The technique was simple: they mashed up charcoals with a stone until it was thin as flour, and they would mix it up with tsipouro( a strong distilled drink) until it became muddy. They would use this mixture to draw their design on their flesh (sometimes using a stick), forehead, hands, arms or fingers. Afterwards they would pinch along the design using two needles. They used to cover the tattoo with a cloth for about ten days so the charcoal would sink in their flesh. It was common to get infected and swollen up by this process. It was a process that usually friends would go through together but there are cases of mothers or aunts tattooing the youngest girls of the family. The symbols Aromanian women used to have trees, branches, furkas( a forked branch used for spinning wool.)for spinning, dates (birth or marriage), initials and crosses. There are many other symbols whose meaning is now lost. There are references about older designs like the sun, crescent moons, and circles, religious and heroic representations, images taken from the animal and plant kingdom. In Kefalovriso(a village in Ioannina Greece) they used to make their tattoos mostly when they were young, between four and fifteen years old. Tattoos have served as rites of passage, marks of status and rank, symbols of religious and spiritual devotion, decorations for bravery, sexual lures and marks of fertility, pledges of love, punishment, amulets and talismans, protection, and as the marks of outcasts, slaves and convicts. The symbolism and impact of tattoos varies in different places and cultures. Aromanian tattoos must be considered as “rites of passage” as well. Puberty and marriage are two of the most significant rites of passage for women. We do know that Aromanian women would have their bodies tattooed when they were quite young, almost never after the pass of puberty except their marriage dates- transitioning to a different state of their life. Vasiliki told me that she only regrets one thing: “Can you see this little dot it should be bigger.