Like elsewhere in Southeast Asia, Tai Shan and Karen men from the castern Shan States were tattooed from wais to knee, a process believed to protect the wearer all types of injury Tai Lue men adopted the custom when they settled among them. Similar forms of tattooing were also customary in Lan Na and l uang Prabang The tattoo designs included mythical beasts, animals and birds, contained within decorauve borders at the waist and knee opium was administered to case the