First tattooed man in America was Irish

Carnet de voyage - James F. O’Connell, découvreur de Nan Madol (tahiti-infos.com)

They danced, so I'll dance an Irish jig for them.

James F. O’Connell, the “Tattooed Man,” arrived in New York City in 1835, causing much consternation. If a lady so much as glanced at him, her future children would be born just as hideously inked as he was — covered in thick, patterned black bands that curved down and around their hands, arms, legs, and backs. Or so the churchmen told their flocks.

O’Connell, an Irish sailor, acquired his full-body tattoo during a stint as a castaway in the South Pacific’s Caroline Islands during the late 1820s and early 1830s.

After their ship sunk, Irishman O’Connell and his shipmate, George Keenan, were taken in by inhabitants of the island of Pohnpei — who were not cannibals, O’Connell emphatically states in his memoir.

Within a few days, the two were bustled off to an isolated hut, where five or six women, “savage printers” armed with ink and thorns, set about providing the newcomers with the markings that would smooth their way into the community.

The resulting tattoo, called pelipel, made O’Connell “fully human” in the world of the South Pacific, writes Juniper Ellis in her book Tattooing the World (Columbia University Press, 2008), for which the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) provided research support. More: neh.gov

The Dharma Bum

There's something about the Irish, going from a tiny island under the thumb of a neighboring island, pushed out into the world as a diaspora that saw the sidhe, Tuatha de Danan, the wee people, the spirits, and creatures of the Emerald Isle spread out into all corners of the world and the public imagination. The neighboring island forced itself on everyone, like the last militant vestige of the Roman Empire (the remaining force in Rome slipping on a sheep's disguise in an exhibition of soft power that conquered the planet or plane more deeply than British weapons and forces.

U Dhammaloka (right) with Burmese monks

How did the Irish win their way into the hearts of all, particularly with so many redheads? One of the most prominent and important of the Irish was named O'Connell (Laurence), who became the first Westerner to ordain as a Theravada Buddhist monk, Ven. U Dhammaloka (pronounced \ooh-dah-mah-low-kuh\), the "U" being an Burmese honorific.

He traveled by boat to California then by ship to Asia, where he made a name for himself as a freethinker and Buddhist, opposing Christian missionaries, ended up all the way in Mandalay, Burma, in a Buddhist monastery.

Another O'Connell (James F.), not JFO, also made a splash in the Pacific among the people of Pohnpei among the Caroline Islands. He was a sailor on a boat that wrecked, landing him in Micronesia and this adventure.

• P.T. Barnum's incredible freak show oddity, the First Tattooed Man in America, Irishman James F. O’Connell (irishcentral.com)

How an Irishman's tattoo changed history

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I was happy to be a Buddhist monk for freedom

(Rare Earth) James O'Connell, 18, survived a shipwreck along with seven others only to become the most famous Western man in Pohnpei. Ah, coming home after being enslaved since your late teens only to have your own society condemn you as Satanic for what they did to you and then be forced to headline a traveling circus freakshow until you died. No matter where you go, the tattoos always speak first. This is the (self-told, probably exaggerated for circus reasons) story of P.T. Barnum's original freak success story, "James O'Connell, America's first tattooed man."

Micronesia (with US Guam), Melanesia, Polynesia, Australasia (Oceania)

• The Life and Adventures of James F. O’Connell, the Tattooed Man (1845)

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• Evan Hadfield, Rare Earth, Nov. 25, 2023; Celtic Tattoos & Traditions; USA Kilts; Pulan Speaks (video); Pat Macpherson, Dhr. Seven (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

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