I think both, actually. Wasn’t Aang the youngest air bending Master because he got his tats for the Air Scooter? But that doesn’t mean you have to invent a technique or back when there was tons of air bending there would have been dozen and dozens of techniques (although air does have a lot to begin with).

I think if you contribute something great to air bending, they’d tat you and if you’re an air bending master, you get the arrows out of respect and reverence to the sky bison.

-Da7e-