Body piercing confined to the ears, mouth, and nose has been a common practice in almost every society around the world as far back as can be traced.17 Furthermore, body piercing is practised by contemporary tribal societies on almost all continents (figure 2), but especially in Africa, Asia, and South America. Next to beauty and community affiliation, the main motivations for body piercing in tribal societies are ritual initiation, rites of passage, and sexuality. The ability to stand pain is closely linked to passing through adolescence to adulthood, and is often commemorated by body piercing. The piercing of the male genital region has been confirmed only in a few tribes in Borneo, who wear bone implants (palang) in the glans.18 In many tribal societies, body piercing is connected to other forms of body modification such as tattooing, encumberments (wearing iron, stone, or cane rings as heavy bracelets, anklets, neck ornamentation, footwear, manacles, encasements, chains, penile rings, etc), or compression of limbs through tight bands. Piercing of earlobes or lips mostly starts at an early age and frequently involves gradual stretching and widening of the resulting holes over time (figure 3). Practitioners of various Asian religious traditions such as shamans in animistic or semianimistic religions perform temporary ritual piercings through their cheeks or tongue as an extroverted documentation of their state of trance. Similar piercings are seen in the followers of Sufism, the mystical form of Islam, and in adherents of extreme forms of Hinduism in India, Sri Lanka, and Malaysia—both in ascetics (sadhus) and in lay people.19 In ceremonies dating from as early as the ancient Mayan
civilisations (700 AD), whose royalty pierced their tongues and genitals as part of religious bloodletting rituals,20 devotees pierce their bodies on special religious occasions (figure 4), often in multiple ways, or wear kavandis (frameworks of sharp metal rods that penetrate increasingly deeper into the flesh the longer they are worn).21 Practitioners intend to show their devotion to a certain deity or to “break the illusionary boundaries of the ego as it is dictated by the body in order to reach higher states of consciousness”.22 A quite similar concept existed among North American Indian populations, such as the Mandan and the Lakota, who underwent ritual suspensions from chest piercings (Sun dance, O-Kee-Pa) to attain altered states of consciousness.23 Names for and interpretations of the significance of body piercings, especially of rather extreme forms, have been made up by promoters of body art in western societies to increase interest in the practice.17 Reliable historical evidence of ancient piercing practices exists only for penis piercings to which jewellery is attached, as documented in the Kama Sutra. 24 Egyptian Pharaohs piercing their navels as a rite of passage is more myth than fact, and Roman and Greek athletes attaching their tunics to their bodies by a nipple piercing is pure invention.17 By the Victorian era, mentions of female nipple jewellery can be found in journals,17 and male genital piercing was possibly also being practised. One of the most popular types of male genital piercings, the Prince Albert, is named after Queen Victoria’s husband. Albert supposedly wore a penile ring, which he called a dressing ring, to firmly secure his genitals in either the right or the left leg of the extremely tight uniform trousers of the period.19 However, historical evidence for this interpretation is disputed.17 Little is known about the practice in the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. However, solid evidence shows that tongue, nipple, and labia piercings were done, often together with tattoos, in Germany shortly after World War II.25 Body piercing was probably also common before the war and existed in the USA or the UK, along with the well known and documented practice of tattooing.
