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Croatian & Bosnian traditional tattooing

    Croats would tattoo their children in order to save them from Turks who kidnapped them during Ottoman occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, while Croatian women were tattooed in hopes of protecting themselves from being taken away by Turkish men into captivity. Tattooing became widespread after the Ottomans would take children into captivity and send them to Turkey where they 
were trained to be soldiers or servants.

    Even today Croatian women in some parts of Bosnia (and Herzegovina) tattoo their hands with Christian symbols and stechak ornaments. This very old custom, used exclusively among Catholic Christians, had a special meaning in the period of the Ottoman occupation. This type of custom has been common throughout history: one example is the Greek historian Strabo (1st century BC) who mentions tattooing among inhabitants of this area, along with another that it is an old Illyrian custom. Archaeologist Ćiro Truhelka researched these types of tattoos in the late 19th century, becoming one of the first to write about and to illustrate them on paper.

Bosnian Catholic Croats tattoo their hands and other visible parts of body with Christian symbols (usually with a small cross), like brow, cheeks, wrist, or below neck. This can be seen even today, not only in Bosnia and Herzegovina, but among Bosnian Croat women living abroad.

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