The use of administrative tattooing is today seen as a denial of human anatomy in the most basic sense. The best known use of this technique is the Nazi’s use of tattoo to identify concentration camp inmates, where numbers were substituted for the inmates’ names in an attempt to eradicate their personal identity.

            However, administrative tattooing has been used elsewhere with a different meaning. In 18th and 19th century Siam, tattooing was used as an administrative technique to control the movement of labor. Commoners were tattooed with the name of their lords, in an attempt to fix in place an otherwise fissiparous administrative hierarchy. In that context, tattooing was a mark of inclusion in civilized society, the world of the “city” rather than the “forest,” to use the idiom of the time.

            In both cases, tattooing was experienced as painful, and served to mark one’s status. Yet the meaning of the tattoo itself could hardly be more different: in the Nazi case the tattoo marked one as an outsider destined for extermination, while in the Siamese case  it marked one as an insider, a valued part of the official hierarchy.