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Traditional Croatian Christian tattoes used to escape Ottoman slavery: history 
They would tattoo their children hoping that it would save them from Ottoman’s practice of taking young boys and sending them to Istanbul to become soldiers and convert them to Islam.
This was done so even if that happened, their children would have a permanent reminder of who they were and where they came from. The practice was even more common among young girls.
Their parents hoped that tattoos of a cross or other Christian symbols would prevent Turkish men from taking them away and taking them as their wives.
Croats used to tattoo their hands, chest, wrists or even forehead with the Christian symbols (like small cross), but also many other motifs are present. There were special days during the year when tattooing would take place (usually the time before Easter).
They used natural materials to prepare a mixture, such as honey, carbon, and mother’s milk.
According to the writings of an archeologist and a custodian of the National Museum in Sarajevo, Ćiro Truhelka, who was researching the pre-Ottoman Bosnia and Herzegovina in the 19th century, the origins of this custom could be in the Illyrian and Celtic tribes and-
their rituals around these areas. Even the simple tattooing needles were found in tombs of those days.The cross also has its variations with a sort of small pine trees. It also has non-Christian motives, but everyday motives like the circles, originating from the sort of a-
circular dance in the villages meaning a union and collectiveness.The lines around the circles could be associated with mills as an inherent part of the life. The lines also represented small branches and together with a circle form a special design called “Jelica"
( girls name and also a small pine tree). This means that two sorts of symbols were mixed, one originating from nature and family in Illyrian times, and the other, with Christian motives.
The custom probably survived the coming centuries but was mostly revived during the reign and fear of the Ottoman Empire, when Christian symbols were used for protection against foreign forces.
The most resembling symbols can also be found on the old crotian tombstones around the villages in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Kids, and usually girls, were being tattooed between the age of 12 and 16 as a sort of the initiation, according to historians of these areas. Still, some were tattooed even younger, at the age of 6.
Timing is also connected to the 19th of March, a holiday of St. Joseph who is the official protector of Croats since the 17th century.
This day also indicates the beginning of springtime and change of the season. Still, this doesn’t exclude the other dates which were usually around the Christian or mainly Catholic holidays such as Good Friday.
It was a painful procedure according to the older women today, but they say mostly it was worth the pain. The next day or in a week the place of the tattoo would heel, was washed and the ink stayed in (on) the skin.
After the Second World War, it was forbidden because of the Yugoslav relation towards the religion, but it didn’t mean it was forever gone.
Even today in Bosnia and Herzegovina you can find a lot of women who have these tattoos, but they were all born around the 1930s and they are the last living generation to wear this impressive evidence of the fight that their ancestors undertook to protect their faith and origins
