Archaeologist believe that the first settlers in Japan, the Ainu people, were tattooed in the face. In Japanese sepulchres, Haniwai has been found, small clay figures with face tattoos, presumably aimed for social rank and to keep evil spirits away. Later face tattoos were used to punish criminals.
Basic forms of body scratching are found in all indigenous cultures. Brands, which expresses a symbolic link between the individual and the cultural community and, therefore, often involving the name. Maybe the names, as Karl Young says in his essay on tagging, played an important role in the development of the language. "Tattoos was probably one of the earliest forms of visual poetry and the body the original basis for the book
