Inked Religion

Episode Transcript
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Unknown (00:00):
This is

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuers (00:17):
keeping it 101 a killjoy'ss introduction
to religion podcast, which ispart of the amplify podcast
network, we are grateful tolive, teach and record on the
current ancestral and unseatedlands of the Abenaki and
Wabanaki peoples, as well as thelands of one federally
recognized native nation, theEastern Band of Cherokee
Indians, and seven NorthCarolina state recognized tribal
entities. Increasingly, though,native folks are pushing us to

(00:39):
forgo land acknowledgementsaltogether and focus on action
items. Let's start with landback and as always, you can find
material ways to supportindigenous communities on our
website.

Megan Goodwin (00:49):
What is up?
Nerds? Hi, hello. I'm MeganGoodwin. I am a scholar of
American religions, race,gender, sexuality and politics.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (00:58):
Hi, hello. I'm Ilyse Morgenstein,
Furst, historian of religion,Islam, recent racialization and
South Asia.

And today, erm is a great day, because instead of
talking about various andproliferating horrors, like
sorry to you Canada and alsoIceland, Greenland. Which one
are you trying to steal? It'sGreenland every literally, I'm
so sorry to every singlelistener who gets it but, but
we're gonna take it easy todayand talk about one of our
favorite topics, your favoritetopic, particularly tattoos.

Yeah, we are. Listen, we all need
momentary breaks from fightingfascists, and I do mean
momentary because the fight isrelentless. So take a bit more.
But what better way than to talkabout bodily more modification,
because fascists actually tendto hate that Neo Nazis, but

(01:49):
that's like a separate issue.
They love tattoos, but the pointremains. Inc is often inherently
seen as non conformist, andconformity is what white
Christian nationalists want. Andyou know what? Megan gonna get
it from our inky bods? They

are not Nazi punks. Fuck off. Tattoos are one
of the only things I can thinkthat fits into your life as like
a special interest, as yourbrain is not spicy in special
interest ways for most of thetime. So I am unsurprised that
five plus years later and over100 episodes into this that
you're finding time for us totalk about how tattoos square up
with religion, but because theycan, hey, tell the nerds why

(02:27):
tattoos and religions for a fullepisode? Well, fine, I guess if

we're gonna go old school. Is, is this
the lesson plan? Oh, my

God, I would do a throwback. We are 100 episodes
into this podcast experiment.
Maybe today is the day for somelike Season One to two realness.

I don't see why not. Where are the
bosses? So a throwback, it is,yes, yeah,

no, I need this.
Okay, it was a simpler time.
Wow, we hmm,

just, we were just existing in the
early lockdown. Somehow, thatwas a simpler time.

Tell me I'm wrong. You're not,

but let's not touch that for now.
Cool. The thesis today, nerds isthat body modification and
tattooing is not the only kindof body modification, but it is
the kind we're going to focuson? Is obviously tied up with

(03:24):
religious systems and obviouslyinherently tied up with how we
see value and make sense of ourown bodies and the bodies of
others. Whether a religiocultural system likes or loathes
tattoos, is secondary to theidea that bodies are a subject
of regulation, transformationand maintenance for communities.

Hey, here's the lesson plan where we do the
professor work. On today.

On today, we're going to do a
quickie and totally incompleteoverview of the history of
tattooing, walk us through a fewexamples of religio cultural
prohibitions and celebrations oftattooing and the problem of
appropriation and tattoos kindof you know what? Megan,

What? What? Now, since

we're feeling a season one to two
throwback vibe, I'm gonna throwus a story time segment and and
a primary

sources segment, Yeah, fuck yeah. Primary
sources, I love it. I love it.
This is amazing. Okay, let's doit.

You're welcome America.

I am America.
Okay, let's get into

it.
Okay, lots of individualreligions have thoughts about
tattoos. Many more honestlydon't, but all religions always
reflect cultural norms that moveand change and shift with time,
and that includes approaches totattooing. So Goodwin, I don't
know if you know this, buttattooing is both an. Ancient
practice with, like, frankly,archeological evidence

(05:01):
suggesting that tattoos happenedas early as the Neolithic
period, which is, like, youknow, a real long time ago,
nerds. But also

I did. I did actually know that, because I
read a lot of Clan of the Cavefair, etc. So you're welcome,

fair, okay. Well, Megan knew that, but
I don't know that our dearlisteners knew that, so that
rhetorical device went right outthe window. But tattooing is
also a thoroughly modernpractice, with tattooing in
recent years, shedding some ofits stigma, especially in
affluent communities the worldover. So what I find fascinating
is that tattooing and itsproliferation can be, as some

(05:39):
argue, some experts argue tracedto my absolute favorite set of
ideas.

Okay, stop it right now. You did not. How did
you are you? How are tattoosabout imperialism? How? How did
you do this again? How? Why?
How? Fine. Well.

Megan, some evidence that local
practices of tattooing,especially as they both exist
and existed in Asia and thePacific Islands, fundamentally
change how everyone else seesand participates in tattooing.
So this is especially true inand after the 18th and 19th
centuries, when D bags likeCaptain Cook are hanging out in

(06:18):
places they shouldn't be seeingthings that they wouldn't have
seen in Europe, and managingrowdy pillaging sailors who sort
of got into the whole tattoovibe.

Now that you've said that, it totally makes
sense that sailors and explorersand imperialists and colonizers
would have experienced tattooculture, especially in like
broader Polynesia, wheretattooing has been something
like a two to 3000 year oldpractice for men, that is slash
was Paya. Yes, I

think so that's, that's that. That is
how the internet says topronounce it, but I do not speak
any of those languages, so we'reguessing. Okay,

my guess is Paya an intricate tattoo that covered
their body from mid torso to theknees. And for women, most
often, the thighs legs are ontheir hands, sometimes called
Lima.

