It gives me great pleasure this month to announce that Dayton Boots, whose products I've proudly worn all over the world in my own adventures, is making an incredible special offer exclusively to the readers of Tattoo Tribe. For the entire month of June, Dayton's is offering ten per cent off on three of their most popular boots, The Brown Toughie, The Brown Wanderer and the Brown X Boot. 

I can personally vouch for the outstanding quality of these products. Dayton really does make the World's Best Boots. I wore the Brown Toughies for six weeks in the jungles of Borneo and they stood up to the punishing hundred degree heat and hundred per cent humidity, mud and floodwaters without a whimper. I ran the Royal Victoria Marathon, all 26.2 miles of it, in a brand new pair of Brown Wanderers. And the best part about Daytons? They make you look unbelievably fabulous whether you're in your favourite pair of jeans or your favourite kilt or on that motorcycle! What other footwear can make that claim!

Come to think of it, a new pair of Daytons is the ultimate way of saying just how important all those Grads and Dads are to you!

Researching the history of Body Art
As of May of this year I have officially been doing research for The Vanishing Tattoo documentary series on tattooing traditions around the world for five years. And in that span of time my attempts to delve deep into the history and lore of tattooing has been a source of both great frustration and of even greater satisfaction. Anyone who has spent any time at all doing historical research knows that separating fact from fiction is often times the most difficult task of all and this applies doubly so to tattooing. There is just something about body art that leads to tales of the fantastic variety and when it comes to decorating the human skin the truth can be even stranger than fiction!

The history of body art and tattooing is rich with stories of shipwrecked sailors, kidnapped adventurers and explorers who have disappeared and gone native. Tattooing is replete with confidence men, con artists, rogues, cads, scoundrels, Kings and Queens, the high born and the lowest of the low and the one thing they all have in common is the indelible mark of the tattoo. In other words, the tattooing scene has hasn't changed much in the past five thousand years! After years of sifting through hundreds and eventually thousands of books and articles Tattoo Tribe decided we just had to share the best with you. In the upcoming issues of Tattoo Tribe we will be bringing you the best of what we've uncovered and rediscovered. Tattoo history from ancient Greece and Rome, to Victorian England and Europe to reconstructing the tattoo traditions of the Haida and Mohawk First Nations here in North America.

Our thanks go out to the dozens of people over the years who helped point us in the right direction, such as Lars Krutak at the Smithsonian, Chuck Eldridge at the Tattoo Archives, Lyle Tuttle, Eddie and Simon David, Phyllis Martin, Bob Baxter, Steve Gilbert, Patricia Steur, Keone Nunes, Laurie Nichols (Te Rangi Kaihoro), Gordon (Toi) Hatfield, Mark Kopua, Tavana Salmon, Melania Lui, Travelin' Mic, Pym Mahon, Bill McLennan, Anne Goetz, Nicole Holten, Pat Fish, and many, many, many more. They willingly and graciously shared their knowledge, and their passion and fascination for tattooing and it's history was contagious.

And I have to thank Tom. Thomas Lockhart at West Coast Tattoo and Museum was the man who opened the door at the start of this amazing journey. In his tattoo shop and in the hundreds of books that line the shelves, The Vanishing Tattoo found it's genesis, took root and grew. None of this would have happened without Tom's abiding love for tattoos, tattooing and it's colourful cast of characters.

This fascinating article below was published over one hundred years ago in Great Britain in The Strand Magazine, An Illustrated Monthly, a very popular magazine in January 1897. Tattoo Tribe thanks Phyllis Martin for her dedicated and tireless research in digging up this particular gem.

Despite the fact that the article is over a hundred years old, topics covered include the need for disinfecting needles! The depth of research and knowledge contained in the article puts many modern writers about tattooing to shame. When you read between the lines it is hard not to feel a real kinship with Gambier Bolton, whose love for tattooing and body decoration is evident in every story and anecdote about tattooing that he commits to the page. He is every inch the well-traveled, eccentric English Gentleman. Bear in mind when reading Pictures on the Human Skin that the article was intended for an educated, literate Victorian audience that was captivated by all manner of things foreign and exotic. Illustrated magazines like The Strand had huge audiences who could not get enough of stories like the one you are about to read.

This piece is a wonderful window back in time and makes me think that tattooing is now entering a new renaissance reminiscent of the 19th century attitudes towards body decoration. And that the attitudes and opposition towards tattooing during the middle years of the twentieth century represents a modern dark ages for body art.