For thousands of years, tattoos were more than just body decoration for Inuit and other indigenous cultures. They were symbols of belonging, represented rituals of entry into adulthood, invoked spiritual beliefs or bestowed powers that could be summoned during childbirth or hunting. However, beginning in the 17th century, missionaries and settlers determined to "civilize" indigenous groups banned tattoos in all but the most remote communities.

The practice disappeared so abruptly in Greenland that Maya Sialuk Jacobsen, who spent her childhood there, worked for a decade as a Western-style tattooist before discovering that her Inuit ancestors had also been tattooists, although of a very different nature.

Today, Sialuk Jacobsen uses historical documents, artifacts and Qilakitsoq mummies - many of which are now on display at the Greenland National Museum - to research traditional Inuit tattoo designs. He then proceeds to tattoo without a machine (using techniques such as hand poke or dot work) the patterns on the faces and bodies of Inuit women, and sometimes men as well, helping them to connect with their ancestors and reclaim a part of their culture.

"It gives me a lot of pride to tattoo a woman," Sialuk said. "When she meets her ancestors in the other world, it will be like looking in a mirror."

Without the physical record left by ancient tattoos, modern artists like Sialuk Jacobsen would have little evidence to guide their work. Fortunately, as more indigenous tattooers around the world resurrect lost traditions, a small group of archaeologists are tracing tattooing through time and space, and have been uncovering new examples of its importance in historic and prehistoric societies. Together, scientists and artists are demonstrating that the impulse to ink our bodies is deeply rooted in the human psyche, extends around the world, and communicates across centuries.

Sialuk Jacobsen uses historical documents, artifacts and Qilakitsoq mummies to research traditional Inuit tattoo designs, which he applies with a hand tool. Credit...Betina Garcia.

Sialuk Jacobsen uses historical documents, artifacts and Qilakitsoq mummies to research traditional Inuit tattoo designs, which he applies with a hand tool.

Credit...Betina Garcia.

A tattoo still visible on the face of a 15th century Qilakitsoq woman. Credit...Werner Forman Archive/The Greenland Museum via Heritage Images.

A tattoo still visible on the face of a 15th century Qilakitsoq woman. Credit...Werner Forman Archive/The Greenland Museum via Heritage Images.

Recording history in ink.

Until recently, Western archaeologists largely ignored tattoos. Because of these scientists' lack of interest, tools made to puncture or cut human skin were categorized as sewing needles or awls, while tattooed mummies "were considered more objects of fascination than scientific specimens," said Aaron Deter-Wolf, a prehistoric archaeologist with the Tennessee Division of Archaeology and a leading researcher in tattoo archaeology.

Even when the 5300-year-old body of Ötzi, the Similaun man, was recovered from the Italian Alps in 1991, with visible tattoos, some media at the time suggested that the markings were evidence that Ötzi was "probably a criminal," Deter-Wolf said. "There was a lot of prejudice."

But as tattooing has become more common in Western culture, Deter-Wolf and other scientists have begun to examine preserved tattoos and artifacts for information about how people lived in the past and what they believed.

A 2019 investigation of Ötzi's 61 tattoos, for example, offers a glimpse into life in Copper Age Europe. The dots and stripes on the mummy's skin correspond with common acupuncture points, suggesting that people had a sophisticated knowledge of the human body and perhaps used tattoos to relieve physical ailments such as joint pain. In Egypt, Anne Austin, an archaeologist at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, has found dozens of tattoos on female mummies, including hieroglyphs that suggest tattoos were associated with deity worship and healing. This interpretation challenges the theories of 20th century male scholars that female tattoos were simply erotic decorations or were reserved for prostitutes.

Elle Festin, a California tattoo artist of Filipino descent, draws inspiration from the Ibaloi and Kankana-ey "fire mummies," people whose tattooed bodies were preserved by slow fire centuries ago. Credit...Nia Macknight.

Elle Festin, a California tattoo artist of Filipino descent, draws inspiration from the Ibaloi and Kankana-ey "fire mummies," people whose tattooed bodies were preserved by slow fire centuries ago. Credit...Nia Macknight.

The scientific study of tattooed mummies also inspires artists like Elle Festin, a California-based tattoo artist of Filipino descent. As co-founder of Mark of the Four Waves, a global community of nearly 500 members of the Filipino diaspora united through tattooing, Festin has spent more than two decades studying Filipino tribal tattoos and using them to help those living outside the Philippines reconnect with their homeland. One of his sources is the "fire mummies" or Kabayan mummies, members of the Ibaloys and Kankana-ey tribes whose heavily tattooed bodies were preserved by slow fire centuries ago.

