The Haudenosaunee Confederacy is a matrilineal society consisting of five founding Nations who later adopted a sixth nation to join their family. Kanen'tó:kon Hemlock is a traditional Bear clan representative from the Mohawk Nation at Kahnawà:ke, a small community located outside Montreal. Their traditional territory is divided between present-day Quebec, Ontario and New York State. From a young age, Kanen'tó:kon was fascinated by his culture. He began the art of tattooing to revitalize the lost tradition and ancient protocols. In this episode, he invites us to witness the first tattooing in a longhouse in roughly 300 years.

Born in Honolulu, Hawaii, Stephanie Big Eagle grew up astray from her identity. She reconnected with her culture when she rekindled relationships in her home community, the Yankton Sioux Reservation in South Dakota. She immersed herself in the fight for aboriginal rights and became a prominent figure in the Dakota pipeline protests, where her thunder hawk hand poke design became a symbol of the standoff. Stephanie found her calling as an environmental and Indigenous activist and full-time hand poke tattoo artist. She sees the revitalization of hand poke as a gift to be offered with love, gratitude, and respect, particularly for the ancestors.

The Paiwan people are one of about 20 Indigenous minorities who make up roughly 3% of the population of Taiwan. When Cudjuy Patjidres discovered that his Paiwanese ancestors had a tattoo culture, he was surprised and amazed. Having developed his artistic skills from watching his grandfather weave and carve wood, he is now dedicated to preserving the ancient symbols and designs that were once common on the island.

Métis artist Audie Murray sees tattooing as a way for people to connect with their culture and communities when they are away from home. Audie’s art and tattoo practice draw from the duality in her life, especially her experience growing up in Regina and Lebret, and then moving to Vancouver to pursue her art career. She finds inspiration for her work in Métis beaded designs. When Audie returns home to Regina and Lebret, her work is centered around creating and learning from family.

Mo Naga is a traditional tattoo artist from Manipur, in the lush North East Region of India on the Myanmar border. While studying fashion design in his early 20s, Mo Naga stumbled across some interesting Naga textile designs and quickly realized their cultural importance. He gradually started researching, archiving and preserving them. His creativity and love for tattoos led him to create a neo-Naga style of design. Mo Naga now works diligently from his New Delhi tattoo studio reviving the traditional Naga tattoo culture of his people and the whole North East Region of India.

Two Ravens is an Opata tattoo artist based in East Los Angeles. As an activist, he was injured at Standing Rock while defending land rights in North Dakota. He continues to use his art to unite and help Indigenous Americans in L.A. and across the U.S. reclaim their origins.

Isaac Murdoch and Christi Belcourt founded the Onaman Collective, which represents a group of multidisciplinary artists who focus on land-based decolonization. They established a new traditional community called Nimkii Aazhibikong in Northern Ontario. Under the guidance of elders, they studied ancient markings from the past and are carrying them forward by tattooing individuals from various nations to unify the Indigenous peoples of the land.

Manel Mahdouani is a tattoo artist living in Tunis, the capital of Tunisia. As a descendent of the Amazigh people native to North Africa, Manel specializes in Amazigh tattoos. With tattooing traditions no longer practiced, her grandmother’s generation are the last to carry the traditional designs and knowledge. Since many still depend on oral transmission of their cultural knowledge, Manel travels to remote villages and searches for the knowledge found in the collective memory of elderly people. When she finds a tattoo, she takes pictures and adds it to her research. She then modernizes the design for present-day reproduction. Manel is the only person archiving traditional Amazigh tattoos.

Julie Paama-Pengelly is a veteran in the revitalization of tā moko Māori tattooing. Her studio in Mount Maunganui mixes contemporary and traditional designs and cultivates artists from all walks of life. With twenty years teaching experience, her art practice ranges from the use of symbolic imagery to pure abstraction in graphic design, painting, mixed media, and tattooing. Over time many misconceptions have surfaced about who has the right to wear and practice tā moko. Julie is one of the first women to practice in the male-dominated field. She is a strong voice for Māori women’s rights and continues to break down barriers to give women a place in tā moko and in the arts.

