Body modification in all its shapes and forms. Nothing here will be posted without credit. If something is credited but not linked to the artist and you wish to add a link, please get in touch.
The Modified body has a sister blog, NSFW Body Mods. NSFW content will not be posted here.
Submit Your Mods
Body Jewelry Ear Pointing History Implants Information Nullification Piercing Reconstruction Tattoo Tongue Splitting Scarification Suspension Other
Note: This blog includes a tag for "healed scarification". This tag was included because scars that are healed or healing look very different from the fresh scars we commonly see and it's important to see the different ways scars can heal before getting one yourself. This tag IS NOT a way to avoid seeing blood. Often the fresh and healed images are posted side by side, or healed scars are visible in fresh photos where a person has added to their existing work. ALL scarification photos (and all other categories on this blog) carry a potential trigger warning for blood.
Once worn by nearly every Ryukyuan woman, these intricate hand tattoos were outlawed for over a century.
These sacred tattoos were banned in Okinawa. A new generation is bringing them back.
Once worn by nearly every Ryukyuan woman, these intricate hand tattoos were outlawed for over a century.
By Haley Harrison
Inside a small tatami room just outside the center of Naha, the capital of Okinawa Prefecture, a quiet rebirth of a once-banned tattoo practice is taking place. Moeko Heshiki, one of the few remaining hajichaas, lays out her stick-and-poke tools with practiced care. My eyes are drawn to the long, dark arrows that trace the length of her fingers—a sacred art now nearly lost.
I tell her that the last woman in my lineage to have hajichi tattoos was my great-great-grandmother, the weight of both pride and loss settling over me.
“People sometimes tell me, ‘Oh, you opened a box,” she says, alluding to the cultural practices Okinawans were forced to lock away. Soon, the tattoos that once marked the hands of generations of Okinawan women will mark my own.
The colonization of Ryukyu
Long before U.S. military bases lined its shores, the islands known today as Okinawa were once the independent Ryukyu Kingdom. In 1879, Japan’s Meiji government annexed the islands, abolishing the kingdom and absorbing the newly named Okinawa Prefecture into its empire.
Ryukyuan sovereignty was dismantled on all fronts: communal lands were seized and redistributed, the indigenous languages were prohibited, and the political and social systems in which women held positions of leadership were overthrown.
Adriane Tengan-Stoia and Lex McClellan‑Ufugusuku, doctoral students at the University of California, Santa Cruz, explain that women were the spiritual leaders in Ryukyuan society and were believed to possess a divine connection to the spiritual realm.
“Before Western intervention and Japanese colonization, the chifijing ganashi me, or high priestess, served as the king's counterpart,” says Tengan-Stoia. McClellan‑Ufugusuku adds that the new Meiji government “wanted to put heteropatriarchy firmly in the Ryukyus as it was in Japan” and began persecuting women in positions of power and targeting their cultural traditions.
As a result, hajichi—hand-poked markings that adorned the hands, wrists, and fingers of Ryukyuan women for centuries—was banned.
In the days of Ryukyu, girls as young as six would begin their hajichi journey by receiving two small circles, called tontonmi, between their knuckles. As they grew and reached new milestones, such as getting married, mastering complicated weaving techniques, or turning 60, so did their tattoos.
Though painful to receive and, in some cases, forced, hajichi was regarded mainly as a symbol of beauty with a sacred purpose. “The ichichibushi was considered a passport to the afterlife,” says McClellan‑Ufugusuku, pointing to the five-pointed star on her wrist, “it’s a form of protection that connects you to your ancestors so they can recognize you.”
By the turn of the 20th century, the ban was in full effect, and for the first time in hundreds of years, girls came of age without their tontonmi. The loss of hajichi wearers was further exacerbated when nearly one-third of Okinawans were killed during the Battle of Okinawa in WWII. Still, the practice wasn’t entirely extinguished. McClellan‑Ufugusuku tells me about stories passed within the community of girls secretly tattooing each other, showing a subversive will to preserve hajichi.
“Our Indigenous languages and customs didn’t go 'extinct'—they went 'dormant' to allow us to survive,” says Tengan-Stoia, “Even after the ban, hajichi was never truly lost.”
Read the rest of the article:
Once worn by nearly every Ryukyuan woman, these intricate hand tattoos were outlawed for over a century.
In those days, unmarked women were considered imperfect, undesirable. One of the most enduring ullalim, a form of epic poetry that is chanted by the village bard, is the story of the warrior hero Banna who falls in love with the beautiful Lagunnawa. In the pre-colonial tale, their tattooed bodies are celebrated as badges of honor, wealth, beauty, and bravery.
