Ainu lip tattoo
The tattoo around the mouth once worn by Ainu women of Hokkaido and Sakhalin.
Also: sinuye
Ainu girls were tattooed around the lips, in stages from childhood, until the mark formed a wide curved shape that resembled a smile, completed around the time of marriage. Arms and hands were tattooed too. By tradition it marked adulthood and readiness to marry. The Japanese government banned it in 1871, and the last women who carried it died in the late twentieth century. It is remembered in museums such as the National Ainu Museum in Shiraoi.