The Sacred Art of Tattooing: A Reflection by Sarah Gaugler
Ancient Roots and Sacred Hands
From the dawn of recorded skin art, tattooing has carried far more than simple decoration. Scholars trace the origins of tattooing back to the Neolithic age, with evidence on preserved bodies such as Ötzi the Iceman (c. 5,300 years ago) showing geometric marks that may have served therapeutic or ritual purposes. Smithsonian Magazine+2National Geographic+2
In some cultures, women—not men—held the role of tattoo artist, ritual keeper, and healer. For example:
Among the Ryukyuan people (modern-day Okinawa), the tradition of hajichi saw women tattoo their own hands, begun in girlhood, marking maturity, beauty, protection. Wikipedia+1
Among the Ainu of northern Japan, girls received lip-and-chin tattoos beginning around age seven or eight, in a rite of passage and protection. Wikipedia
In North India tribal contexts, “godna” tattoos crafted by women served identity, protection, and ritual purposes. Wikipedia+1
Thus the archetype of the female tattoo-ritualist runs through many regions and centuries—women as healers, communal markers, conduits of sacred knowledge, and artists of imprinting meaning into the flesh.
The 2,500 +Year-Old Ice-Mummy & The Tattooed Princess
One of the most compelling relics of ancient tattooing is the so-called “ice mummy” of the Pazyryk culture of the Altai Mountains (Siberia). A female body preserved in permafrost revealed tattoo motifs of stags, leopards, and a griffin-like beast on forearms, legs and thumbs. National Geographic+1
That this body dates to the 5th century BCE places her at ~2,500 years ago (or more). Smithsonian Magazine
While the identity of this woman remains mysterious, scholars suggest she may have been of high social rank (perhaps even a “princess” or elite priestess) given the elaborate tattooing and burial treatment. National Geographic+1
If we lean into mythic possibility, one can imagine: a woman of the Pazyryk, tattooed by a wise female artist-healer, receiving these animal images as markers of power, spirit-animal alliance, and social prestige. In that era, tattoos among the Scythians and Pazyryk are described by the historian Herodotus (c. 450 BCE) as “a mark of nobility, and not to have them was testimony of low birth.” HISTORY+1
Thus: the notion that tattooing was a sacred ritual performed on princesses, healers, and people of high rank is wholly within the historic and symbolic record.
Rain, remembrance & sacred blessing
Across spiritual traditions, rain arriving on a wedding day, a consecration or a ritual is seen as a blessing of purification, fertility, and divine presence. The scientific discovery that “water remembers” – that while the water floated as cloud it held the love of sky, and now descends to join the celebration – beautifully mirrors ancient animistic understandings: water as living, receptive, remembering. In the architecture of myth: the heavens love the earth, send their tears of joy, and unify the two.
In many tribal or indigenous worldviews, water carries memory and charge: of prayers, of ancestors, of promises. A ritual tattoo session under rainfall thus becomes doubly meaningful: skin receives the mark, earth receives the water, memory flows. The bride, groom, tattoo-artist, sky and land all align—carried by the blessing of the drops.
My Witness
Last weekend, I stood on sacred land—on a private hill crest that overlooked lakes and layered hills, the horizon open and wild. As I arrived, light rain descended, gentle and sacred, and then the sky cleared toward sunset with a golden glow that felt like prayer. I felt the presence of Love itself enfolding us.
On the following day, in the sanctuary of trees and butterflies on the balcony high among branches, I held my tools and my heart as the tattoo-ritual began. The groom chose a stag over his heart—his bride’s spirit-animal, his devotion manifest. The bride chose a lion over her heart—his energy and fire, her love embodied.
As I drew the designs, the bride—an energy- and plant-medicine woman—waved copal, sage, incense, burning blessings around us. We were oriented with the mountains, aligned with sky and trees, surrounded by butterflies, enveloped in sacred space. In that moment I heard an ancient echo: the groom told me his inspiration came from the ice-mummy of 2,500 years ago, the tattoo with the deer motif. And in that instant I felt a “remembering” — a knowing-that-I-knew. I realized that in another lifetime I might have been the tattoo-artist of that ancient woman, and that in this lifetime we were again uniting in purpose: princess, healer, artist reunited for the mission of love, memory, and healing.
I designed the bride’s tattoo in the spirit of the groom: a lion - fierce, passionate, open-hearted fire. I designed the groom’s tattoo as the stag of devotion, of deep heart connection, of loyalty. As I tattooed both of them, I felt a surge of overflowing joy and sacred purpose. My whole being whispered: this is why I am here. This is why we are together right now.
May their spirits and souls be forever blessed by this beautiful memory: tattooed amidst trees, monarch butterflies dancing in the sky, under sunset’s glow, the rain’s tender kiss, and through the night’s infinite whisper. May the ancient lines of memory be awakened in their bodies, their union sealed not only by ceremony—but by ink, by spirit, by water, by earth.
In gratitude, I thank the ancestors, the art forms, the healers, the women who tattooed, the women who held the sacred needle, the women priests, the women artists. May our lineage of sacred tattooing live on—women artisans, women healers, women artists of the skin and soul.
With infinite love and affirmation,
Sarah Gaugler
— Owner & Lead Artist, Snow Tattoo NYC