Tattoos do not reveal a lack of character.

	For the majority of the worlds people, tattoos have played a major role in the religious and sociological development of their cultures and traditions.  The adverse effect of hellenized Christianity has vilified the practice of tattooing in the western world, but overall tattoos do not reveal a lack of character.  If you're a Pacific Islander, Native American, or lover of Japanese art you may find it hard to resist as a means of self expression.
	Among the Pacific Islanders (particularly Samoan) it is traditional for all the young males to receive a tattoo as they approach maturity.  Not only is this tattoo artistic but it also symbolizes the coming of age of the recipient.  These tattoos hold religious ties to the Samoan people.  Practitioners of their native religion believe it is a symbolic marking representing their health.  The tattoo is applied to the loin area, which in both western and pacific culture is symbolic of strength and the strength of their posterity.  This snakelike tattoo then marks their coming of age and manhood.  This holds true for many cultures.
	In the Americas, the natives hold to many similar practices and beliefs as the Samoan people do.  They believe people must be marked as they come of age, in a representation of their fertility and readiness to tackle the grind of daily life.  These highly religious people believe in morality, just as any member of western or Christian influenced society would.  Because of our lack of understanding we see these things as foreign and we apply feelings of fear, distrust, and hatred to these primitive practices.  The Native Americans use tattoos as a sign of status, we use clothes and material possesions.  They offered human sacrifices, and yet the Christians believe in a God that could only be appeased with the death of his own son.  The differences in culture may be only superficial, but they still inhibit us from understanding each other.  A tattooed man in the Christian world is seen as rebellious and having a lack of piety, but among the native Americans he is the one who communicates with gods.  He is the medicine man.
	In Japan, members of the modern day Yakuza often receive highly artistic tattoos.  These tattoos are works of art.  There is in fact a prominent museum in Japan devoted