passage, stressing individual
development rather than collective affiliation. As societies in-
crease in scale and grow more complex and the division of
economic and social labor becomes more refined, tattooing
becomes more a matter of individual choice and serves the
purpose of self-expression, stressing the decorative rather
than the religious and corporate functions. Instead of class-
ing individuals together, homogenizing them symbolically,
it now differentiates them. An antinomian character invests
tattooing. As the technology of the art develops (for example,
the invention of the electric tattooing needle), the designs
and colors multiply, allowing considerable scope for self-
expression and for making statements about the self not only
to others but also to oneself, indelibly imprinting a complex
image of one’s identity upon one’s body.
In societies where tattooing is strongly interdicted or
frowned upon for religious or political reasons, tattooing
comes to mark and identify not only recalcitrant individuals
but also marginal groups that otherwise have few means to
display identity in mainstream society. A considerable litera-
ture exists on tattooing among such diverse categories as en-
listed men in World Wars I and II, criminals, prostitutes, ho-
mosexuals, juvenile delinquents, and motorcycle gangs such
as the Hell’s Angels.
In Japan, where the art of tattooing (irezumi) has been
long established and may have had, as in Polynesia, ritual
connections, the practice fell under interdict in the late
Tokugawa period, but it was strongly revived after 1881,
when it ceased to be a penal offense. According to Robert
Brain, the Japanese—who embroider the whole body with
artistic designs, the equivalent of a suit of clothes to a culture
that has never hallowed the nude—“use tattooing to give
personality to the naked body. . . . Even the bare skin, in-
corporated into the overall design, acquires an appearance of
artificiality” (Brain, 1979, p. 64). The designs are traditional
and include the dragon, “giver of strength and sagacity,” the
horse and the carp (mutations of the dragon), epic heroes
such as Yoshitsune, Chinese sages, and the gods whose deeds
are recorded in the Kojiki and Nihongi (Nihonshoki). In
Japan it has often been difficult to distinguish, in Western
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGION, SECOND EDITION

style, the religious from the aesthetic and social. Contempo-
rary tattooed men and women wear on their bodies subtle
and beautiful expressions of a continuous tradition that links
deity, nature, and humankind.
As tattooing became detached from its earlier religious
contexts, it seems to have become increasingly associated
with the magical protection of individuals and with curative
rites performed in cases of individual affliction. Field (1958)
provided innumerable examples of tattooing in Syria, Iraq,
Iran, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Palestine, Baluchistan, and West
Pakistan used as prophylaxis, cure, and subsequent preven-
tion of a variety of diseases and ailments, mostly thought to
be due to supernatural causes, such as the evil eye, witchcraft,
or demons. Therapeutic tattooing is found in many cultures.
For example, the Sarawak Kaya of Borneo believe that sick-
ness is caused by the soul leaving the body. A ritual therapist,
the dayong, is called in to perform a ritual, including dancing
and incantations, to recall the patient’s soul to its body. After
he is sure the soul is back, the dayong tattoos an emblem on
the patient to keep it from straying again. Similar uses are
found cross-culturally in abundance.
Mention should be made of the growth of tattooing in
the United States, particularly in California during the late
1970s. After World War II the practice subsided, but be-
cause of the influence of the “counterculture” of the late six-
ties, the role of electronic media in bringing the practices of
other cultures into the American home, extensive tourism,
a general emphasis on individuality (in dress, sexual mores,
art, and religion), and improvements in the techniques of
professional tattooing, there has been a marked revival in the
art. In the early twenty-first century tattoos along with body
piercing became such an integral part of American popular
culture that, for many youths, obtaining a tattoo became
something of a rite of passage into adulthood. As such the
ancient connection with religion has not been forgotten. In
addition at the Fifth World Convention of Tattoo Artists
and Fans, held in Sacramento, California, in 1980, the prize
tattoo was “a large back mural, which included the Virgin
of Guadalupe, set on a bed of bright roses, framed in the
lower corners by a skull face and a human face, and in the
upper, by flowing angels” (Govenar, 1981, p. 216).
SCARIFICATION AND CICATRIZATION. Whereas tattooing is
the insertion of pigment under the skin and involves pricking
instruments ranging from thorns, fish spines, cactus spikes,
shells, and bones to steel and electric needles, scarification
and cicatrization are more drastic ways of marking the body.
Many anthropologists equate these terms, but strictly speak-
ing scarification is the operation of marking with scars,
whereas cicatrization is the subsequent formation of a scar
at the site of a healing wound, that is, the healing process.
