Tattooing Among Civilized People: Read Before the Anthropological Society of Washington

"Not one great country can be named, from the Polar regions in the north to New Zealand in the south, in which the aborigines do not tattoo themselves." -Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man Tattooing Among Civilized People (1882) by Robert Fletcher is a presentation the author made to the Anthropological Society of Washington. Given the purpose of the organization, Fletcher's paper focused on the anthropological significance of tattoos: in which cultures their use was prominent, why they were used, and how they differed from one culture to another.