Pictish tattoos/skin dye

[S.C.M.]

So I've decided to participate in a "race" called Eternal Running(http://www.fishermansfriendconeternalrunning.es/carrera_faro.php yes, it's in Spanish, I'm right next door in Portugal, where this one is being held)

As sillyness is perfectly legitimate, possibly encouraged, in this race, I'm going to go Pictish-modern. I'm running in shorts and swirly designs drawn on my skin. Yes I'm an idiot.

In looking for design ideas, I found out that woad is a rubbish bodypaint and a worse tattoo medium. Someone suggests that it was actually some form of copper or iron paint. Which made me think of vinegaroon(iron dissolved in vinegar), so I searched it on this site. Seems you can also just crush up an iron pill and dissolve in water for an iron mordant. This makes a black leather dye/stain. Could this be used to paint skin?

I would test it on myself, but the race is in my second week of Uni, and I don't want to be stuck with spirals on my face.

 

[Robbi]

go to a theatre shop and get make-up paint, or army surplus for camo paint / sticks

 

[Toddy]

go to a theatre shop and get make-up paint, or army surplus for camo paint / sticks

+1

I paint up 'Picts' and 'Bravehearts' for events, etc., and if there were an easily made and used natural dye, I'd have done it.
Buy the make up paint, the best ones are child safe and hypoallergenic, they come in bold colours and they will wash off.
You can buy felt pens that are meant to do the job too; look up Temporary Tattoo pens. Good for fine detail.

cheers,
Toddy

 

[S.C.M.]

Sorry, I may not have made myself clear I know I'm going to use modern paint, I was just wondering if the picts could have used something to actually stain their skin, the same way as vinagaroon stains leather.
I know that if you soak things in tannins (acorns crushed in water, for example) then vinagaroon, it blackens them. This does stain anything that is permeable, including your skin.
I was thinking it could have been used to paint skin semi-permanently, but I don't know if you'd get the definition wanted/needed, as it might soak sideways.
yeah, writing topics while half asleep doesn't lead to clarity

 

[Tat2trev]

Try acrylic paint or you can buy tattoo pens which are a semi permanent and do wash off with a good scrub

 

[Toddy]

S.C.M. well, yes you can, much like henna designs work. Thing is though, they're not blue.
Copper gives a muddy greeny/blue colour on our fair skins.
Woad does stain our skin, but it's a much less colour rich dye than indigo, and it generally ends up in the sky blue range. Basically it looks like the veins.

Woad dye isn't simple. It needs to be broken out of the plant material, deoxygenated and....I'm going to find the link to Tereshina's site, I think that would make it so much clearer an explanation that I'm managing just now
Gimme a minute

M

 

[Toddy]

Here you go
Tereshina Robert's woad site

http://www.woad.org.uk./

atb,
M

 

[S.C.M.]

hmmm. let me see if I can find the site...

 

[Uilleachan]

Sorry, I may not have made myself clear I know I'm going to use modern paint, I was just wondering if the picts could have used something to actually stain their skin, the same way as vinagaroon stains leather.
I know that if you soak things in tannins (acorns crushed in water, for example) then vinagaroon, it blackens them. This does stain anything that is permeable, including your skin.
I was thinking it could have been used to paint skin semi-permanently, but I don't know if you'd get the definition wanted/needed, as it might soak sideways.
yeah, writing topics while half asleep doesn't lead to clarity

The trouble with the term "picts" is that nobody actually knows who they were, a label applied by others to describe those beyond the pale, eg "Caledonians & other picts", as one Roman chronicler describing the population north of Antonine's wall. At one time the entire population of the islands were termed picts. So there's every likelihood in Roman times everyone beyond Roman control was termed a pict, not because of the ritual use of woad, more likely because some people actually had lots of tattoos. Just a name, not a race.

By modern christian times a certain Northumbrian cleric further clouded the issue by referring to the population of the north and east of scotland as the picts, those on the west scots and his own people as the english. Whats interesting is that at his time of writing the countries of scotland and england were still 400 years from being. So the old venerable Bede planted the seeds for a few monikers that survive down to this day some 1300 years after writing. We grew into these names gradually, these weren't the names in use by the people to which they were applied.

From those same Northumbrian early writings ( I forget the scribe ) we have an instance of a scribe complaining of a "resurgence", ie it had come back in to fashion, in body art among his parishioners, he writes; "they tattoo themselves like pagans". Pagans here likely means those beyond the influence of the by then catholic Northumbrian church, as opposed to the earlier celtic Northumbrian and other celtic churches, plus a few heathen pagans beyond the influence of any cannon, papal or otherwise, ie a traditional practice disapproved of by elements of the then church that saw themselves as more progressive.

So I wouldn't worry too much about what the ancients may have done, I'd go with something you fancy with materials that'll stay on and wash off afterwards. Pattern wise I'd personally go for the new-grange-esque celtic swirls or the "picttish" class I & II stone designs (snake and Z-rod for me )

Woad, they reckon, was ceremonial in application, woad mixed with certain male bodily fluids and a few other special ingredients was applied to a warrior prior to going into battle, there's no evidence that it was ever used in any other way other than the way a modern woman may wear blush or fake tan. The pictures of the picts are likely to have been permanent tattoos.

 

[S.C.M.]

well there's this one (right down at the bottom) http://www.hippy.com/albion/woad_and_modern_tribal_bodyart_i.htm
and this is the one that mentions iron as a tattoo medium http://www.dunsgathan.net/essays/woad.htm

that's why I thought about vinagaroon/tannin dye, but I know that it comes out black. I wonder how you get blue iron pigment

edit:apparently prussian blue is non-toxic...