It might be useful to distinguish scarification, the production
of long cuts, from cicatrization, the deliberate formation of
keloids, sharply elevated, often round or oval scars due to the
rich production of collagen in the dermal layer. David Liv-
ingstone, in his Last Journals of David Livingstone in Central
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGION, SECOND EDITION
BODILY MARKS 1003
Africa (1874), gave the classic definition of keloid formation
when writing of the Makwa, who have double lines of keloids
on the face: “After the incisions are made, charcoal is rubbed
in, and the flesh pressed out, so that all the cuts are raised
above the level of the surface” (Livingstone, 1874, vol. 1,
p. 33). In many parts of sub-Saharan Africa cicatrization fol-
lows the work of two instruments: a hooked thorn to raise
the skin and a small blade to slice it. The more the skin is
raised, the more prominent the resulting keloid.
In many preindustrial societies the cicatrization process
is embedded in a complex ritual sequence. In The Drums of
Affliction (Victor Witter Turner, 1968) Edith Turner report-
ed such a ritual sequence among the Ndembu of Zambia.
During the seclusion phase of a girl’s puberty ritual, the initi-
ate is cicatrized by a woman skilled in the work. The girl is
said to feel much pain while the incisions are made, but after
the operation she is allowed to revile the operator in compen-
sation, just as boys are permitted to swear at the circumciser
during the corresponding male initiation rites. Groups of
horizontal incisions converge on the navel from either side,
like several sentences of braille. Other keloids are made be-
neath the navel toward the pubes and on the small of the
back. Black wood ash mixed with castor oil is rubbed into
the cuts. The raised cicatrices beside the navel constitute a
kind of erotic braille and are “to catch a man” by giving him
enhanced sexual pleasure when he plays his hand over them.
Initiates who can stand the pain are also cicatrized on the
mid-chest above the breast line. Two parallel cuts, known by
a term signifying “to deny the lover,” are made. The first ke-
loid, to the left, represents the initiate’s premarital lover, the
second, to the right, her husband-to-be. The girl is told never
to mention her lover’s name to her husband, for the two men
should “remain friends” and not fight each other.
Although tattooing, cicatrization, and scarification have
much in common, may be combined in various ways, or may
each be applied in different contexts in the same society, it
may be broadly concluded that tattooing, like body painting,
lends itself well to decorative use and personal art. The body
becomes a canvas on or under the skin of which may be de-
picted naturalistic scenes and portraits, abstract designs, and
symbolic patterns. Cutting and scarring flesh too may result
in aesthetic effects of a quite sophisticated character but also
constitutes a visible record of incarnate religious forces and
a sacred chronicle of a culture’s life-crisis ceremonies. Here
the incised body itself proclaims carnally the disciplines in-
volved in the cultural definition of its age, gender, and com-
munal and structural identifications and alliances. In certain
societies these marks are believed to be inscribed on the ghost
or spirit after death, enabling the gods or spirits to recognize
the membership and status of the deceased and to send him
or her to an appropriate place of posthumous residence. It
is interesting that the Roman Catholic and Orthodox
branches of Christianity have sublimated similar beliefs,
while condemning body marking itself, in the notion that
sacraments of baptism, confirmation, and ordination confer
indelible marks upon the soul.
1004 BODILY MARKS
BODY PAINTING. Of the many languages of bodily adorn-
ment, several may coexist in a single culture. Terence S. Tur-
ner (1977) pointed out, for example, that the Chikrí, a Ge-
speaking group in central Brazil, possess elaborate body
painting, adorn themselves with earplugs, lip plugs, and
penis sheaths, and put on cotton leg and arm bands in ritual
contexts. Turner argued that such body adornments are a
kind of symbolic language. Body painting is a code that ex-
presses a wide range of information about social status, sex,
and age. More than this, wrote Turner, it “establishes a chan-
nel of communication within the individual, between the so-
cial and biological aspects of his personality” (Terence S.
Turner, 1977, p. 98).
Color symbolism is most important here, especially the
colors red, black, and white, all of which are used in determi-
nate ways. Red is always applied on bodily extremities, fore-
arms and hands, lower legs and feet, and the face. Black is
used on the trunk and the upper parts of the limbs as well
as for square cheek patches and borders along the shaved
areas of the forehead. Black face paintings, executed with
great care, are often covered immediately by a heavy coat of
red that renders them almost invisible. This practice may be
explained by the symbolic values of the colors. Red, accord-
ing to Turner, represents energy, health, and “quickness,”
both in the sense of swiftness and of heightened sensitivity.