Pip Hartley is on a mission to infuse Auckland’s city core with as much Māori culture as possible. From her Karanaga Ink studio, she practices traditional and contemporary Māori tattooing, tā moko. Although her approach is always guided in Māori style, it is a dance between artist and receiver in telling a story that will become permanent. Pip embraces the power of artistic expression to inspire and educate. Karanaga Ink has become one of Auckland’s most respected Māori businesses in a very influential part of New Zealand. Pip takes every opportunity to educate, include and invite the modern world to step into Māori culture and gain a better first-hand understanding of her people.

Northern Canada is home to the oldest tattooing traditions on the planet. Ippiksaut Friesen, a well-known young Inuk artist, was inspired to follow the many Inuit women before her and develop tattooing skills for her sisters. Notwithstanding the challenges in maintaining and reclaiming Inuit traditions in a world strongly affected by contemporary society and climate change, the importance of female tattooing among Inuit women continues to grow. Ippiksaut hopes to play a vital role in the resurgence of traditional tattooing.

In the 1950s, warriors from the Dutch-controlled Maluku islands who were fighting alongside Dutch soldiers against the Indonesians were brought back to the Netherlands by force. As a descendant of that Moluccan diaspora, Joe Patty-Sabandar has been rediscovering and reconnecting with his traditional ancestral culture. As a tattoo artist, he is very keen to preserve and share Moluccan culture as it existed before the Portuguese colonized the Maluku islands. He is part of a group of third and fourth generation Dutch-Moluccans who are thirsty for knowledge and the ancient culture of their homeland.

When Haida artist Kwiaahwah Jones picked up the needle and traditional Haida tattoo practices that were once outlawed, she inspired a whole new generation to embrace their Haida culture and make it their own. She has curated Haida art exhibits across Canada but found her true calling in Haida hand poke tattoos. Tattooing was an important part of Haida culture, signifying family lineage and rank in society. Kwiaahwah draws inspiration from being out on the land and water in Haida Gwaii. She sees the revitalization of Haida tattooing as a reconnection to her ancestors.

Jay Soule is a multidisciplinary artist known as “Chippewar” in the Indigenous community. His internationally-recognized work expresses much of the angst of today’s Indigenous population in Canada. Adopted at five years of age, Jay was taken from his birth mother and grew up outside his home community. He is considered part of the “Sixties Scoop,” a period in which Indigenous children were removed from their families and assimilated into non-Indigenous households. As a teenager, Jay left his home and opted for a life on the street. For a few years, he lived among the street kids of Toronto, eventually finding refuge in one of the city’s Indigenous shelters.

The Mentawai people inhabit a group of islands west of Sumatra, in Indonesia. For centuries, they have practiced a form of shamanism in which the art of tattoo plays an integral role. Tattoo designs pack immense spiritual power in the Mentawai belief system, connecting the body and soul with the spirits that reside in the plants and animals of the rain forest. By drawing on the power of their tattoos and in order collaborate with the spirits, the Mentawai shamans can heal, protect and instruct their people. It is in part thanks to the tattooed shamans that this Indigenous culture has been able to withstand the onslaught of colonization over the decades. In this episode, a shaman named Aman Jepri gives an apprentice the markings that will complete his initiation into Mentawai shamanism.

Western Samoa is one of the few places on the planet where traditional tattooing continued unimpeded through the colonial era. Sua Peter Sulu’ape is a contemporary master of the craft. With his father and brothers, he works out of a cultural village in the heart of Apia, the Samoan capital. The Sulu’apes are one of only two Samoan families who are authorized by tradition to create tattoos in accordance with ancient custom. Embracing their role, they carry on a sacred practice whose origins lie in legend, and which continues to shape the character of Samoa today.

Dion Kaszas is an artist and scholar of mixed heritage who feels a strong connection to his Interior Salish roots. In recent years he has devoted countless hours to the study and practice of the traditional tattooing arts that were nearly lost to colonization. His work of retrieval has connected with him with Indigenous tattoo artists around the world. For Dion, tattoo is an indispensable part of Indigenous culture, a full-fledged language for expressing identity and cultural belonging. He sees his work as an integral part of a broader cultural revival through which First Nations are reaffirming their presence in Canada and on the world stage. Join us as Dion creates new pieces on members of his community using traditional methods.

