Page:EB1911 - Volume 26.djvu/481

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452
TAUCHNITZ—TAUNG-GYI

performed. Thus in Polynesia it is begun in or about the twelfth year, and becomes thus a mark of puberty; while among the Arabs and the Kabyles of Algeria infants are tattooed by their mothers for simple ornament or as a means of recognizing them. The American Indians bore from their initiation at puberty the mark of the personal or tribal totem, which at once represented the religious side of their life, and served the practical purpose of enabling them to be known by friendly tribes. Among the Australians tattooing served as a mark of adoption into the family or tribe, the distinctive emblem or kobong being scarred on the thighs.

Tattooing is regarded, too, as a mark of courage. A Kaffir who has been a successful warrior has the privilege of making a long incision in his thigh, which is rubbed with cinders until sufficiently discoloured. Elsewhere tattooing is a sign of mourning, deep and numerous cuts being made on face, breast and limbs. Among the Fijians and Eskimos the untattooed were regarded as risking their happiness in the future world. Some of the most remarkable examples of tattooing are those to be found among the Laos, whose stomachs, thighs, legs and breasts are often completely covered with fantastic animal figures like those on Buddhistic monuments.

The rudest form of tattooing is that practised specially by the Australians and some tribes of negroes. It consists in cutting gashes, arranged in patterns, on the skin and filling the wounds with clay so as to form raised scars. This tattooing by scarring as compared with the more common mode of pricking is, as a general rule, confined to the black races. Light-skinned races tattoo, while dark practise scarring. In Polynesia the art of tattooing reached its highest perfection. In the Marquesas group of islands, for example, the men were tattooed all over, even to the fingers and toes and crown of the head, and as each operation took from; three to six months, beginning at virility, a man must have been nearly thirty before his body was completely covered. In New Zealand the face was the part most tattooed, and Maori heads so decorated were at one time in much request for European museums, but they are no longer obtainable in the colony. In Japan, where it became a high art, tattooing was neither ceremonial nor symbolical. It was in lieu of clothing, and only on those parts of the body usually covered in civilized countries, and in the case of those only who, like the jinrikisha-men, work half naked. The colours used are black, which appears blue, made from Indian ink, and different tints of red obtained from cinnabar. Fine sewing-needles, eight, twelve, twenty or more, fixed together in a piece of wood, are used. A clever tattooer can cover the stomach or back in a day. As soon as the picture is complete, the patient is bathed in hot water. The Ainus, on the other hand, tattoo only the exposed parts of the body, the women, unlike the Japanese, being frequently patients. The tattooing instruments used in Polynesia consisted of pieces of sharpened bone fastened into a handle, with their edges cut into teeth. These were dipped into a solution of charcoal and then driven into the skin by smart blows with a mallet. During the operation, assistants, usually female relatives, drowned the cries of the sufferer with songs and the beating of drums.

Under the influence of civilization tattooing is losing its ethnological character, and has become, in Europe at least, an eccentricity of soldiers and sailors and of many among the lower and often criminal classes of the great cities. Among eight .hundred convicted French soldiers Lacassagne found 40 per cent, tattooed. In the British army till 1879 the letters D. and B. C. for Deserter and Bad Character were tattooed with needles and Indian ink; and tattooing has often been used to identify criminals and slaves.

See Lacassagne, Les Talouages (Paris, 1881); General Robley, Moko or Maori Tattooing (1896).