Black, per contra, is associated with transitions between
clearly defined states or categories, with liminal conditions,
or with regions where normal, precisely defined structures of
ideas and behavioral rules are “blacked out.” Black also
means “dead” and is adjectivally applied to a zone of land
outside the village, separating it from the wild forest, that is
used for graveyards and seclusion camps for groups undergo-
ing rites of passage. The Chikrí see death itself as a liminal
phase between life and complete oblivion. Ghosts survive for
one generation in the village of the dead before they “die”
once more, this time forever. White represents the pure, ter-
minal state of complete transcendence of the normal social
world, for white is the color of ghosts, and white clay is the
food of ghosts. The Chikrí paint over the black designs with
red to make a symbolic statement, clearly uninfluenced by
aesthetic considerations. According to Turner, the black de-
signs represent the socialization of the intelligent part of the
person, which is then energized by the biological and psychic
life force represented by the thick red overpainting.
Turner’s conclusion that body painting at this general
level of meaning “really amounts to the imposition of a sec-
ond, social ‘skin’ on the naked biological skin of the individ-
ual” (Terence S. Turner, 1977, p. 100) has a wide cross-
cultural range of applications. The etymological link be-
tween cosmos and cosmetics has often been noted; both derive
from the Greek term meaning “order, ornament, universe.”
When the face and body are painted with designs and colors,
the cosmeticized ones are living links between the individual
and the sociocultural order with which he or she is temporar-
ily identified. But as with tattooing, in complex industrial so-
cieties body painting may assume an antinomian function;
bizarre and extravagant designs may betoken rebellion
against a society’s most cherished values. Or it may become
merely an expression of personal vanity and love of
adornment.
MARKS OF SUPERNATURAL ELECTION. A considerable litera-
ture exists on bodily marks that are believed to be signs of
election to high religious status. These must be distinguished
from blemishes or birthmarks taken to be indications of rein-
carnation. In many sub-Saharan societies, for example, re-
cently born infants are carefully inspected for marks corre-
sponding to conspicuous scars and moles found on some
deceased relative. Among the Ndembu of Zambia, a child
was called Lupinda because marks resembling scratches on
his thigh were similar to the scar marks of a leopard-inflicted
wound on the thigh of his mother’s brother, the great hunter
Lupinda. It was expected that the boy, Lupinda reborn,
would likewise excel at the chase. Similar beliefs have been
reported among the Haida and Tlingit of northwestern
North America.
In the great historical religions founders, prophets,
saints, and notable teachers of the faith are sometimes associ-
ated with supernaturally generated bodily characteristics. For
example, it is reported that when Siddhārtha Gautama, who
became the Buddha, was born, his body bore the thirty-two
auspicious marks (mahapu-rusa laksanani) that indicated his
future greatness besides secondary marks (anuvyañjanani).
The Indian poet Aśvaghos: a, who wrote his Buddhacarita
(Life of the Buddha) in the second century CE, mentioned
some of these marks: the sign of a wheel on one foot, web-
bing between his fingers and toes, and a circle of hair be-
tween his eyebrows. In Islam too there is a tradition of a per-
son bearing bodily marks signifying divine election.
Muh: ammad’s son-in-law EAli predicted that the Mahdi, the
“divinely guided one,” would come to restore justice and
righteousness to the world and that he would be recognized
by certain bodily traits, among them a balding forehead and
a high, hooked nose. A birthmark on his right cheek, a gap
between his front teeth, and a deep black beard were also pre-
dicted. Muh: ammad Ah: mad, who was believed to be the
Mahdi by many living in the Sudan during the nineteenth
century, was said to have all the looked-for attributes.
Christianity also has its tradition of bodily marks divine-
ly imposed. For Christians the term stigmata refers to
wounds some people bear on the hands and feet and occa-
sionally on the side, shoulder, or back that are believed to
be visible signs of participation in Christ’s passion. Francis
of Assisi (1181/2–1226) is said to have been the first stigmat-
ic. Since his time the number has multiplied. Historically the
stigmata have taken many different forms and have appeared
in different positions on the body, hands, and feet of stigmat-
ics. For example, Francis’s side wound was on the right,
while that of the celebrated modern stigmatic Padre Pio
(1887–1968) was on the left. For the Catholic Church stig-
mata do not by themselves indicate sanctity. Of the several
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGION, SECOND EDITION

hundred stigmatics listed since the thirteenth century, only
sixty-one have been canonized or beatified. Herbert Thurs-
ton (1933), an authority on this phenomenon, was extremely
reluctant to attribute stigmatization to a miracle. Other theo-
logians are ready to await the verdict of neuroscientific re-
search to settle the problem. Moreover C. Bernard Ruffin,
a Lutheran minister, has pointed out that “for every genuine
stigmatic, whether holy or hysterical, saintly or satanic, there
are at least two whose wounds are self-inflicted” (Ruffin,
1982, p. 145).