Yeah, and there's evidence that those
exposures brought back newtattooing cultures and
reinforced others. And like, youknow, I always bring up cap and
cook monster of the seven season purpose, because, like in
this case, in his journals,which we have, he talks about
the universality of tattooing,even if Christian missionaries

(07:23):
and colonizing governments likethat, such sailing expeditions
brought in their wake tried andin many ways succeeded at wiping
out tattoo practices in nativecommunities in the Pacific and
beyond. So like they'resimultaneously looking at it,
stealing it, doing itthemselves, while also
eradicating it, making itillegal and making it hard to do
for native populations,

like an imperialism, like an
imperialism, like theracialization that is implicit
in the imperialisms, cool, cool,cool, cool. So basically, what I
hear you saying is thatwidespread tattooing, the way
that we know it today, like weget the word from Polynesian
Tatau, thanks. Yeah. So the kindof tattooing that we're seeing

(08:07):
today comes from these colonialexpeditions. It influences
sailors choices. It influencessailors choices and tattoos, but
it was also the subject of whiteChristian colonial sanctioning
and derision. Question mark,

yeah.
And again, like we have evidenceof tattooing in what's now known
as Europe in the Ice Age,basically. So I want to be clear
that the practice of markingbodies with ink is in some ways,
a global phenomena with ancientroots, like there just is
examples of it the world over.
But also the proliferation oftattoos as design, and

(08:39):
especially of tattoos on likeseafaring Folk is absolutely a
product of European imperialism,even if sailors tattooing takes
its own vibe and practices andlike its own cultural norms
after these exchanges. If we cancall colonialism an exchange,

yeah, as you know, I have been hanging out
with a dude who is in the NavyReserve. So I have learned a lot
of things about tattoos, but Idid not mean to. So, yeah, they
fully have their own culture.
But right. Okay, so tattooing,as we know it now, is rooted in
imperialism, because, of courseit is, and also Christian
supremacy because, of course itis, because tattoos become a
thing for them to police whensetting up settler colonial and

(09:20):
Imperial states in Asia andOceania. But okay, tell me about
religion and tattoos, like weget clearly that Polynesian
tattoos are important. Weespecially, I have seen the rock
spot and also Moana several,many times. And I know Judaism
has a prohibition on tattoos,but that also you have a lot of
them. We know that Christianswere policing tattoos in their

(09:42):
colonies and at home, liketattooing was illegal in New
York City from 1961 until 1977because of concerns about
infections and needles, youwouldn't

get no but 1997 not 1977

i Okay, well, 1961 to 1977 because of concerns
about. Sections and needles. Andlike, Massachusetts, you
couldn't you did

it again. You said 77 again. Okay,
wow. Okay,

it's actually 1997 97 IE, my second year in
college was, like, that was partof what made New Hampshire, like
the D bag state, because youcouldn't get tattoos in
Massachusetts. While I was goingto college there, you had to,
like, cross the line to getbooze on a Sunday and also your
ink. So some some classism andracism stuff happening there.

(10:29):
I'm anyway, all right, so sinceuntil 1997 in New York City,
that home of depravity becauseof concerns about infections and
needles. But we also know thatreligious tattooing, for
Christians and maybe especiallyCatholics, is the thing we know
Hindus have mixed practices ontattooing. So Earth, since this
is your special interest, boy,is it? What gives

the thing about tattooing and other
bodily modifications is that, aswe said, like just a few moments
ago, we are going to seereligions and cultures be deeply
invested in it, because bodies,bodies just matter in religion
and whose body is, quote,unquote correct is equal parts
about sociocultural norms as itis about socio religio cultural

(11:14):
ideas about what a body even is,okay.

Girl, you know, I did not sleep. You know that I
am no longer formally in theacademy. You're gonna, you're
gonna have to unpack that one,what, what the what, what,

what.
Okay, so, since this is a bitcircular, because chickens and
eggs, right? So like we can't,we can't really say that a
religious text or practice saysX, and so people do that. That's
just not how it works. That's,in fact, a standing point of
this year podcast. But we alsocan't say that because a
religious text says or doessomething or encourages

(11:51):
something that people ignore it,right? So two things are true.
Let me explain. If your religiontalks about bodies as sacred,
and many of our global religionsdo, then marking that body up
might be seen as sacrilegious,and in turn, that view could
dictate formal rules orreligious laws. Like, I don't
know, don't get a tattoo, but asyou know Megan, we only ever

(12:15):
need rules when folks breakthem, so if folks weren't
modifying their bodies, we wouldnot need someone to say, hey,
you stop it. Like I said wayback on the pod, like all the
way back in season two. I do nottell my kids to put their toys
away. If they are already away,it's when they're out that I'm

(12:36):
like, yo doofuses, put yourfucking toys away for the
1,000th time, but if they havetheir toys away, I'm not
yelling, but I'm I'm not yellingbecause the rule is working so
well. They don't remain needreminding, I guess, like they've
internalized the rule. So inshort, how a tradition or
culture sees bodies impacts howpeople treat their bodies, but

(13:00):
we can't really say it's becauseof the rule, because, as you
know, people break rules theyignore them purposely or not all
the time for like, a billionreasons, and rules exist
precisely to curtail practicesseen frequently enough to merit
such curtailing.

Okay? So nobody tells a quiet child to be quiet.
We have roles, because peoplewere definitely doing this, like
walking through Bob Goodwin'soverwhelming disdain for
tattoos, which is 100% aboutclassism and weird Irish shit,
also probably that he wasworking down at the docks, but
didn't want to be one of thoseIrish guys. Anyway, you tell me

(13:44):
about the particular rules Ineed to know.

All right, let's, let's start with
my people. So famously, Jews areseen as anti tattoo, and we
often see the citation here ofthe double dehumanization of
Jews in Nazi Germany, preciselybecause of tattooing right as a
way of marking people's bodieswith serial numbers as a double
dehumanization. But lots of Jewstoday actually have tattoos, and

(14:19):
frankly, one of the hottesttattooing markets is in Israel.
But what? Yeah, like, one of thebiggest tattoo markets is in
Israel. Like, it's a big forartists willing to collaborate
in Israel. It is a big touringmarket. It's a big way to get
invited to go to that part ofthe world. Tattoos in Israel are

(14:40):
a big deal, and they are. Lotsof people theorize it's about
reclaiming the Jewish body in apost Holocaust universe, and
also about just changing globalstigma, right? Like Jews live in
the world too. Not all of uswant to live in an 18th century
shtetl.

