Tribal Tattoos – Cultural or Trendy?

It used to be that people would get tribal tattoos to show their tribe or religious affiliation, or pride in their own culture. Yet with the increase in popularity of tattoos and in the age of the internet especially, a tribal tattoo has come to be just trendier than anything else.

These tattoos that we think of today as tribal used to symbolize religion, culture, location, a family, or even a social group. Some believe it comes from a person's need to belong, just as people used to belong to a certain tribe. Women in the Northwest used to get tattoos to show which tribe they belonged to. A man in Alaska would get a tattoo to show his pride in embarking on a battle which resulted in the death of another. In California the Yokuts used tattoos to mark their supernatural powers. Native American tribes would get tattoos to show how they felt about the human body, and so on and so forth.

Although tattoos with a tribal style began with Celtic, Maori, Haida, Marquesan and Borneo tribes, people today may think along tribal lines when being tattooed. Their main reasoning most likely has more to do with admiring the tribal design of the tattoo than any association with the tribe itself.

With a tribal style of tattoo, the division between the colors of black and white is very important. Not only does the black part of the tattoo need to have a good shape, but the same goes to follow for the parts that are left blank. The tattoos of the Celtic tribes included interlacing knots, spirals, birds, dogs, and humans. The tattoos of the Maori tribes were often on their face or legs, and resembled wood carvings. Also resembling wood carvings, but with animals, were the Haida tribes. The Marquesans would get full body tattoos that told a story, and in Borneo, people got tattooed to show pride in their achievements.

 

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