Albanian traditional tattooing

[2] Traditional tattooing has also been practiced by Catholics in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Dalmatia (Sicanje), and by women of some Vlach communities (in the western Balkans).

[3] Long bronze needles with wooden handles found in Glasinac and Donja Dolina are considered to have been tools for practicing tattoos.

[6] In the western Balkans, isolated from outside influences, the practice of tattooing continued until the early 20th century in Albania and Bosnia, regions that in antiquity were part of the area of Illyria.

[7] Albanian traditional tattooing with Sun (Dielli) and Fire (Zjarri) symbols, originally hand-drawn by J. C. Murray-Aynsley [Harriet Georgiana Maria Murray-Ainsley] (1827-1898), were published in 1891 in the journal Ars Quatuor Coronatorum (volume IV), in a study about the swastika.

[8] In the first half of the 20th century, British anthropologist Edith Durham visited northern Albania and other areas of the western Balkans, in particular collecting and studying cultural and folklore material of the Albanian tribal society.

So, the patterns of Catholic tattoos in Bosnia, which until then were known as "circles, semicircles, and lines or twigs", eventually were clearly explained as compounds of rayed (emanating light) suns, moons, and crosses, from an expression of Nature-worship and hearth-worship.