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LARS KRUTAK

Tattoo Anthropologist

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February 9, 2019

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Previous article MO NAGA: TATTOO REVIVAL IN INDIA

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  • Farewell to Paris by Po’oino Yrondi...
  • The Tattoo Exhibition at Galerie Meyer and Anthony Meyer’s first tattoo by @babakhintatau
  • New work on the way by @babakhintatau in Paris.
  • Coming soon to a Galerie...far, far away >>>> in Paris ***Pleased to announce these events on October 19 at Galerie Meyer - Oceanic & Eskimo Art - Paris*** Gallery talk & Round table discussion with Lars Krutak and Stéphane Martin, Director, Musée du Quai Branly - Jacques Chirac (Paris): 15h : Lars Krutak « A Brief History of Ancient Tattooing in the Arctic » 16h : Stéphane Martin « Tattoo in the Pacific » 17h : Round-Table with the speakers and the artists (mediated by Gisèle Bertin) 18h30 : Book signing by Lars Krutak : "Ancient Ink : The Archaeology of Tattooing" #arctic #polynesian #museeduquaibranly #museeduquaibranlyjacqueschirac #tattoo #paris #stgermain #beauxarts #galerie #ancienttattoo #blackwork #ancientart #oceania #france
  • A few years ago, tattoo artist @colindaletattoo recreated the Iceman’s tattoos on an ailing friend and blacksmith David Schutze. This “Otzi Experiment” demonstrates the prolonged healing power of these tattoos. To read the story, please visit: www.larskrutak.com/the-otzi-experiment-colin-dale-recreates-ancient-medicinal-tattoos/. #iceman #otzitheiceman #oetzi #ötzi #mummytattoo #mummies #ancienttattoos #tattoo #tattoos #blackwork #healing #medicine #therapeutic #acupuncture #acupunctureworks #blacksmith #blacksmithlife
  • Just back from visiting the exhibition I curated “Tattoo: Identity Through Ink” at @vesterheim.museum and here’s a photo from the Scandinavian tattoo history section showing a commissioned piece from Colin Dale @skinandbonetattoos and an early machine of the type used by Norwegian-born (1891) & Milwaukee transplant Amund Dietzel from the Jon Reiter @solidstatetattoo collection. Known as the Master of Milwaukee, Dietzel was one of America’s most important early 20th century tattoo artists. At the age of 14, he joined one of Norway’s merchant fleets and after sailing the globe he decided to commemorate his journey with a small anchor on his left hand. He later joined a ship delivering wood between Canada and England and during this time he started to tattoo. He used a tool of “six needles bound with cotton, set in a block of wood.” After becoming shipwrecked off the coast of Canada in 1907, he began tattooing lumberjacks in camps and mills, then he moved to New Haven (CT) to begin tattooing sailors. He also spent a decade tattooing at various carnivals around the USA, also appearing as a “tattooed man” in sideshows - his body suit was completed by fellow immigrant William Grimshaw. After booming business during WW1, work slowed and he painted signs to make ends meet. Tattooing picked up again at the onset of WW2, and Dietzel developed numerous flash sheets of patriotic themed art. He and his colleagues tattooed 12 hours a day, but business slowed after the close of the war and he returned to sign painting. In 1963, Chicago raised the age of tattooing from 18 to 22, bringing Dietzel new clientele to his thriving shop. One year later, at the age of 74, he retired and sold his shop. However, he continued to work until 1966, when the City of Milwaukee banned tattooing. He passed away in 1974. #amunddietzel #milwaukee #flashtattoo #norway #tattoomachine #scandinavianstyle ##scandinavia #tattoos #tattooing #tattoolegend #patriotictattoo #canada #anchor #anchortattoo #sideshow #tattooedman #williamgrimshaw #wisconsin
  • Just back from a tattoo lecture at #luthercollege and as my friends at @archaeologyink mentioned, September 19 was the anniversary of The Iceman’s discovery in 1991. I have been writing about his tattoos since my first publication in 1999, and this post demonstrates global traditions of medicinal joint tattooing (see table). The vast majority of The Iceman’s tattoos line up with classical acupuncture points to relieve arthritis/joint complaints as do tattoos seen on the lower back and ankle of a heavily tattooed 2500-year-old chieftain of the nomadic Pazyryk people of the Siberian steppes, who spent their life in the saddle on horseback. No small wonder this Chief has an impressive amount of tattoos on his lower back! My first foray into tattoo research occurred in the mid-1990s among the Yupik people of St. Lawrence Island, Alaska. Prior to the arrival of missionaries in 1894, men and women received tattoos at their primary joints as a spiritual treatment to prevent the now homeless souls of the deceased, who could be malevolent, from traveling into living bodies after serving as a pallbearer or making their first kill as a hunter. The Yupiget, like many Indigenous people, believed the human body contained several souls that resided in their primary joints. They were tattooed with an apotropaic pigment (soot/lampblack, human urine) that spirits disliked, so the joint tattoos shut down the ‘highways’ disembodied spirits might travel into the body. I was told if a person was not tattooed in this way, they would develop pain in the joints, rheumatism, disordered behavior, and eventually they would die. Upon review, each one of these joint tattoos corresponds to an acupuncture point used today to treat arthritis and localized bodily pain. Is it possible the Iceman and his people and the Pazyryk held similar beliefs? You be the judge... For more details, see my new 2019 article “Therapeutic Tattooing in the Arctic: Ethnographic, Archaeological, and Ontological Frameworks of Analysis” in IJOP 25:99-109. #iceman #tattoos #mummies #otzitheiceman #tattooedmummy #momia #pazyryk #yupik #alaska #ötzi #medicine #healing #acupuncture #archaeology

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