 

[Toddy]

The thing to remember with woad is that it's a very good natural bactericide and wound healer. It will 'sometimes' stain a scar blue though.
Did they practice ritual scarification ? we just don't know.
I do know that chewing the seeds turns the saliva blue.

Culpepper says, ". . . . A plaister made thereof, and applied to the region of the spleen which lies on the left side, takes away the hardness and pains thereof. The ointment is excellently good for such ulcers as abound with moisture, and takes away the corroding and fretting humours: It cools inflammations, quenches St. Anthony's fire, and stays defluxion of the blood to any part of the body.''

cheers,
Toddy

 

[S.C.M.]

So I wouldn't worry too much about what the ancients may have done, I'd go with something you fancy with materials that'll stay on and wash off afterwards. Pattern wise I'd personally go for the new-grange-esque celtic swirls or the "picttish" class I & II stone designs (snake and Z-rod for me )

Woad, they reckon, was ceremonial in application, woad mixed with certain male bodily fluids and a few other special ingredients was applied to a warrior prior to going into battle, there's no evidence that it was ever used in any other way other than the way a modern woman may wear blush or fake tan. The pictures of the picts are likely to have been permanent tattoos.

I'm not too worried about historical accuracy or anything, I'm just going to paint myself up like a nutter , probably wind up using poster paint or summat stupid when I realize the race is tomorrow and I've got nowt prepared
It was more "I wonder..." than a "how can I..."
course, it doesn't mean I won't get me hands on semi-permanent "traditional" stuff sometime and look like an eejit for ages, as opposed to a day or so.

 

[S.C.M.]

I'm not knocking woad as a natural antiseptic, which it could've been used for, but I can't find anything that says it woul've been a battlepaint.
talking of coloured saliva, does anyone know what plants make your teeth red?

 

[Uilleachan]

The thing to remember with woad is that it's a very good natural bactericide and wound healer. It will 'sometimes' stain a scar blue though.
Did they practice ritual scarification ? we just don't know.
I do know that chewing the seeds turns the saliva blue.

Culpepper says, ". . . . A plaister made thereof, and applied to the region of the spleen which lies on the left side, takes away the hardness and pains thereof. The ointment is excellently good for such ulcers as abound with moisture, and takes away the corroding and fretting humours: It cools inflammations, quenches St. Anthony's fire, and stays defluxion of the blood to any part of the body.''

cheers,
Toddy

Good points all and quite possible that ritual scarification was a method in use in ancient times, it certainly was and still is in many other cultures. A theory I've been pondering is that woad was applied as protective magic to make the wearer impervious to wounding in the same way west central africans still put faith in magic Juju water administered by a medicine man, for a fee, to make enemy bullets bend round the wearer. If a wearer gets shot, well thats put down to bad medicine, people wearing good medicine survive. Simple really, I've met people in Nigeria who utterly believe in the effectiveness of "medicine" to stave off death by gunshot.

I don't have any tattoos myself but the tentative evidence suggests tattooing was a traditional feature rooted back in the distant past thats stayed with us down the centuries. Did tattooing start off as ritual scarification? Interesting idea.

 

[Uilleachan]

I'm not too worried about historical accuracy or anything, I'm just going to paint myself up like a nutter , probably wind up using poster paint or summat stupid when I realize the race is tomorrow and I've got nowt prepared
It was more "I wonder..." than a "how can I..."
course, it doesn't mean I won't get me hands on semi-permanent "traditional" stuff sometime and look like an eejit for ages, as opposed to a day or so.

Thats the spirit Just get yourself down to the art shop for an industrial sized pack of face paints then get family and friends to get creative

 

[Christy]

I'm not knocking woad as a natural antiseptic, which it could've been used for, but I can't find anything that says it woul've been a battlepaint.
talking of coloured saliva, does anyone know what plants make your teeth red?

Yes Betel nuts stains teeth and lips red. Pretty much permanently

 

[Tengu]

Are there any bog bodies with tattoos?

 

[Uilleachan]

I believe there are, I'm sure at least one of the danish bodies has a tat

 

[David Morningstar]

Otzi the Ice man had tattoos five thousand years ago: http://www.iceman.it/en/node/262

This lass had some very impressive tattoos two thousand five hundred years ago: http://siberiantimes.com/culture/ot...n-princess-reveals-her-2500-year-old-tattoos/

 

[Toddy]

I know of three ways of tattooing; scarification, needle punctures, or threaded. As far as I know no British bog bodies so far found have tattoos. Yet it's our ancestors that the Romans commented upon as being marked, and again there are mentions in the early Christian period too.
The Picts were known to other British islanders as the People of the Designs, but we have no Pictish bog bodies, no contemporary illustrations or accounts of tattooed people.

Lots of little bits and pieces don't make a whole.

I grow woad here, I know of a fungi that gives blue dye too, but until Indigo and Logwood became available, and neither are native, both woad and fungi dye are light blue and don't show up that clearly against our white skins.....that sounds odd, but mind what I said about the veins ? it looks kind of like that. It's not a 'tattoo', iimmc.

We could play with this see if we can suss it out ? The woad is dying back for now (it's a biennial) and is looking a bit sorry for itself, but next late Spring we could harvest leaves and see what we can come up with ?

cheers,
Toddy