Swallow Tattoos

Genre and Sub Genre: Rites of Passage, Material

Language: English

Country where Item is from: United States of America

Informant Data: Originally from Bay Area, California, Jonathan Kong is a Dartmouth student veteran, ’18, and studies Economics. He served 6 years in the United States Navy assigned as a Combat Corpsman with Marine Corps Infantry. He has deployed three times and has conducted combat operations in Sangin, Afghanistan of Helmand Province. He has billets as an Assistant Leading Petty Officer, Senior Line Corpsman, Battalion Training Petty Officer, and Combat Trauma Management Instructor. He was awarded the Silver Star Medal for heroic actions against the enemy and risking one’s own life to save wounded Marines, as well as the Combat Action Ribbon, Afghanistan Campaign Medal, Fleet Marine Force device, and Enlisted Surface Warfare device.

Social/ Cultural Context: Jonathan was interviewed in his home at an off-campus house for Dartmouth student veterans. He has been at Dartmouth for one years and was able to speak about various different topics. I briefly explained the focus of our collection and simply allowed him to speak freely about topics he chose.

Item: Tattoos are one of the major traditions in the Navy. Sailors began coming home with tattoos that they would get while sailing around the world. Many of these tattoos are a rite of passage and represent various different things. The swallow tattoo, often placed on the distal aspect of the chest, just below the shoulders, symbolizes that the sailor has traveled 5,000 nautical miles at sea. Sailors who reach 10,000 nautical miles will often get a second swallow tattoo on the other side of their chest. These tattoos show that the sailor has a vast amount of experience at sea and that they have survived the dangers of the open waters.

Associated file: 

Transcript of Associated File:

Yea a lot of Sailors get tattoos. It’s kind of a thing. Actually, I think it’s Sailors who popularized them in the United States. You’ve probably heard of Sailor Jerry. I think he was a tattoo artist from the WWII era. Now they have like a whiskey brand named after of him or something. But yea, we all get a bunch of tattoos. A lot of em mean different things. One that comes to mind are swallow tattoos. They’re like birds, kinda like the sparrows. Basically, once you’ve done 5,000 nautical miles at sea then you rate 1 swallow. People usually get em tattooed on their chest by the shoulders. So if you’ve done 10,000 nautical miles at sea you usually get one on each side. I rate em, but I don’t currently have em. Maybe I’ll get em tattooed later when I’m not a poor college kid. Right now I have 6 tattoos, all of which I got while in the military.

Informant’s Comments: I None of my tattoos are actually military related, but I did get them all while I was serving in the Navy.

Collector’s Comments: informant showed his tattoos, but noted none were related to military traditions.

Collector’s Name: Jeong Tae

Tags/Keywords: Tattoos, Rites of Passage