The original character of 纹 was 文, and 文 meant  "tatoo" or "line drawing" in ancient times. The character "纹" was later created to make its meaning more clear. 文身 is still used in the sense of "tatoo" mainly in wirtten Chinese.

Thanks changye, I always enjoy reading your analyses of characters.

I think it makes perfect sense, especially since 文 means "writing," even if 文 is more often used for "language" and "culture."

I've always been interested in knowing more about the acceptance of tattoos in "ancient" China, since they aren't very accepted in today's China (though I assume they may be more accepted in the past 10 years with Asia's westernization).

Hi calkins,

In ancient China, tattoo was relatively popular as decoration in southern maritime region such as 越国 (yue4 guo2, 600BC?～334BC) that was located just south of the Yangtze River. Ancient divers got a tattoo to keep off dangerous fish and sharks under water. Probably tattoo was a charm in those days. Tattoo later gradually became a kind of punishments in Chinese society, e.g. full-face tattoo (黥面, qing2 mian4). The situation was almost the same in Japan.

很有意思。  I can't remember the Chinese movie, but the main character was being forced to get her faced tattooed (branded basically).  I think it was Gong Li, but can't remember the movie.  Anyway, now it makes more sense...thanks for the insight.