decoction

Isabella Birdは北海道に渡り、アイヌの家に泊まり、アイヌの生活を体験しています。

They are universally tattooed, not only with the broad band above and below the mouth, but with a band across the knuckles, succeeded by an elaborate pattern on the back of the hand, and a series of bracelets extending to the elbow. The process of disfigurement begins at the age of five, when some of the sufferers are yet unweaned. I saw the operation performed on a dear little bright girl this morning. A woman took a large knife with a sharp edge, and rapidly cut several horizontal lines on the upper lip, following closely the curve of the very pretty mouth, and before the slight bleeding had ceased carefully rubbed in some of the shiny soot which collects on the mat above the fire. In two or three days the scarred lip will be washed with the decoction of the bark of a tree to fix the pattern, and give it that blue look which makes many people mistake it for a daub of paint. A child who had this second process performed yesterday has her lip fearfully swollen and inflamed. The latest victim held her hands clasped tightly together while the cuts were inflicted, but never cried.

最近では世界的にも入れ墨をしているが特に若い人に多いようですが、アイヌの人は入れ墨の文化があったのですね。　ところで、"decoction" の意味を調べます。

・Oxford English Dictionary: The liquor resulting from concentrating the essence of a substance by heating or boiling, especially a medicinal preparation made from a plant.: You may simmer tougher herbal roots and barks to make them into decoctions, another form of water extract.
・Collins English Dictionary: the extraction of the water-soluble substances of a drug or medicinal plants by boiling: Boil the leaves in water and drink the resulting decoction.