Yeah. No, I get it. I just like, I know. I.
Never been to Israel, but it wasmy understanding. Yes, it was Oh
bitch, I know, but it was myunderstanding that at least when
I was like hanging out withIsraeli families that, like in
Jerusalem, everything shut downat 5pm on a Friday because you

(15:19):
like so because the orthodoxygets enforced on everybody, yeah

and and yes. And Tel Aviv and Haifa
have some of the largest liketattooing cultures in that part
of the world, certainly, butalso like that exchange happens
a lot, in fact, like the TV theTLC TV show Miami Inc is
literally about an IsraeliAmerican tattooist. And so,
like, that's a that's like a1520, year old show already. And

(15:45):
so I'm, I am smart, yeah, thatwe hear that like there is both
this understanding of Jews asinherently anti tattoo and of
Jews and Israelis, the onlynation state in the world that
is a Jewish state participatingin it. So let's talk about the
actual rules for Jews. There's averse in Leviticus that talks

(16:08):
about not marking the body, butso like that is what most people
cite. Like in Leviticus, itsays, Don't mark the body.
Great, but obviously the bookisn't what people do explicitly.
And also there were alreadybuilt in exceptions, like, don't
mark the body, but circumcisionis okay, right? So we already,

(16:28):
from the jump, have peoplemaking exceptions to the
allegedly inviolable rule, howfolks read Leviticus really
matters. And frankly, we see asearly as the 12th century as one
example, the famous Jewishphilosopher of Maimonides, who
was saying tattooing is bad, notbecause it modifies the bodies,
but because pagans did it, andJews shouldn't look like they're

(16:50):
pagan neighbors. So from thefrom early on, we have a
religious philosopher talkingnot about religious law, but
about how Jews might distinguishthemselves from their non Jewish
neighbors. Other scholars pointto tattooing as a practice of
Enslavers, and Jews fleeingAncient Egypt as enslaved
people. Might have wanted toshed that practice of having

(17:14):
been forcibly tattooed orbranded, but there's lots of
ways to interpret thing, and thething that Jews tend to agree on
is that modifying the body isultimately an act of hubris,
because you are changing thebody that God made or gave you.
Okay, it's worth mentioning thatwhile a lot of Jews, my own
experiences included, cite theprohibition from being buried in

(17:35):
a Jewish cemetery if you havetattoos as a reason to avoid
them, almost a majority ofJewish scholars and rabbis say
that this is a myth we tellourselves to underline a
cultural practice that there'sno actual evidence that says you
can't be buried in a Jewishcemetery if you have a tattoo.
But that myth has enough legsthat some cemeteries say in

(17:56):
their little like bylaws thatthey're not going to bury Jews
if they have tattoos in them. Soit's both a fake concern and a
real concern, because thematerial practices of for pay
cemetery plots in the UnitedStates, huh?

I honestly never thought about this before. But
how? How I assume there areaccommodations for Holocaust
survivors? Questions, yes,

and that is one of the reasons that
tattooing, in some ways, opensup, that we say it's a forced we
get, we start to get rabbisdebating what happens with the
desecration of bodies afterWorld War One and and in
earnest, after World War Two,right after World War One, it's
about people surviving havinghad amputee amputations. Yeah,

(18:46):
so that would have been a markeddifference in body. That was not
the way God originally made youand was a man made problem. And
I am using the gender term onpurpose here. And so we start to
see shifts in what is acceptablefor Jews to reimagine as like,
the body you're in as medicaltechnology changes first, and

(19:06):
then post Holocaust, obviouslythere is a sense of like, we did
not do this. This was not achoice. And so that's a
completely acceptable way to beokay in the world. Yeah, okay.

And then there are there similar prohibitions
in Islam,

kind of Yes, like Muslims also hold
that the body is sacred andshould be treated as such. But
unlike Jews who can cite versesof the Torah that basically say
no tattoos, the Quran does notactually mention tattooing in
any direct way, what Muslims canand do cite is a Hadith which is
a saying of the Prophet Muhammadthat Muslims look to to guide

(19:45):
proper behavior. And one ofthese Hadith purport that both
the tattooer and the tattoo weare doing wrong because there's
bodily marking. And so this is arelationship. It's not just that
the person getting the tattoo isviolating the. Person doing the
tattoo is doing a violation,impermanent bodily marking,

(20:05):
however, like henna, isabsolutely not seen in the same
way. So quite a lot of Muslimmajority cultures have
impermanent bodily markingpractices that some have argued
fill that that scratch, thattattoo gives. That said. Lots of
scholars have pointed out thatMuslims in various times and
places have had really Islamictattooing practices, especially

(20:28):
in North Africa, like Algeria,Morocco and Egypt, and in a
different part of the world, inparts of Southwest Asia, like
Iraq in that Southwest Asiaregion, but also in places like
Southeast Asia and Oceania. Sobecause Muslims live the world
over and because tattooing is asocial practice, we see a wide
variety in how Muslims approachit, okay, oh, and before we move

(20:52):
on, it is important to say thatShia Muslims tend to say that
tattooing falls into the legalcategory of reprehensible, but
not forbidden, so one step shyof being like, hello, okay,
which is precisely because it'snot mentioned in the Quran,
which doesn't mean thattattooing is legal. Like, for

(21:13):
example, in the in the largestShia majority country in the
world, Iran, tattooing is anunderground, heavily regulated
practice, but, like, we stillsee a variety in approaches in
between and amongst Muslims,which, you know, is the spice of
life and religion. Yeah, it'sgonna

say. It's almost like religion is what people do,
and people do a bunch ofdifferent things they sure do.
Well, sure do. Someone ought towrite a book. Hey, what about
non Abrahamic religions like itseems pretty clear that in the
big three, to quote, Hu grantnaritic, still love that you
have seen this movie, I have amore or less shared
understanding that the body issacred and should not be altered