When the American Catholic missionaries came and built schools in Kalinga, village girls were made to cover their arms with long sleeves. Being tattooed became a point of shame when women ventured to the city, and eventually fewer girls from the succeeding generation continued the tradition as Western concepts of beauty and respectability began to permeate the culture.
from "Apo Whang-Od And The Indelible Marks Of Filipino Identity"
VOGUE PHILIPPINES, April 2023 Cover Story
GUYS. GUYYYYYYYS. I don't know how many of you will be interested in this, but please allow me to share the latest Vogue PH issue. Because I am floored.
The woman on the cover is Apo Whang-Od, the oldest and, until just recently, the only remaining mambabatok (traditional Kalinga tattooist) in history. And now, at 106 years old, might also be the oldest person to be on the cover of Vogue.
Apo Whang-Od has, in the last decade, been heralded to national treasure status in the Philippines for keeping a significant part of her people's culture (the Butbut tribe of Buscalan, Kalinga) alive, even through years of Western colonization and modernization. Through her, an art form and custom that was on the verge of being lost to history has had a reemergence, and allowed a lot of Filipinos to rediscover and reconnect with our roots.
I am just so pleasantly surprised and impressed that a thousand-year local tradition was perfectly captured in the cover of a fashion magazine. The portrait itself (photographed by Artu Nepomoceno) is such a good one, too. Allowing Apo Whang-Od to be the symbol of strength and beauty—in ageing, in culture and in being Filipino. Three cheers for this profound moment in representation, Vogue PH! THIS IS HOW YOU SEEEEERVE!
Gold Earring from Egypt’s Fayum Mummy Portraits Discovered in Roman City
An actual ancient gold earring which can be seen depicted in some of the so called Fayum Mummy Portraits from Roman Egypt has been discovered in Southeast Bulgaria by archaeologists excavating the Ancient Roman colony Deultum near the town of Debelt, Burgas District, close to the Black Sea coast.
Deultum was a Roman colony, which according to Roman law signified a status equal to that of the city of Rome itself. In today’s Bulgaria, there are only three Roman cities which enjoyed this status – Deultum (Colonia Flavia Pacis Deultensium) near Burgas, Ratiaria (Colonia Ulpia Traiana Ratiaria) near Archar, Ulpia Oescus near Gigen.
Fayum mummy portraits are portraits on wooden boards which were attached to the mummies of upper class residents buried in Egypt during the Roman Era, in the 1st century BC – 3rd AD. Read more.
Oriini Kaipara, who has a traditional moko kauae chin tattoo, "fulfilled a lifelong dream" reading TVNZ's midday bulletin.
“Oriini Kaipara made history when she read v 1’s midday news bulletin today.
Kaipara has a moko kauae, a traditional lower chin tattoo worn by Māori women, and is the first to appear on a mainstream news bulletin to bear one.
According to TVNZ, this represented the fulfillment of a lifelong dream for Kaipara.
Two years ago, she made headlines when DNA testing revealed that she was “100 per cent Māori.” Kaipara is of Tūhoe, Ngāti Awa, Tūwharetoa and Te Arawa descent.”
Do you perform/offer cheek piercings in your studio, assuming of course the person is well informed of the risks?
I do offer them, but most people doing get beyond the disclaimer on them. They require a good amount of maintenance and they become an investment. I do them at a 12g and you’ll need to come back after about 3-4 weeks for your first of many downsizes and then monthly downsizes until we get to you comfortable long term length. I generally find they require somewhere between 2-5 different downsizes which means you’ll be purchasing a good amount of jewelry. But if you’re alright with doing all of that, then sure, we can make that happen for you!
Amboyna burl and labradorite from Heart on Sleeve. My first pair from him, and I still love them.
My laptop backlight is stuck on maximum (please make new drivers?), so everything comes out looking super… severe. But its growing on me.
My second suspension done in Fort Smith, Arkansas with The Hanging City Suspension team. Photos by my fiancé Alan Hull (on Instagram at www.instagram.com/alan_a_hull).
(You can see daily doses of hooker love and fun on my Instagram at www.instagram.com/kimmilea.)
ELENA BELYAYKINA
Saint Petersburg, Russia
elenabelyaykina.tumblr.com
facebook.com/elena.belyaykina
vk.com/elenart
Instagram @elena_belyaykina
Email: [email protected]
My awesome young client came in to change out her mall jewelry for her lobes to these amazing @anatometalinc 4mm prong set mint cz ends and #intrinsicbodyjewelry post.
Lobe piercings not done at @adornmentpiercingprivatetattoo. #adornmentpiercingprivatetattoo #palmsprings #palmspringslife #grateful #palmspringspiercing #palmspringsfinejewelry #anatometal #josetallon
janainaart
snowghoul
blakekathryn
baratheonpilled
kaledo-art
vaporwave
kianamaiart
jbbartram-illu
turnnoffyourmind