Tattoos of an Ibaloi woman in a photo taken in 1999 Credit...Alexis Duclos/Gamma-Rapho.

Tattoos of an Ibaloi woman in a photo taken in 1999 Credit...Alexis Duclos/Gamma-Rapho.

If clients are descended from a tribe that made fire mummies, Festin will use the mummy tattoos as a reference to design his own tattoos. (He and other tattoo artists say only people with ancestral ties to a culture should receive tattoos from that culture.) So far, they have given fire mummy tattoos to 20 people.

For other clients, Festin gets more creative, adapting ancestral patterns to modern life. For a pilot, he says, "I would put a mountain underneath, a frigate bird on top and the patterns for lightning and wind around it."

However, while mummies offer the most conclusive evidence of how and where people of the past tattooed their bodies, they are relatively uncommon in the archaeological record. Artifacts such as tattoo needles made from bone, shells, cactus spines, and other materials are more common and, therefore, more useful to scientists tracing the history of tattooing.

Aaron Deter-Wolf studies ancient North American tattoo tools, such as this one, used by the Pueblo, an ancestral group of southeastern Utah.Credit...Robert Hubner/Washington State University.

Aaron Deter-Wolf studies ancient North American tattoo tools, such as this one, used by the Pueblo, an ancestral group of southeastern Utah.Credit...Robert Hubner/Washington State University.

To prove that such tools were used for tattooing and not for sewing leather or clothing, archaeologists like Deter-Wolf replicate the tools, use them to tattoo pigskin or their own bodies, and then examine the replicas with high-powered microscopes. If the tiny wear patterns generated by repeatedly piercing the skin match those of the original tools, archaeologists can conclude that the original artifacts were indeed used for tattooing.

Through such meticulous experiments, Deter-Wolf and his colleagues are pushing back the timeline of tattooing in North America. In 2019, Deter-Wolf authored a study showing that ancestors of modern Pueblo groups tattooed with cactus spines about 2,000 years ago in what is now the southwestern United States. This year, he published a finding that reveals that about 3500 years ago people tattooed with needles made from turkey bones in what is now Tennessee.

Dion Kaszas, a Hungarian tattooist and academic, Métis and Nhlakamuh in Nova Scotia, is learning to create his own bone tattoo needles, thanks to Deter-Wolf and Keone Nunes, a Hawaiian tattooist. His goal, he said, is "to get back to that ancestral technology; to feel what our ancestors felt." Because few examples of Nhlakamuh tattoos remain, Kaszas uses designs from baskets, pottery, clothing and rock art. Research from other cultures shows that tattoo designs often mimic the patterns of other artifacts.

For Kaszas and others, tattooing is not only a way to revive an indigenous language virtually silenced by colonialism, it also has the power to heal wounds from the past and strengthen indigenous communities for the future.

"What our tattoos do is to heal us is a different kind of way than that used by our ancestors," Kaszas said. "That is a form of medicine, that people look at their arm and understand that they are connected to a family, to a community, to the earth."

Tinta rescatada del abismo

While people from numerous cultures have reclaimed their tattoo heritage over the past two decades, there are many others who have seen theirs completely obscured by colonization and assimilation. Now that scientists are paying more attention to tattoos, however, their work could bring more lost traditions to light.

Deter-Wolf hopes that archaeologists in other parts of the world will begin to identify tattoo artifacts using the methodology he and other North American scientists have pioneered, and discover increasingly distant footprints. He also oversees an open-source online database of tattooed mummies, which seeks to correct common misinformation and illustrate the geographic extent of these specimens. The list includes mummies from 70 archaeological sites in 15 countries-including Sudan, Peru, Egypt, Russia, and China-but Deter-Wolf expects it to grow as IR imaging and other technologies reveal more inked skins on existing mummies.

Back in Greenland, Sialuk Jacobsen hopes the Qilakitsoq mummies also have more secrets to reveal. He is encouraging museum directors to examine other parts of the mummies' bodies, such as thighs, with IR imaging. Inuit women in other areas of the Arctic tattoo their thighs as part of childbirth rituals, but although historical drawings show tattoos on Greenlandic women's thighs, there is no tangible evidence yet.

If Qilakitsoq mummies have tattoos on their thighs, Sialuk Jacobsen may one day copy the patterns on women in the Qilakitsoq region, drawing a line between generations past and generations to come.

"Our tattoos are very selfless," she said. They are not just for the woman who receives them, but for her grandmothers, her children and her entire community.

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