(21:50):
by choice, even if there areother alterations we allow, like
circumcision or piercings orhaircuts. Yeah,

in Buddhism and Hinduism, there are
few centralized texts,authorities and practices, which
means we expect a wide varietyof practices, because there is
no central set of rules,necessarily so for many in those
traditions, it's more aboutsocial prohibitions, and
frankly, I gotta be honest, it'shard to separate those out from

(22:18):
colonial imposition. Sure, sure.
Like we know that facial tattoosexisted in a big way in some
Buddhist and Hindu communitiesacross Asia, especially in the
region that is marked now by theHimalayan Mountains, Nepal,
Tibet, like those parts of Asiaand but those are the same exact
communities that have reallystruggled to survive after

(22:40):
imperialism Christian missionarywork and the global stigma and
the requirement of seekingemployment within Global
Industrial Systems. Totally,

totally. I'm also thinking like I have seen
Aboriginal activists inAustralia and New Zealand, and
particularly women. Aboriginalactivists really reclaim facial
tattooing. You see it a lot inseason four of True Detective,
actually, where the Inuit womenare having facial tattoos. It's

(23:11):
a whole crisis moment in theseries. And I'm also thinking
very specifically, like my firstthought was like, Oh, well,
obviously six right out. Like,you can't get a haircut. You're
definitely not getting tattoos.
But I just remembered when Iused to teach global religions,
one of the images that I usedwas a tattoo, or was an image of
a baptized sick guy, so wouldnot cut his hair, would not cut
his beard, wore a turban, didall of the things, but he's also

(23:33):
got the what would be theboundaries of Punjab tattooed on
his neck. So speaking ofrelationships, yeah, it's really
interesting. So speaking ofrelationships to colonialism and
imperialism, yeah, oh, go ahead.
No, I

was gonna, I was just gonna affirm
what you were saying, that thereis so much on indigenous
tattooing in various places, butto be honest with you, for our
listeners, I didn't include alot of it because quite a lot of
the popularly accessible work isby white people trying to do
appropriation of native stuff.
And so without, I didn't, Ididn't want us to treat it
superficially, without gettinginto that level of

(24:11):
appropriation. Yeah, and therejust wasn't space, but the very
the variety of indigenouspractices the world over. So I
don't just mean NativeAmericans. I mean indigenous
practices the world over, verywildly. And not every indigenous
community has a tattooingculture, obviously, but quite a
lot do, and often they'remarkings to demonstrate place

(24:33):
and space. Where are you from?
Who are your people? Todemonstrate rank, coming of age
role in a community. So there'slike 1000 ways these are done,
but I've been reallydisappointed when reading about
non Polynesian indigenoustattooing cultures, because they
get bumped in and it sounds likeyou're talking about, like all

(24:58):
of the heathens in the. Worlddoing the same thing, the same,
like it has that vibe, all ofthe work, but like it has that
vibe, yeah. So, yeah. So thescholarship feels like it's
wanting, but we'll see when weget to homework, that I have
gotten some stuff

all right, cool, cool, cool. So what I what I
have learned today, and what Iwould have known already had I
given a moment to think about itis that the practice of
tattooing and its relationshipto religion and race making are
directly just all tied up inimperialism, colonialism,
because, of course, they are. Sothis is about the role that

(25:34):
bodies play in the way thathumans organize each other,
right? And value each other,which actually seems like a
really great place to transitioninto thinking about how this
practice might look in aspecific community. And I think
we should do that with friend ofthe pod. Dr Alyssa Maldonado.
Estrada,

Unknown (25:55):
Hey, kids, it's story time.

Story time.
Doctor, Estrada has written alot about devotional media and
practices in contemporary life,especially in Catholic settings.
Her book life blood of theparish is absolutely assigned.
It's so freaking good and smart.
We're going to draw our storytime from an online, accessible
piece called tattoos ofSacramentals in the journal

(26:19):
American religions, which, bythe way, has a very cute website
before we jump in, a sacramentalis an object that channels grace
or serves as a sacred sign thatis sanctioned or blessed by the
Catholic Church. So not going toget into comparisons with like
Darshan, but like this is it isan object of focus. It is a
place to encounter the divineand get your head right kind of

(26:42):
thing. So here is a story time.
This is fun. I like a flashback.
Here goes one man's story.
Reveals how tattoos aredevotional media. Joe's body is
covered in tattoos, most of themcultural or religious, according
to him, from Cartoon cavemen toa funny Ode to a friend group, a
Lithuanian and Italian flag, across with a sacred heart in the

(27:04):
center, and the Knights ofColumbus insignia God. My dad
would have hated that, and hewas a Knight of Columbus, as you
well know, because you got tosee them in action. Sorry.
Bringing it back, Joe's tattoosreflect his many group
identities. Joe's tattoos dorelational work, locating him in
networks of friends andancestors. But his tattoos also
do devotional work. On hisforearm, he has a tattoo of Our

(27:26):
Lady of Mount Carmel. Herfeatures are delicate, wispy
lines hint at downcast eyes andpouty lips. The Christ child in
her arms seems to smile. Hiseyes tiny half moons. The tattoo
is an iconographic hybrid. TheCrown atop her head indicates
that she is Mary Queen ofHeaven, as Our Lady of Mount
Carmel, is typicallyrepresented, but the 12 stars

(27:46):
encircling her head come fromiconography of the Immaculate
Conception. Her robes arevoluminous, cascading around her
body. There are hints of color,like whisper of golden yellow,
now faded with age, she sitsatop a mound of clouds and holds
the scapular in her hands, hergaze and the gesture making it
clear that she is offering it.

(28:06):
Joe's skin, his freckles and hissunburn are all part and parcel
of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. Butthis tattoo has potentiality we
do not typically expect fromink. It has sacramental
functions and meanings. God,she's such a good writer. Oh,
love. Okay, so what do we dowith this?

