Thursday, June 08, 2006

Tattoo - Chicken and Pig

This is the PIG tattoo from one of Lem Brigman's feet. Lem is about 86 years old and was a sailor in the Asiatic Fleet, much of which was lost between December 1941 and March 1942. An old Portugese superstition claimed if a sailor went overboard with a chicken and a pig, he would not drown. Alas, it did not work well in practice. A lot of Asiatic Fleet sailors never came back after their battles with the Japanese Imperial Navy. Posted by Picasa

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I mentioned my grandpa's tattoos of a pig on one foot and a chicken on the other in a tattoo forum, and someone mentioned to me that it was an old naval tradition. I was so excited because he never told any of us why he had gotten then in WWII.

Thanks for shedding more light on the meaning for me :-)