Jordan Bennett is an artist of Mi’kmaq descent whose work blends pop culture and traditional teachings into work that connects the past, the present and the future. Drawing on Mi’kmaq and Beothuk symbols and designs, he is playing an active role in the reemergence of Indigenous culture on the East Coast and across Canada. His tattooing methods include the skin stitch technique using needle and thread, and the hand poke using a single hand-wielded needle. For him, these techniques are tools for bringing to light that which was kept in the dark for too long, allowing Indigenous people to express their pride by uniting their bodies with their culture in a powerful affirmation.

If Keone Nunes had never picked up the tools and answered the call to master of kakau, there would likely be no traditional tattooing in Hawaii today. Reviving this ancient art form was Keone’s life project, and today he is reaping the rewards of his tremendous effort in cultural renewal. Hawaiian tattoo has become a key part of a great Polynesian awakening that, over the last few decades, has revitalized the Hawaiian islands’ Indigenous community. Going far beyond aesthetics, kakau heals, protects, and preserves. It upholds the spirit of aloha, a philosophy that continues to guide Hawaiians in modern times.

From a remote mountain village in the Northern Philippines, Wang Od Oggay carries on the tattooing tradition of her ancestors, offering those who come to her the sacred markings that were once reserved for the women and warriors of the Kalinga people. Although the Kalinga no longer practice the headhunting for which they were once known, Whang Od’s art stands as a tangible reminder of the way things were and a potent force through which the past survives in a new guise. Now approaching one hundred years of age, Whang Od has been training her great-niece and others in the art of tattoo, in hopes that it will live on for generations to come.

Métis artist Amy Malbeuf’s insatiable appetite for new creative outlets has led her to work in many artistic fields, including traditional Indigenous tattooing. Indigenous teachings and traditions are, for Amy, a foundation from which she can follow her boundless inspiration and innovation. When it comes to tattooing, however, Amy feels the need to practice the traditional methods developed by her ancestors, specifically the skin stitch technique of using a needle and thread to weave designs into the skin. Whereas Amy sees her work in the visual arts as deeply personal, she considers her work as a tattoo artist a “service to others,” and a direct contribution to the preservation of lived Indigenous culture in the contemporary world.

The ancient city of Palenque was once a hub of Mayan civilization. For centuries after its decline, it lay hidden under layers of tropical vegetation, until modern archaeologists peeled back the jungle to reveal it to the world in the last century. Today, Palenque is both an cultural centre and a sacred site. It was here that Indigenous artist Samuel Olman chose to set up his traditional Mayan tattoo practice. Living in the heart of the jungle near the ancient ruins, Samuel heads up the Olman Project, which aims to revive the art, knowledge and wisdom of Mesoamerican tattooing, while adapting it to the modern world.

Nakkita Trimble is the only tattoo artist from the Nisga’a Nation. Along with elders from her community, she hopes to revive the traditional process of tattooing known as gihlee’e. Ts’iksna'aḵs—the tattoos—were usually composed of crests, known as ayukws, and of adaawaḵs, which are stories, legends and history. She plans to teach someone else the art of the Nisga’a tattoing so that more people can reconnect with this ancient practice.

Seattle-born artist Nahaan sees tattoo, like many other forms of artistic expression, as a political act and a form of resistance. This artist of mixed First Nations heritage draws on traditional teachings to create new work using modern and traditional methods alike. Born and raised in an urban environment, Nahaan uses the city as a platform for upholding and revivifying cultural practices that colonization once threatened to wipe out. Drawing on the symbology and aesthetics of the Indigenous West Coast, his tattoo work becomes “permanent regalia” on the bodies he works on, expressing through image and symbol the deepest beliefs of his ancestors and the forces that give life to his people and the land.

Marjorie Tahbone, an Alaskan artist of Inupiaq heritage, was first among the living women of her family to get her traditional chin tattoo. Because no one was practicing the tattooing art at the time, she had to get her markings from a non-Indigenous artist in Fairbanks. Significant as the experience was, it ignited in Marjorie a desire to revive the practice for her community. Following this desire, she took up the tools and the old methods and became a full-fledged traditional tattooist working in the Inupiaq tradition. Thanks to Marjorie and other culture bearers across the North, the tradition of inking women’s skin to mark major life events and to symbolize spiritual beliefs is once again a part of Indigenous life in the region.

