Tattoos have always played a highly important role when it comes to both traditions and rituals. In Borneo, women have placed tattoos on their forearms, which indicated a particular skill. If women wore a symbol that indicates she was a highly skilled weaver, then her status as a potential wife and mother was increased.
During the early seventeenth century, there was actually a generally accepted codification of a tattoo mark, which was used to identify criminals and outcasts who resided in Japan. These outcasts were distinguished by the tattoo on their arms. A cross might actually be tattooed on their inner forearm, or a straight line found on the outside of their forearm or on the upper arm.
Tattooing was also introduced in many German concentration camps during the autumn of 1941. As hundreds and thousands of Soviet prisoners arrived in the infamous Auschwitz concentration camp, and thousands rapidly died there due to starvation and torture, the SS authorities started tattooing the prisoners to identify them.
