♦ Tebori, Horimono and Irezumi, what are the differences?

♦ Brief History of the Japanese Tattoo

♦ Irezumi, Yakuza Tattoo

►TATTOO,刺青、用語

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 Tebori, horimono and irezumi, what are the differences ?

 By Joshua Andrews

Tebori    ── ── ── ──    手彫り (手工刺青)

Tebori is a Japanese word that means tattooing by hand.    

Horimono    ── ── ──    彫り物 (手工彩色刺青)

Horimono is a Japanese word that refers to chromatic tattoos created by means of tebori.     

Irezumi    ── ── ── ──    入れ墨(罪犯刺青)

Irezumi is a Japanese word that means tattooed as a punishment and refers to the insertion of ink under the skin to leave a permanent, usually decorative mark; a form of tattooing.    

"Mugen" samurai champloo

The term of Irezumi and its negative connotation came to be during the Edo period (1603-1868) of Japan’s history, when it was common practice by the judicial authorities to tattoo criminals with a specific symbol according to the crime that the criminal had committed as a punishment as well as for making identifying the criminal easier; that tattoo was called an Irezumi.

Irezumi 一词，及其负面的含义，来自日本江户时代（1603-1868）的历史——为惩罚犯罪，在罪犯身上刺上某种特定符号，是当时司法当局的惯例。这也用来辨认罪犯的身份（就像盖个戳），这种刺青称为 Irezumi。

After the tattooed criminals were released from prison, they would hire a tattoo artist, called an Irezumi-shi, who would either tattoo over the criminal tattoo or around it, in order to conceal the past of the individual. Because Japanese society was so strict socially and the influence of Confucianism and Buddhism on Japanese culture, tattooed ex-convicts naturally gravitated to each other and eventually formed into gangs. At some point, the tattooed criminals organized into what became the Japanese mafia, or Yakuza, and that is how the relation between tattoos and the Japanese criminal underworld took foothold in Japanese folklore.

罪犯从监狱获释后，他们会聘请一位刺青师（ Irezumi师），在罪犯的刺青上重新刺上新的图案，以掩盖此罪犯的过去。由于日本社会是非常严格的社会，加上其受儒学和佛教文化的影响，这种严肃的社会风气使得拥有刺青的前罪犯们很容易趋于对方，聚集起来，最终形成帮派。在某一时期，发展成为日本的黑道组织。这就是日本民俗文化中刺青与黑社会之间关系的立足点。

“The Prodigy” Kuniyoshi print of Yan-Qin

日式刺青原基于日本18世纪《108 Heroes of the Suikoden》(水浒列伝図谱) 中的人物版画和浮世绘插图，及一些日本传统的意象和符号。

A famous if not legendary Japanese ukiyoe artist by the name of Kuniyoshi illustrated the heroes in the 18th century with vibrant colorful full body tattoos, which inspired a craze among some Japanese people and helped to make tattoos less stigmatic than they were perceived at that time in Japan.

著名的传奇日本浮世绘大师 歌川国芳 (Utagawa Kuniyoshi, January 1, 1798 - April 14, 1861) 在《108 Heroes of the Suikoden》中描绘了108好汉形象，这多彩华丽、充满活力的刺青形象激发了当时一阵热潮，一些日本民众开始认为刺青并非如他们所想那般耻辱，并非丑恶的印记。