In the twentieth century, the Maori of New Zealand all but lost their tattooing tradition. Only the women who continued to sport the traditional chin design ensured that the art did not disappear completely. Today, a tattoo renaissance is underway, and artist Gordon Toi plays a key role in the process. Using modern machines to weave ancient patterns reflecting the powers of the natural world, Gordon has made it his life’s quest to ensure that the art of ta moko can continue to flourish in the twenty-first century and beyond. His studio House of Natives is more than a tattoo shop—it is a cultural institution and a place where one feels the presence of the sacred.

Pablo is part of the Huitoto tribe, one of the many Indigenous tribes that call the Amazon forest home. The Huitotos traditional land is around the Southern Colombian city of Leticia, bordering both Brazil and Peru. Although the Huitoto were traditionally hunter-gatherers, many of the remaining Huitoto people have adapted a westernized lifestyle. Pablo is trying to keep many of his culture's traditions alive, these include singing and dancing, hunting and fishing, basket weaving, cultivating and transforming coca leaves and body painting for special occasions.

The Wayuu are a proud and resilient tribe living in the semi-desertic peninsula of La Guajira, in Northeastern Colombia. As a matriarchal society, many of the traditions and customs of the Wayuu are preserved by and passed down from mother to daughter.

In the urban city of Gold Coast, Australia, there’s a solar powered and eco-conscious tattoo studio. This same building is the home of the Duley family. Turumakina has been part of the Māori ta moko for 26 years now and known for doing face tattoos. The couple has adopted a holistic approach of tattooing and Tu uses these sacred skin markings as a tool for healing the body, mind and spirit. Being in the country of aboriginal Australians, Tu will discover their art and share and compare his own indigenous knowledge.

World-renowned land defender Kanahus Manuel, of the Secwepmc Nation in British Columbia is revitalizing ancient tattoo practices that she believes represent thousands of years of her people’s ancient connection to the land.

Elle Festin specializes in Filipino tribal designs working from his underground Los Angeles shop Spiritual Journey Tattoo. More than twenty years ago, he started to research on this tattoo culture because nothing was available is the US. More and more Filipinos around the world were interested in these ancient designs and this started the Mark of the Four Waves Tribe.

The Samson Cree Nation is one of four communities known collectively as Maskwacis in Central Alberta. It’s where Nehiyaw/Anishinaabe artist Heather Kiskihkoman grew up and still calls home. She finds her beadwork and tattoo design inspirations in the plants and nature surrounding her. Heather returned home where she joined the Earthline Tattoo Collective, a group dedicated to supporting cultural Indigenous tattoo practices in Canada and began her journey of skin-stitch and handpoke tattooing. As part of her journey, Heather is on her way to Edmonton for a sneak peek at some traditional tattooing tools at the Royal Alberta Museum. This is the first time that Heather has seen and held traditional tools and it reinforces her belief that she is on the right path...

Toby Sicks believes in his Metis heritage and Indigenous identity and his philosophy; his tattoos and his studio reflect just that. We meet a previous recipient of Toby’s tattoos, Kara Jade. Kara is an Indigenous rap artist from Toronto, and we hear from her perspective the need for Indigenous voices in the arts community. Kara has a tattoo of the well-known quote from Louis Riel “My people will sleep for one hundred years, but when they awake it will be the artists that give them back their spirit.” She elaborates on her feelings and what she believes this quote means to the modern-day Indigenous community. Overcoming his addiction to become the hard working and outspoken Metis man he is today; Toby sets a great example for youth who may be enduring their own struggles and who may be trying to find their own voice in the world today.

Kanien'kehá:ka artist Keith Callihoo keeps his relationship to the land and to his ancestors’ stories from the Michel First Nation alive through his artwork and tattoo practice. Based in Edmonton, Alberta, Keith is often found in his home studio where he practices his hand poke technique and experiments with tattoo colours on his own skin.