Indigenous Tattoo Traditions: Humanity through Skin and Ink

by Lars Krutak, Sean Mallon (foreword)

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 embody 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.

Transporting readers through history, Lars Krutak explores the art and customs of tattooing across numerous ancestral lands, including Africa, the Middle East, the Americas, the Arctic, Oceania, 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 Li women of China’s Hainan Island with their elaborate facial and body tattoos, the bold indelible markings of Papua New Guinea's Indigenous peoples, 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.

Genres: Nonfiction, Art, Cultural, History

272 pages, Hardcover

Published May 13, 2025

Reviews

[kaitlyns_library · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely love reading, history and tattooing and found this book to be really well researched and insightful look into the art and history of Indigenous tattooing traditions. This was a really educational read and further grew my understanding of traditions in cultures that I was not aware about. This is one I’ll definitely continue to revisit.

[Jan Mawdesley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reviewed for Bodleian and Bluewolf reviews
“For thousands of years, tattooing or permanently marking the skin on the body, has allowed people to convey their individual or group identities. The markings also show important life transitions and journeys or can express a person’s creativity.” In Indigenous Tattoo Traditions the author presents a great range of tattooing methods used by Indigenous peoples, both by coloured photographs and diagrams. He examines tattooing as an art form, cultural explanation and permanent record of the wearer’s memories and ideals.
Lars interviews Indigenous artists and discusses how many of the old traditions have been revived. He has collected and photographed many ancient and rare tattoos and has passed them on for the posterity and future of the group. Some of the groups interviewed, (always with permission) include people from Africa and the Middle East. He has also recorded and photographed tattooed mummies and figurines in Egypt. A detailed look at the tools used for the body marking is also shown, as are the tools used by Native North Americans.
In the Northern Philippines, tattoos have been very detailed and cover large areas of the body. An illustration shows the extent of the markings over the back, legs and buttocks. In the past, the taking of a human life was a prerequisite for receiving warrior chest tattoos among some groups. In Japan tattoos were often put over injuries or aching limbs for therapeutic healing. One lady recorded said that she tattooed herself to strengthen her eyesight.
There is a great deal of fascinating information presented, supported by many photographs and diagrams. The whole book is a visual treat. It includes End Notes, a Bibliography and an Index.

[Carol Farrington · Rating 4 out of 5]

As I am a fan of tattoos, and have seven myself so far, I found this a fascinating book. The history, the variety of styles, and the techniques used through time were very interesting to me. I can get a modern tattoo, no problem, but some of the techniques used in this book I would’ve been wimping out. I do admire the people that receive these tattoos. I have a high respect for people that create and apply tattoos in this day and age as well. There are generally more pictures than reading, which I found very helpful for understanding both how the tattoos were completed and how they looked when they were completed a wide variety of people through history have been tattooed, including men, women, warriors, and tribal leaders. This is a practice that has been seen all over the world in all cultures, and in many of these cultures, it is expected that a person will be tattooed.

[Erin · Rating 4 out of 5]

A classmate recommended this book after presenting the most wonderful talk on Inuit tattoos. I trusted her to know her stuff, and she did not disappoint. This book is beautiful!

I have skimmed through sections, but I am gifting it to another friend for Christmas. I will have to sneak opportunities to read the non-Inuit sections in more depth during future visits.

[Abby Fergz · Rating 5 out of 5]

"to consider Indigenous tattooing as a language-like practice requires us to decolonise our thought and engage with Native epistemologies of knowing, thinking, being, and especially writing itself."