Spiritual Skin

Discover asia’s vanishing traditional tattoos.

- Lars Krutak

For centuries, indigenous tattooists working across Asia have marked human skin with powerful designs and symbols in their quest to signal ethnic identity and render the body sacred. Carried through life and onwards into death, these marks of humanity testify to an ancestral legacy that is in danger of gradually fading away.

The Marks of the Warrior

It’s early April on the India-Myanmar border and the Konyak Aoling festival is in full swing. Here in the village of Longwa, volleys of musket fire explode – pop, pop, pop and clouds of heavy smoke interrupt the blue sky. Throngs of plumed, tattooed, and traditionally garbed Konyak warriors jump, chant, and re-enact their former exploits on the battlefield in a concerted attempt to honour and attract the attention of Wangwan, their divine spirit of blessing.

Aoling is a new year celebration of sorts, marking the end of winter and the coming of the new agricultural year. All of the fields have been planted by now and the Konyak eagerly await the arrival of the rejuvenating rains. Through elaborate feasting they give thanks to all of those friends and relatives who provided them with assistance in the previous year, including the spirits of the ancestors. But above all, they celebrate and give praise to Wangwan until the six-day festival ends.

In bygone days, Aoling was also the time for tattooing boys and girls who reached adulthood. These ethnic markers were applied to various parts of the body by skilled female tattooists. Men who had participated in combat and who had taken a human life were entitled to unique tattoos, usually on the neck or face, which proclaimed their status in Naga society.