The History Of Labret Piercings

The labret is a piercing placed through the lower lip, although some include piercings of the upper lip in this nomenclature. A labret can be worn by either sex and can take a ring or a stud for jewelry. The word is pronounced "LAY-brit" and is derived from the Latin work "labrum" for lip.

Ancient Near East and Africa

Grant Keddie of the Royal British Columbia Museum cites archaeological evidence that labrets were worn in ancient Iran, Bulgaria and the Upper Nile Valley in Sudan as early as 8400 years ago. Southward migration from Sudan took the labret into Kenya and Uganda, where it survives to this day.

Mesoamerican Cultures

Central American artifacts dating from 3500 years ago depict Mesoamericans sporting labret jewelry. Later, gold studs in the shape of jaguar and bird heads were manufactured by the Mixtec people. The Toltec god Quetzalcoatl is sometimes depicted with a labret. In the Aztec culture, the type of ornament worn in the labret corresponded with an individual's social rank. The custom of decorating the lower lip with pierced ornamentation persisted in Central America until contact with the Spaniards in the 1500s. The Nahuatl word for the piercing is "tentetl."

Northern Alaska

Northern Alaskan tribes show archaeological evidence of adopting the labret as early as 5200 BC. Shamans wore an ornament designed to look like a walrus tusk, while whaling crew leaders wore one that resembled a whale's tail. The Inuit and Aleut tribes often made two piercings, one on each side of the lower lip, and placed copper rings in the hole. Both sexes wore labrets; men were pierced at puberty.

Kamchatka

The very earliest archaeological examples of labret ornaments from from the Kamchatka Peninsula in far Eastern Russia; they date from approximately 8700 BC. They were the products of the Ushki culture and were simple plugs fashioned from stone.

Northwest Indian Tribes

Among tribes of the Pacific Northwest such as the Tlingit and Haida, women were the ones who wore labret ornaments, and often they were elaborately decorated to indicate the status of the wearer. Keddie cites archaeological findings of labret ornaments in southern British Columbia dating back to 5000 years ago.

Modern Adoption

Modern Western culture popularized the labret beginning in the late 1980s with the rise of "modern primitive" culture. As body piercing became more acceptable through the 1990s and 2000s, the labret became one of the most popular facial piercings performed, according to master piercer Elayne Angel.