I mean, honestly, we think with
it, and I think that whatMaldonado Estrada is telling us
is that tattooing, at leastcontemporarily, is doing all
manner of work like it'sfunctioning like an art scape,
of course, but, but also like areligious devotional project,
and seeing it that way is maybenot novel, of course, like

(28:47):
someone putting Mary on theirarm, it'd be silly to be like
they're not religious. That hasno religious well, but what

about what do we do with like the love Island
kids who have all of thisreligious iconography all over
their body, but don't know whatthe answer why it's there
exactly. So, like, none of themare Catholic, like it's

not novel, but it might be counter
to what we might expect. And soto be clear, like, I think that
seeing bodily adornment assacred is how lots of
traditional communities likeSamoans or the Yadi tool ya deal
tool, I think, which is anindigenous community known for
chin tattoos, specifically inwomen, extending from the lip to

(29:27):
below the chin, sometimes ontothe neck. Those communities are
famous for having done this foreons, for representational,
devotional and relationalpractice. But you know, like as
usual, Euro Americans got tocatch up to theorize our stuff.
Don't

say, Yeah, I God, this passage is so striking for
so many reasons I have notthought enough. I think about
the interaction of the art withthe body, right? So that tattoos
look different on differentbodies. It's, I mean. I had a
whole thing about getting ink,and, like, I don't like to get
ink where I have freckles, forsome reason. So the interaction

(30:05):
of that is really fascinating,but it also immediately makes me
think of the classes that I wasteaching about, like, meanings
of death, and the way that, likein Narco communities, the
practices shifted from havingthe gorgeon is eloquent, the

(30:26):
Virgin of Guadalupe on theirback, because no one would stab
the Virgin. So if they'reincarcerated, she's protected.
She's literally has their backs.
But we've seen a shift away fromthat, toward Santa Marte as the
main protecting force, andthat's who you've got on your
back now. So just Yeah, I don'tthink I have anything smart to
say. I just think that this is areally rich area to think with

(30:47):
and through. And I am alsoreally struck by the thing that
you said about how a lot of thescholarship happening is about
or is being done by white folks.
And it makes me think today, ofall days that the academy is
also a space of colonialism andimperialism. Any truth at all?

(31:07):
It is.

It doesn't mean all work is being
done. I don't know, folks, but,but I was really, I was really
alarmed that some of the mostaccessible, you know, like, not
expensive, available, like thestuff that we put in our
homework, right? So, like, we'vetried really hard to make the
sources that we cite accessibleto folks so that they can check
us, or they can go read on theirown. And I was really alarmed by

(31:30):
how many were, like, whitepeople who wanted to do a tour
of tattooing in a way that feltreally like, frankly, like
Joseph Cambly. Like all roadslead up the same mountain, this
is all the same practice. Lookat how all indigenous
communities are doing this thesame aren't they closest to
nature? Isn't this closest tothe like, it just had that Neo

(31:51):
colonial vibe and reallyspecific and like, this is
probably dear listeners, I wantto own where this is my
limitation, right? Like, I donot know enough about indigenous
tattooing practices to be ableto chase the credible sources in
the way that it would requirefor us to do it justice. But the
big ones, the obvious ones, thebig presses, with the exception

(32:15):
of Polynesia, where there's areally robust set of
publications from the Universityof Hawaii coming out. Boy, it's
like a lot of superficial,assumptive kind of work where,
like all native tattooingpractices, are somehow related,
which is just lazy fuckingscholarship. So we are not going
to replicate that here.

Shant, shant.

But aside from critiquing ourselves
and the communities that we livein. Goodman, I promised that we
would do something else. I mean,every day, every day with me,
I'm promising to talk aboutimperialism, but I have also
promised a thing. Would you liketo do that thing?

Yes, they were primary sources. It's

primary sources. I've always wanted to
have, like, a baseline narrativeback up to you where you're
like, and I'm like, primarysources brought to you by the
PepsiCo or something like that.

Menon, yeah, exactly.

What's more with feeling,

primary sources,

oh, I didn't do it all right? Do it
again. Primary sources, primarysources,

you're right.
That's better. All right, weboth have

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuer (33:28):
tattoos.
Dear, dear lords, if you didn'tknow that about us, we both have
tattoos, and I will speak justfor me, okay, but several of
mine and I have seven now, ofvarying sizes. Some are some are
like half sleeves that I'mcounting as one contiguous
piece. I love that piece somuch. Several of them are deeply
religious, and I 100% see theink that I've put on my body as,

(33:54):
of course, a way to rethink myrelationship to my body, but
also how I imagine thesacredness of my body and the
work that art might do tomediate or play with or amplify
that sacredness. So I guess I'llgo first with that preamble. All
right, so I'll go with theobvious religious symbols,

(34:17):
because I'm perfectly happybeing public about those. I have
both a hamsa and a stylizedNazar on one arm. So a hamsa
often like, known as like eitherthe hand of God, or in Muslim
communities, the hand of Fatimais a protective symbol, and
another is the big blue evil eyethat but I do it in black and
white because I don't like coloron one arm, and I also have part

(34:40):
of my Ketubah, the Jewishmarriage contract, on the other
arm. So I have symbols for onekid, and the other kid is
planning what his ink will be.
Because, as you know Megan, he'snot fully formed, so we're not
really sure what that ink shouldbe. He's still baking. But. But
like of all of my tattoos, myfirst was my first three were

(35:05):
these religious tattoos. Myfirst one was a hamsa, the
symbol that shared across abunch of cultures, including
Jewish ones. I own lots ofthose. They're all over my house
and my office. I've collectedthem while I travel around the
world doing research. I have agreat one from a shul in South
India. I have another from thisrandom outpost in Tajikistan,
and several from Turkey. Andwhen I approached a tattoo

(35:27):
artist, I wanted it to reflecthow Jews use hamzas as a sign of
protection, as either being heldby God, like physically in God's
hands, or by Miriam, one of ourfounding foremothers, with its
fingers pointing down andusually a large blue eye in the
middle, often with fishessurrounding them, because fish
scales are reflective, and sothey're going to bounce the evil

