Redditor /u/SustainEuphoria asks on the always-intriguing subreddit What Is It? about this tattoo. They say that their grandmother was forced to get it as a child. What could it mean? A possible answer is below the fold.
The lady lives in Trinidad and Tobago and is of an ethnically Indian origin. The Indian caste system apparently continued among Indian immigrants to that Caribbean nation. She is from a lower caste than the bramins (the elites), but the tattoo marked her as of sufficiently high rank that she could serve food to brahims without the elites becoming ritually unclean as a result.
-via TYWKIWDBI