Tribal Art Tattoos - The Old Is New
Author: Matt Garrett

The oldest known tattoo is that found on Oetzi, a Bronze Age
warrior who lived some fifty-three centuries ago. Oetzi's
remains were founding 1991 preserved in the ice of the of an
Alpone glacier on the border of Austria and Italy.

Oetzi actually had fifty-seven separate tattoos, and although
no one really knows their significance, it is possible that his
intersecting and parallel lines are the earliest yet discovered
example of tribal art tattoos. If so, Oetzi would be surprised
to learn that he is quite the 21st century trend-setter.

In a world gone tattoo-mad, tribal art tattoos seem to have
cause more than their fair share of the frenzy.

They are the most requested, and most easily recognized, of all
tattoos. With their startling black lines and sharply defined
abstract shapes which somehow evoke animal, birds, and reptiles,
tribal art tattoos remind us of a long-lost connection to an
unspoiled world.

The term tribal art tattoos encompasses the tattoo styles
developed by the by the African and Pacific Island tribal
cultures, and of those the Maori people of New Zealand created
the most distinctive tattoos.

Their custom of identifying separate families within their
tribes by cutting and coloring that family's history into the
faces of its descendants is known as Moko, and has been the
inspiration for many a modern facial tribal art tattoo.

Maori tribal tattoo art is recognizable for its two types of
patterns. One was a pigmented line, and the other involved
inking the background and allowing the untouched skin to form
the pattern. Many of the Maori tattoos contain spirals similar
to fern fronds.

The Native American also used tribal art tattoos as a means of
tribal identification, and their warriors had battle tattoos
believed to provide protection; the tribes of Samoa, on the
other hand, would cover their young men entirely in tattoos as a
rite of passage into adulthood.

Tribal art tattoos have been used for a variety of reasons, and
very few of them were simply ornamental.

Tribal art tattoos did not make their way to the "civilized"
world until they were brought back by nineteenth century sailors
who were willing tolerate the extremely painful inking
techniques practiced by the tribal tattoo artists.

But the tribal art tattoos which have currently taken the world
by storm are not quite the same as the ones which decorated the
torsos of many a sun-burned deck hand.

The mainstream tribal art tattoos with which we re all so
familiar are really a hybrid form of tattoo, which combines
features of the ancient tribal tattoos with design elements
first introduced in the 1990s by master tattoo artist Leo
Zulueta, himself a Filipino-American.

Zulueta has made a point never to copy directly from the
original tribal art tattoo designs, because he considers it
disrespectful for those not directly related to the tribes to
wear their symbols of family and empowerment.

The most sought-after tribal art tattoos today are armbands;
chains of knots, barbed-wire, or flames are all popular.
Stylized animal heads and sunbursts are great for the shoulder
or chest area, and circular navel tribal art tattoos are also
quite common.

The tribal art tattoo, in fact, works very well in emphasizing
bodily contours, and there are many designs ideal for the
curvature if the lower back. There is, in fact, a tribal tattoo
art design to enhance every part of everybody!


About The Author: Matt Garrett - © 2007
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