(35:49):
eye. It's like, like it like,you know, your rubber, I'm like,
your blue I'm rubber. Bounce offme and whatever sticks on you,
whatever that line is. I havealways loved tattoos and good
but I'm going to tell a secondprimary sources story, which is
one thing in my whole life Ihave stolen one thing in my
whole life, except for the timethat I stole this one screw from
the five cent department at achannel in New Jersey, and my

(36:13):
dad made me walk it back in andreturn it with payment and like
apologize to the store manager,which was absolutely my
Parenting choice, but the onlyother time I nicked anything was
in Tower Records, on Route 17 inParamus, New Jersey, circa 1995
when these things were coolplaces to be,

and York still was making tattoos illegal,

still illegal in New York, and
everyone had just been Comingoff of, like, you know, Empire
records. So hanging out of therecord store was, like, super
cool, and I stole an inkedmagazine. Like, that was all I
wanted, and it was I paid for myCDs. But I stole an Inked
magazine, and I so I've had thislong relationship with tattoos,
like, from when I was a youthand really fascinated with them,

(36:59):
to now as a person who, like,routinely builds that into,
frankly, my bodily carepractice. But I always felt for
me, like, maybe this wasn't forme because I am a fairly
religious Jewish person, butonce I got right with how I'd
make it make sense for me withinmy religiousness and against
normal perceptions of stigmasand like, including serious

(37:20):
academics shouldn't beconsidering full sleeves, right?
It was an easy choice for me ofwhat my first tattoo would be.
It would, of course, be Jewish,and if Jewishness would be part
of my own global experience ofJudaism, it would be in
conversation with some Jewishand non Jewish practices, but
also it would reflect Yiddish ornorms of warding off the evil

(37:41):
eye. So I see my tattooingpractices as deeply ethnic,
deeply religious and alsomediated through the worlds we
live in now, yeah, yeah.

I just, I would also like our listeners to know
that back when you were planningthis first tattoo, there was a
lot of discussion about how thiswas probably just going to be it
for you, like you like, you werejust going to do this one,
because it was reallysignificant, obviously, and it's
an important moment of like,taking back your body. But like,
you know this, I shouldn't go

Ilyse Morgenstein Fu (38:08):
overboard.
I was nervous about goingoverboard. And we both know
other sister

was Lyman knew that was like,

you've been waiting to pop this court.
You're gonna finish the

bottle. I'm just waiting for the back piece.
Yeah, I already did one. It'strue. It's true for now.

Yeah, all right. Goodwin, that's
enough about me and my bod. Tellus about your hot bod and its
tattoos are do you have tattoos?
Are they religious? How do theyline up for

you? Yeah, they I do have tattoos in standard.
Despite being chronologicallyolder, I am definitely the kid
sister in this relationship. SoI fully just stole Ilyse style,
and in one case, one of hertattoo artists, my very first
tattoo, and the one that Ithought about the longest is

(39:02):
Octavia Butler. It's on my leftinner form, and it says God has
changed. Her work is incrediblyimportant to me. Her life is
incredibly important to me. Thesitting with the idea that the
only, the only way to getthrough is to know that change

(39:25):
is inevitable, and you can shapeit, and you can work with it,
but you can't get outside it is,is an idea I really struggle
with. I know shockingly,shockingly for an autistic
person with control issues, Ihave a really hard time with
change. So having thatsomeplace, I have to see it all

(39:47):
day, every day, and to have itbe, because we've got all of
these great samples of herhandwriting, having it be in her
handwriting does work on and toand with me, and that is exactly
why I wanted it so. Like,stylistically, it's not actually
my favorite tattoo. Like, Ilike, I have the progression of
the acorn to the the oak leaf itneeds. I have been, I have been

(40:09):
scheming about next ink, becausethis is what happens once you
start. But the piece that feelslike is missing for me, as
Octavia Butler always said thatthe destiny of Earthseed is to
take root among the stars. So Ifeel like it needs a star
somewhere farther along my arm.
They've been thinking aboutthat. But the the getting of the
tattoo was also, like, ofreligious significance for me. I

(40:31):
did that right after Samhain,which is the end of the pagan
year. So it is a time ofreflection. It is a time of like
deep, dark work, and it was alsoa time of real tumult in my
life. So sitting with that anddoing it in Burlington, Vermont,
where my sister lives, in aplace that felt spiritually

(40:53):
correct for me, if I'm beinghonest, like the place is called
the crone collective, I

took me to the good spot, because I
knew what was up, man, I'm areally good I'm really good. I'm
a good sister.

So you took me to the correct place, and I did
this like what we call shadowwork, and it lives on my body,
and it works on me every singleday. So yeah, that is religious
as hell for me. The next tattoowas this big ass Baba Yaga house
that I loved so hard. It was oneof those things of, like, the

(41:28):
goddess change tattoo, I think Italked about for five years
before I finally pulled thetrigger. I struggle with change.

I did the same, but like my Hamza
took, like, easily 20 years. I'mnot joking like it was easily 20
years. Well and like,

in addition to all of my own control stuff and
permanence and all of thesethings that I struggle with, I
am not kidding when I say thatmy whole family, in particular,
when my dad fucking hatestattoos, because tattoos equal
poor. And as we have discussedon the pod already, we were not
poor, we were broke. It'sdifferent. So, yeah, the one of

(42:07):
the last times I saw my dad wasthe only time I think that he
had seen my tattoo, and he wasdisgusted. He was, Oh, I hate
it. And frankly, that was suchan important moment for me,
because guess what? It's mybody, actually, despite what
Catholicism told me my wholelife, it's my body, and I get to
do what I want with it. So flashforward to last August, I guess

(42:30):
or August before last? No, thatwas last August. God, no,
August. It was, it was August. Ihad, my dad had died, I'd gotten
divorced, I had relocated. I wasin this whole new space, both
geographically and mindset wise,I had done like post Winter
Solstice ritual right rightafter I moved. And some of the

(42:56):
reflection work that we weredoing was asking us to imagine
like a safe space. And the imagethat I kept getting in my head
was like, so silly. The outsidewas Baba yaga's Hut, which, if
you don't know that story, it'sRussian folklore. She is, of
course, a witch. She liveswherever she wants to, actually,
because her house moves aroundon chicken legs. So if she don't
want to be someplace, she justgoes and her home is decorated

(43:19):
with the skulls of her enemies.
So the idea of a movable homewith a fuck off skull fence was
really appealing to me. Anddoing this like reflection,
meditation, work and the ritualI got Baba Yaga house on the
outside with like this is sosilly. But if you watch killing
Eve, Villanelle has thisamazingly posh flat in Paris,
and that's what it looks like.

