Scarification as Body Art

Scarification has been used in many cultures as a rite of passage and as a means of marking various emotional events and states. It is very common in Aboriginal tribes and among the Sepik River tribes of New Guinea.

Historically, burning and branding were used to mark slaves and criminals and the Maori tribes of New Zealand use a form of facial scarification rubbed with ink to produce tattoos. Scarification is also common among women in West Africa and New Guinea.

This shows that the use of scarification as body art is not a new phenomena. It has its origins in in historical belief and legend.

There may be many reasons why people turn to this painful and somewhat barbaric form of body art .Firstly, among dark skinned people, scarification is more visible than tattoos and therefore preferable to many. The endorphins produced by the body during the scarification process are also thought to produce a real 'buzz', or a type of euphoria.

There are many different methods of achieving body art of this type and results depend very much on skin type, the depth of the cuts and how the wound is healed during healing. All these things affect the end result. It is the human body that creates the scarring, not the artist, so results can vary. . Scars tend to spread during the healing process so the actual design of scarring tends to be very simple. Complex designs can get swallowed up during the healing process of the skin. Marks may be made by branding, cutting and abrasion and in Africa cuts are sometimes packed with clay to stop them closing up too much during healing.

Scarification deliberately causes harm to the skin and this can lead to infection. Artists who do this kind of work need to know about anatomy so that they can make sure that cutting tools don't go too deep. This is not an easy art and it is much more difficult to find experts in this kind of body art than it is to find tattooists.