The following is a brief excerpt from Tattoo History: A Source Book, by Stephen G. Gilbert now available in print.

Tattoo History Source Book: South America

When Cortez and his conquistadors arrived on the coast of Mexico in 1519 they were horrified to discover that the natives not only worshipped devils in the form of statues and idols, but had somehow managed to imprint indelible images of these idols on their skin. The Spaniards, who had never heard of tattooing, recognized it at once as the work of Satan.

The sixteenth century Spanish historians who chronicled the adventures of Cortez and his conquistadors reported that tattooing was widely practiced by the natives of Central America. Oviedo, who wrote the first and most complete account of the conquest of Mexico, tells us that the natives "imprinted on their bodies the images of their demons, held and perpetuated in black color for as long as they live, by piercing the flesh and the skin, and fixing in it the cursed figure." The Jesuit missionary Jean Baptiste le Pers wrote: "They called their idols zemes and the imprinted their image on their own bodies. So it is not astonishing if, having them without ceasing before their eyes and fearing them much, they saw them often in dreams. They were all hideous - as toads, tortoises, snakes, alligators, etc." And the historian Cogulludo reported that warriors were tattooed to commemorate their achievements in battle, "so the bodies of old heroes were completely covered with hieroglyphics."

As far as we know, only one Spaniard was ever tattooed by the Mayas. His name was Gonzalo Guerrero, and he is mentioned in several early histories of Mexico. The reports of his activities are fragmentary but intriguing. Guerrero was one of 20 sailors who survived a shipwreck off the coast of Jamaica in 1511. He and his companions managed to crowd into a small lifeboat and drifted at sea for two weeks without food or water, during which time several of them died of exposure and starvation.

The survivors finally reached coast of Yucatan, where they were captured by Mayas. Geurrero and four others managed to escape and make their way through the jungle to Chetumal, a nearby Mayan city-state. The ruler of Chetumal, who was an enemy of their former captors, allowed them to live but made slaves of them. During the next two years three of the Spaniards succumbed to hunger, hard work, and disease. The only survivors were Guerrero and a Catholic priest, Geronimo de Aguilar.