Girl with traditional tattoos cover art work in progress

Potential cover art for album inspired by traditional music played on tambura (instrument)
Work in progress...

Short story behind the traditional tattooing in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Tattooing was necessary during the Turkish occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina so that the children could be protected from kidnapping. Many had their names or initials tattooed into the skin to prevent their identity being taken from them.

The cult members identified each other by tattooing their hands and arms using a compound ink that was made up, in part, of human breast milk.

At the height of the cult, mothers took to tattooing their children at home, usually before they were ten years old. The tattooing process involves using a crude needle and a special solution made of charcoal, grime, honey, and milk extracted from the bosom of a lactating woman who has already had a male child.
Although the custom outlasted the Ottoman oppressors, communist authorities made tattooed women targets of hate campaigns. Threatened and treated like criminals, they would often lose their jobs due to their religious allegiances. Eventually women stopped tattooing their children out of fear and the practice was more or less extinct by the 1950s.