Sounds so right for you. How dare it
not be fancy and cozy, but alsomurderous and mobile? Is there a
chicken like and a skull, butalso a Chanel cover of some
kind? They're Nazis, but youknow what I mean?

You know it's cashmere, so it's one of those
things, if I got this, like,really clear flash of Baba Yaga.
And then I thought, Okay, well,this is going to be my next
tattoo. And I sat with it for acouple months, and it was like
thinking about it, and I wasdoing some googling. Like, the
triangle has some very goodtattoo artists, but like any
place that is small that hasreally good tattoo artist, they

(44:22):
are booked the fuck up forever.
And I didn't really find anybodywho's like, style matched what I
wanted, because Bobby Yaga, notthat I knew this, because I am,
it's not my special interest.
But once I said at least, waslike, Yeah, Bobby Yaga is
totally having a moment like,Duh. Well,

I also like, the minute you involved
me. I was like, oh no, oh no,I'm doing that thing that Megan
usually does, which is, me. Letme give you all of the
information you need to do thistomorrow, because you said you
were interested. And I am noteven a minute clocking whether
that's real, I am just runningwith it. Yeah. Yeah. Why

(45:00):
wouldn't

you be excited about this? I'm excited about
it, yeah. So hilariously. SoIlyse, a second tattoo was done
in Portland Maine, where I usedto live by a UVM grad and former

Major right and religion major right,
Zach Lloyd. Shout out to Zach,our double tattoo artist, just

as the thing, because in doing searching for,
like, somebody who had the rightvibe for the kind of art that I
wanted to do. Because a lot ofthe Baba Yaga stuff that I was
seeing was, like, very delicateand dainty and like storybook,
and it's beautiful, but it's notme. I am not dainty. I am not
demure. So I was doing somesearching around, and it turned

(45:39):
out, Zach, UVM, groovy. UV Zachwas doing a tattoo, like
visiting appointment at theplace literally down the street
from my house. Yeah. So I askedif he would put something
together for me, and he did. Andwhereas my first tattoo, I was
like, I'm still settling in,there are things that I would
change if I was going to dothis. Now, maybe I'll have it
detailed, whatever, whatever.
Zach showed me the tattoo, thedesign, and I was like, get it

(46:01):
on my body. Get it on my bodyright now. Like, how has this
not been part of my body allalong? And it's still, it's my
other inner forearm. I see itall day, every day, and it just,
it feels so correct, like it's adoing excellent piece. It's
beautiful. It's, it's really funbecause, like, I'm never going
to be a tattoo person the waythat you're a tattoo person. But
when I am in tattoo parlors, theartists are like, Oh my God, who

(46:24):
did that? Because it's a fuckingkiller piece. Like, I should
really, we should upload apicture of it, because it's
really gorgeous. Zach did anamazing job. But it's one of
those places of like this. Justthe whole experience really felt
like it was meant to be. Like Iwent overnight from feeling
like, Okay, this is something Iwant to think about, to like,

(46:45):
mark this period in my life andput something that feels
protective on my body, to it waslike, mid July, and I was like,
No, I need this tomorrow. I needit right now. And then we found
out that Zach had moved to NorthCarolina. The appointment that I
wound up scheduling was onAugust 1, which is Islamist, or
Lunas. And the the primary deitythat I work with is Lou. He's a

(47:07):
Celtic deity, so, like, it wason his day. And Zach also treats
the practice of tattooing. And Ithink he would just like, yeah,
in, like, a

Ilyse Morgenstein F (47:18):
spiritually like he would, he would use the
term, terminology, and probablyspirituality, spirituality,

right? But his entire space is marked with
spiritual iconography. He isreally intentional about the way
that he does this. So we weretalking about, like, the fact
that this had all come togetherin a way that felt really good,
for sure. Yeah, it did truly. Ittruly felt meant to be. And it
was this lovely moment of, likefeeling connected to my family

(47:43):
because Ilyse has art by thesame tattoo artist, and there
are like, tiny, subtle nazaresIn Zach's design, which is not
something that I asked for, butI like fucking love, because,
again, it feels a little WonderTwins to me. So yeah, that that
also felt deeply religious on anumber of different levels to
me. And then my most recent onewas on my my birthday, which

(48:06):
it's one of those spaces oflike, pagans do a lot of work
with fiction and the spacebetween like, should we be
thinking about this as areligious text, as a
conversation for a longer time?
But I really directly after Imoved and got divorced and my
dad had died, and I was in NorthCarolina, and I was just I was
in a rough spot, I spent a lotof time with Station 11, the TV

(48:27):
show I had read the book, but itdidn't hit the same way. And
then watching folks not justsurvive an apocalypse, but
create art in the wake of theend of everything, has been
really important to me. So themost recent ink that I've gotten
is survival is insufficient,which is from Station 11, which
they still from Star Trek. Soit's like double, triple nerdy

(48:49):
anyway, in short,

and religious, somehow, in religion,
well, religious in the this

is a conversation we've been having a lot because
I now am editing at ReligionDispatches. And we're talking
about, how do we make what we dolegible? Because people don't
understand, for the most part,this is a publication about
religion. It's not a religiouspublication, right? Like we're
not telling you how to doreligion. And one of the places
that we can keep coming back toyou as something that resonates
for people as religious, even ifthey are not that religious

(49:18):
themselves, is apocalypse. Yeah,right. And or multiple ends I
was trying to is it RebeccaNagel? I'll have to look at No.
It's Kim tallbear, who talksabout the multiple apocalypses
and the fact that particularlycolonized people have survived
so many apocalypses before whitefolks even know what is
happening so differenttimelines. You know what? I'm
just going to drop a link to theinterview that I did with Hannah