TAUCHNITZ, the name of a family of German printers and publishers. Karl Christoph Traugott Tauchnitz (1761-1836), born at Grossbardau near Grimma, Saxony, established a printing business in Leipzig in 1796 and a publishing house in 1798. He specialized on the publication of dictionaries, Bibles and stereotyped editions of the Greek and Roman classics. The business was carried on by his son, Karl Christian Phillipp Tauchnitz (1798-1884), until 1865, when the business was sold to O. Holtze. He left large sums to the city of Leipzig for philanthropic purposes. Christian Bernhard, Freiherr von Tauchnitz (1816-1895), the founder of the existing firm of Bernhard Tauchnitz, was the nephew of the first-mentioned. His printing and publishing firm was started at Leipzig in 1837. The Library of British and American Authors, so familiar to travellers on the continent of Europe, was begun in 1841. In 1908 the collection numbered over 4000 volumes. In 1868 he began the Collection of German Authors, followed in 1886 by the Students' Tauchnitz editions. In 1860 he was ennobled with the title of Freiherr (Baron), and in 1877 was made a life member of the Saxon Upper Chamber. From 1866 to 1895 he was British Consul-General for the kingdom and duchies of Saxony. He was succeeded in the business by his son, Christian Karl Bernhard, Freiherr von Tauchnitz.

TAULANTII, in ancient geography, an Illyrian people in the neighbourhood of Epidamnus (Thuc. i. 24). They were originally powerful and independent, under their own kings. One of these was Glaucias, who fought against Alexander the Great, and placed Pyrrhus, the infant king of Epirus, whom he had refused to surrender to Cassander, upon the throne (Plutarch, Pyrrhus, 3). Later the Taulantii fell under the sway of the kings of Illyria, and when the Romans were carrying on war against the Illyrian queen, Teuta, they were unimportant.

TAULER, JOHANN (c. 1300-1361), German mystic, was born about the year 1300 in Strassburg, and was educated at the Dominican convent in that city, where Meister Eckhart, who greatly influenced him, was professor of theology (1312-1320) in the monastery school. From Strassburg he went to the Dominican college of Cologne, and perhaps to St James's College, Paris, ultimately returning to Strassburg. In 1324 Strassburg with other cities was placed under a papal interdict. Legend says that Tauler nevertheless continued to perform religious services for the people, but though there may be a germ of historical truth in this story, it is probably due to the desire of the 16th-century Reformers to enroll the famous preachers of the middle ages among their forerunners. In 1338-I339 Tauler was in Basel, then the headquarters of the "Friends of God" (see Mysticism), and was brought into intimate relations with the members of that pious mystical fellowship. Strassburg, however, remained his headquarters. The Black Death came to that city in 1348, and it is said that, when the city was deserted by all who could leave it, Tauler remained at his post, encouraging by sermons and personal visitations his terror-stricken fellow-citizens. His correspondence with distinguished members of the Gollesfreunde, especially with Margaretha Ebner, and the fame of his preaching and other work in Strassburg, had made him known throughout a wide circle. He died on the 16th of June 1361.

The well-known story of Tauler's conversion and discipline by "the Friend of God from the Oberland" (see Nicholas of Basel) cannot be regarded as historical. Tauler's sermons are among the noblest in the German language. They are not so emotional as Suso's, nor so speculative as Eckhart's, but they are intensely practical, and touch on all sides the deeper problems of the moral and spiritual life.

Tauler's sermons were printed first at Leipzig in 1498, and reprinted with additions from Eckhart and others at Basel (1522) and at Cologne (1543). There is a modern edition by Julius Hamberger (Frankfort, 1864), and R. H. Hutton published Tauler's Sermons for Festivals under the title of The Inner Way. See Denifle, Das Buch von geistlicher Armuih (Strassburg, 1877); Carl Schmidt, Johann Tauler von Strassburg (Hamburg, 1841); S. Winkworth, Tauler's Life and Sermons (London, 1857); R. A. Vaughan, Hours with the Mystics, 3rd ed., vol. i. pp. 214-307; Preger's Gesch. der deutschen Mystik im Mittelalter, vol. iii. ; W. K. Inge, Christian Mysticism; R. M. Jones, Studies in Mystical Religion (1909).

TAUNG-GYI, the headquarters of the superintendent and political officer, southern Shan States, Burma. It is situated in 96° 58' E. and 20° 47' N., at an altitude of about 5000 ft., in a depressed plateau on the crest of the Sintaung hills. It is in