SUMMARY. In many societies birthmarks, blemishes, defor-
mities, and other natural signs have been regarded as visible
indicators of the permanent or transient presence of invisible,
preternatural forces and influences, whether of a magical or
religious character. They may be linked with notions of rein-
carnation, illness caused by spirits or witches, election to a
priestly or shamanic role, or the marking of basic group iden-
tity. However, the deliberate shaping of the body as an arti-
fact by cultural means is the most widely practiced marker
of group identity, an identity that in the simpler societies is
also religious identity. Here the body becomes a deliberately
created badge of identity. Both permanent and temporary
changes are made for this purpose. In addition to the means
described above, one might cite tooth filing, piercing or oth-
erwise changing the shape of ears, nose, tongue, and lips, and
changes made in the body’s extremities, such as hair, feet,
fingers, and nails. Although discussion of clothing, the iden-
tifying medium for all kinds of religions in all cultures, is be-
yond the scope of this article, as is detailed discussion of the
relationship between aesthetic and ritual bodily marking, it
is clear that the body, whether clad or unclad, painted or un-
painted, smooth or scarred, is never religiously neutral. It is
always and everywhere a complex signifier of spirit, society,
self, and cosmos.
SEE ALSO Circumcision; Clitoridectomy; Clothing; Human
Body; Masks; Nudity.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Brain, Robert. The Decorated Body. London, 1979. A readable
cross-cultural description by an anthropologist of the decora-
tion of the human body.
Caplan, Jane, ed. Written on the Body: The Tattoo in European and
American History. Princeton, N.J., 2000. An excellent cultur-
al history of the tattoo in Europe and North America from
early Greek and Roman antiquity to contemporary Euro-
America.
Cook, James. Captain Cook’s Journal during His First Voyage
Round the World, in H.M. Bark “Endeavour,” 1768–1771.
Edited by William J. L. Wharton. London, 1893.
DeMello, Margo. Bodies of Inscription: A Cultural History of the
Modern Tattoo Community. Durham, N.C., 2000. An eth-
nography of contemporary tattooing in the United States
written by a female anthropologist who is also a member of
the tattoo community.
Durham, Mary Edith. Some Tribal Origins, Laws, and Customs of
the Balkans. London, 1928.
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGION, SECOND EDITION
BODY PAINTING 1005
Field, Henry. Body-Marking in Southwestern Asia. Papers of the
Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard
University, vol. 45, no. 1. Cambridge, Mass., 1958.
Fisher, Angela. Africa Adorned. London, 1984. A beautiful collec-
tion of photographs cataloging the various forms of African
body adornment, both temporary and permanent.
Gell, Alfred. Wrapping in Images: Tattooing in Polynesia. Oxford,
1993. A comparative analysis of tattooing in Polynesia based
on a comprehensive survey of both written and visual docu-
mentary sources that attempts to demonstrate the role tat-
tooing played in constructing a distinctively Polynesian type
of social and political being.
Govenar, Alan B. “Culture in Transition: The Recent Growth of
Tattooing in America.” Anthropos 76 (1981): 216–219.
Hambly, Wilfrid D. The History of Tattooing and Its Significance:
With Some Account of Other Forms of Corporal Marking. Lon-
don, 1925. Reprint, Detroit, 1974. Still the classic study on
tattooing.
Livingstone, David. Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central
Africa, from 1865 to His Death. London, 1874.
Rubin, Arnold, ed. Marks of Civilization: Artistic Transformations
of the Human Body. Los Angeles, 1988. A scholarly collection
of ethnographic essays, photographs, and drawings that focus
on the divergent ways human beings have used bodily marks
to inscribe the human body with social and cultural mean-
ing. It also contains an extensive bibliography on bodily
marks categorized by geographical region, including Euro-
America.
Ruffin, C. Bernard. Padre Pio: The True Story. Huntington, Ind.,
1982. A critical, sober, essentially nonhagiographical account
of the life of the best-known stigmatic of the twentieth cen-
tury. The medical evidence about his stigma is thoroughly
discussed.
Strathern, Andrew, and Marilyn Strathern. Self-Decoration in
Mount Hagen. Toronto, 1971. A comprehensive account of
body decoration and its meaning in a single society, that of
Mount Hagen, New Guinea.
Thurston, Herbert. “The Problem of Stigmatization.” Studies 22
(1933): 221–232.
Turner, Terence S. “Cosmetics: The Language of Bodily Adorn-
ment.” In Conformity and Conflict, 3d ed., edited by James
P. Spradley and David W. McCurdy, pp. 91–108. Boston,
1977. A seminal article on bodily adornment among the
Chikrí of Brazil. The author deciphers the complex code un-
derlying various modes of decoration to reveal their meaning
and suggests that body decorations have similar functions in
all societies.
Turner, Victor Witter. The Drums of Affliction. Oxford, 1968.
VICTOR TURNER (1987)
EDITH TURNER (2005)
BODY SEE HUMAN BODY
BODY PAINTING SEE BODILY MARKS