Indigenous Tattoo Traditions

A beautifully illustrated history of Indigenous tattooing practices around the world

Tattooing within Indigenous communities is a time-honored practice that binds the tattoo recipient to a deeply felt collective history. More than mere decoration, tattoos are a visual language of the skin, embodying cultural values, ancestral ties, and spiritual beliefs. Indigenous Tattoo Traditions captures ancient tribal tattooing practices and their contemporary resurgence, highlighting a beautiful aspect of humanity’s shared cultural heritage, one mark at a time.

Transporting readers through history, Lars Krutak explores the art and customs of tattooing across numerous ancestral lands, including Africa, the Middle East, the Americas, Greenland, the Arctic, Polynesia, Japan, Southeast Asia, and Siberia. He illustrates how tattoos function as a form of writing that defines and structures community life, performing as rites of passage, symbols of rank, and signs of marital or religious devotion, among other facets of culture. We are introduced to the heavily tattooed Birdmen of Rapa Nui (Easter Island), the Li women of China’s Hainan Island with their elaborate facial and body tattoos, and innovative cultural tattoo practitioners who are rebuilding a skin marking legacy for future generations to come.

With numerous images published for the first time and an illuminating foreword by cultural historian Sean Mallon, Indigenous Tattoo Traditions opens a window onto one of the world’s most vibrant yet misunderstood mediums of human expression.

About the Authors

Lars Krutak is an anthropologist, photographer, and writer. A research associate at the Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe, he is host of the Discovery Channel series Tattoo Hunter and the author of several books, including Tattoo Traditions of Asia and Tattoo Traditions of Native North America.

Sean Mallon is senior curator of Pacific histories and cultures at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa.