Tribal Tattoos

I read a quote in one of Ed Hardy's tattoo magazines that said there were more punks in LA with Borneon tattoos on them than actual tribesmen in the jungle these days.

I wouldn't be surprised. The work of Leo Zulueta, as inspired by a notebook of Borneon work given to him by Ed Hardy, has changed the face of the American tattoo style. It's almost taken it over. Last summer, talking with tattooists in Vegas, each one lamented "the stupid tribal armband" when asked what tattoos they got requests for often.

The tattoo shown here is combination of two traditional Borneon shapes, one is a dog and one is a scorpion. I know my friend just liked how they looked, and liked how the two together were as long as his forearm.

This style of tattoo holds up very well over time, as the bold lines and simple coloring are less prone to fading and blurring then subtly shaded work with lots of colors.

A modern tattoo that sort of riffs on the Borneon style of art is the facial tattoo of Mike Tyson.

You'll find lots of pages about the back tattoo worn by Red Hot Chili Pepper singer Anthony Kiedis. Some call it an Incan falcon, some say it's an Aztec design.

My best research would lead me to believe it's not any of those, but a Haida Thunderbird. I can say with more certainty that it was tattooed by Henk Schiffmacher, aka Hanky Panky, an Amsterdam tattooist. The Peppers collectively hung out in Schiffmacher's tattoo studios and all got work from him.

Kiedis has a variety of tattoo art that is Native American, in homage to his partial heritage. He's got Indian chief portraits on both upper arms, as well as stylized tribal armbands and dagger-like forearms tattoos.

This is a picture I took of a man who's in the process of having his whole back tattooed. The work being applied appears to be based on designs found in the Marquesas Islands.

The tattooist is working from bottom to top, so that bleeding and weeping that occur from freshly tattooed areas don't obscure where he is working.

Some sections of the design are outlined, meaning just the outline has been tattooed and healed. The two very dark and slightly shiny areas to the right of his spine are sections that have *just* been tattooed. The bits peeking out of the waistband of his leather jeans are tattooed areas that are already healed. A full backpiece takes many sessions spread out over many weeks or months.

Dwayne Johnson, better known to wrestling and movie audiences as "the Rock," is the not only the third generation in his family to go into professional wrestling, he's the third generation to get tattooed.

Both Johnson's grandfather and father wore traditional Samoan tattoos in their lives. The Rock now has a traditional Samoan half-sleeve, which wraps around his left shoulder and upper arm. The designs not only represent him and his family, but his path in life and his protector gods as well.

The Rock also has a tattoo on his right upper arm. It's a bull emblem, which symbolizes his Zodiac birth sign of Taurus.

In the movie FROM DUSK TIL DAWN George Clooney played a professional thief on the lam who winds up confronting a barful of vampires down in Mexico. For most of the movie, you see a bit of a tribal-style tattoo peeking out of the collar of his jacket.

Seth Gecko, Clooney's character, stays in that jacket no matter what the carnage until the last five minutes of the movie. At that point, you get to see that the little bit is just the very tip of a single full-sleeve tattoo. It's a modern tribal-style tattoo, a blackwork riff on a flame design. It was designed by tattooist Gil Montie and was painted on Clooney for filming using a makeup that had to be taken off with a kerosene-based makeup remover.

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