(49:38):
McGregor, because she explainsthis way more beautifully than I
do, but the apocalypse piecefelt not specifically witchy or
pagan to me, but felt resonantin a way that religious work
feels resonant to me. So wedon't have one sacred text, we
just kind of shiny Magpie it.
All over the place. So anyway,that was primary so it says

primary sources,

you're so, right.
You're always, I like, I just, Ishould always just trust you.
You should have said,

All right, well, Goodwin. We've been
kind of like, all over theplace, info, dumping, sharing.
Why don't, why don't you saywhat we did today? What did we
learn? This

is such a kitchen table. Voice, also, I really
like this. Hey, family, whathappened today? All right, fine.
Moses, buds and thorns, tell mewhat you learned today. Hit it.
Fine. Okay, I'll do the work.
I'll do it. All right. So wetalked about tattooing
prohibitions, but also how thoseprohibitions are sort of
relative. And we see tattoosacross religious bodies, and we
see religious communitiesrethinking and renegotiating how
bodies might be modified. Wealso talked about traditional

(50:52):
practices, especially inPolynesia, where we get the word
tattoo from, and for communitiesthat sell bodily modification
with ink as a way to heightenits sacredness in the community,
and before the divine God istotally gonna dig my tattoos,
particularly the one that'sacted it's so good, she's gonna
be so stoked. So and we sharedresearch from Dr Maldonado

(51:13):
Estrada about how tattoos today,even in communities that had
traditionally found themdistasteful, if not outright
sacrilegious, Inc, in thesecommunities, can serve as a
devotional object of sacrament.
All right, how'd I do? Pretty,

pretty good. You know what? Nerds,
there's so much more that wecan't get into in one teeny
episode. So don't pack up yet.
We've got homework. Homework.
What homework? I'll just, I'lljust go through this list, if
you don't mind. Yeah. And sowe've got, obviously, Alyssa
Maldonado Estrada's lifeblood ofthe parish men in Catholic
devotion in Williamsburg,Brooklyn, but also the piece we

(51:49):
shared today, which is tattoosas Sacramentals. And that's an
online piece. We've got a pieceby a guy named Morello who which
is called I've got you under myskin tattoos and religion in
three Latin American cities,which is a pretty great internal
kind of comparative piece.

I'm pretty sure that SJ, at the end of his name
is Society of Jesus. So this isprobably a Jesuit publication,
definitely. Yeah.

And then we've got Anna Cole,
Bronwyn, Douglas, NicholasThomas, as the editors of this
big book called tattoo bodiesart and exchange in the Pacific
and the West, and it's a prettygood back and forth about this
colonization piece. Then there'sMakiko Kuru Hara, who wrote

(52:35):
tattoo and anthropology. Thenthere's Muhammad roqueb and Saim
Sok, which is called Muslimswith tattoos, the punk Muslim
community in Indonesia, which isa super fun piece. And honestly,
gang, it teaches really well ifyou're teaching, like, a mid
level Islam class. And want tofocus on, like, varieties of
practice. I've got a bunch morepieces on Islamic tattooing and

(52:59):
healing, but I want to focus on,I want to like just name. I'm
going to dump a lot of thesesources and not read them all.
Alex, sorry. Alice blocks, pieceis called the body as a canvas
memory tattoos and theHolocaust, a really recent piece
that is about how Jews are usingHolocaust memory to re inscribe

(53:20):
their own contemporary Jews toreinscribe their own bodies. A
really fascinating piece thatgets at some of what we were
talking about earlier in theepisode. Michael Reese has a
pretty new book called tattooingin contemporary society. And
then I want to get into, I wantto name out loud that Lars kutak
has one called tattoo traditionsof Asia, ancient and
contemporary expressions ofidentity. That's what the

(53:43):
University of Hawaii press andSean Mallon and Sebastian Gallo
Galio have a book called tattoo,a history of Samoan tattooing,
also by the University of Hawaiipress, which honestly is putting
out dope work and then the USgovernment, at least until
yesterday. Who knows whatthey're taking off their website

(54:05):
now, but the Navy itself has itsown web page dedicated to the
history of Navy tattoos. Ifyou're interested

in how that works, chickens and pigs are
involved. It's reallyinteresting. It's

really fascinating. And each boat has
its own like, there's a lot ofculture. And the Navy actually
does a really like the website'sactually pretty robust, and it
has lots of tabs and lots ofreally interesting things to
look at. So that is our verylong list of sources. Nerds. You
should hear in that list ofsources that that means lots of
people are doing the work onthis. There's no reason not to
know about how tattoos arereligious.

Yes, all right.
Oh, did we want to mention skinstories? Does that matter?

It's a really old PBS documentary from
over 20 years ago. I will putthat on there. It's called Skin
stories.

That sounds

Unknown (54:49):
I don't like the name of it,

silence at the lamb

says you put the lotion like it's
gross. I don't like it.

This was just me.
Remembering that there's asilence of the lambs musical
anyway. You can find us acrosssocial media. We're on blue sky,
Insta, Tiktok and Facebook, andif none of that permanently
modifies your body, catch upwith us on keeping it one, oh
one.com, and please drop us arating or review in your
podcaster of choice

if you still want to invite us to
campus after all of thatinsanity, and knowing that we're
showing up with sleeves oftattoos, please reach out to us.
Or Caitlin Meyer at Beacon, allof this is on our website, but
we would love to visit. We wouldlove to zoom in. Get in Touch
early and often, and with that,peace out. Nerds, do your
homework. It's on the syllabus.
You Oh.

Unknown (55:58):
Lydia. Oh Lydia. Say, Have you met Lydia? Lydia the
tattoo lady. She has eyes thatfolks a dorsal and a tour,
though, even more so Lydia, ohLydia, that encyclopedia, oh
Lydia, the queen of tattoo onher back is the Battle of

(56:20):
Waterloo. Beside it, the wreckof the Hesperus to and proudly
above weaves the red, white andblue. You can learn a lot from
the blood.

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