(Nuuk) “It’s like a return to the roots”: on her forehead, Andu Schiødt Pikilak wears a collection of fine lines in the shape of a “V”, her first Inuit tattoo that she experiences as a rebirth both personally and for Greenlandic culture.
The 61-year-old psychologist took the plunge seven years ago and her “tuniit” has since been joined by traditional markings on her forearm and fingers.
“Tattoos disappeared from the visual space for many generations and have recently returned, it’s very liberating,” confided this reserved woman met by AFP in Nuuk, the capital of the immense Arctic island.
Greenland was a colony of Denmark from 1721 to 1953, before gradually gaining autonomy in the second half of the 20th century.e century.
Before colonization, tattooing was fully integrated into Greenlandic culture, and is also found in other Inuit cultures, particularly in Canada.
Mainly reserved for women, it had been de facto banned by European missionaries.
Yet for Andu, “it’s like he’s always been there.”
Everyone around her applauded her choice and there were few disapproving glances, she assures us in her modern apartment decorated in places with traditional objects like these knives with crescent-shaped blades.
For thirty-something Eva Nielsen, the choice of a traditional tattoo – 12 lines – on her chin was the result of much personal reflection.
“It’s a symbol. I want to carry my culture with me,” says the daughter of a Danish father and a Greenlandic mother who has lived mainly in Denmark.
“It’s not just a butterfly tattoo, it has a real meaning. I was so happy when I first looked in the mirror,” the 33-year-old adds.
Tattooed Mummies
The oldest known evidence of Greenlandic Inuit tattoos dates back to the 15th century.e century with the mummies of Qilakitsoq.
Among these eight bodies, discovered in 1972 in an excellent state of preservation thanks to the very cold and dry climate, five of them women have facial tattoos.
“Tattoos are linked to family relationships and status in the society of the time, but also to what one was capable of doing,” explains curator Aviaaja Rosing Jakobsen, herself a tattooed person.
However, it is only very recently that Greenlanders have begun to discover and re-appropriate their cultural heritage.
“Growing up in Greenland in the post-colonial era when we were a province of Denmark […]the discourse was that the Inuit, who came before us, were different people from us,” recalls Maya Sialuk Jacobsen, a professional tattoo artist who lives between Nuuk and Svendborg in Denmark.
“It took me a while to realize that’s not the case,” she adds.
PHOTO JAMES BROOKS, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Maya Sialuk Jacobsen
The fifty-year-old became interested in ritual tattoos about ten years ago when she found herself on forced rest after shoulder surgery.
She then discovers that they are found throughout the far north, from Siberia to Greenland, and that their motives diverge according to the surrounding nature, hunting methods and the local relationship to the sacred.
Female practice
If it is a feminine practice, Inuit tattooing is also “a form of amuletic tattooing”.
“Tattoos had a role to play” in countering taboos broken by women: death, birth and menstruation, adds the artist.
“There are about 15 different amulets that are put together in different ways depending on the tribe you belong to and the type of hunting you do,” says Maya Sialuk, who is not allowed to tattoo her hands, face and neck in Denmark under current law – while this is tolerated in Greenland.
Due to the material traditionally used, a needle made from an animal bone, identical to that used for sewing, the patterns are not very diverse, “basically dots and lines”.
Today, she believes she is witnessing a reinvention of Inuit tattoos that is much more individualistic and political than the original practice.
“People are very eager to understand their culture. They are very eager to represent it. […] and the Inuit tattoo appears as a perfect symbol,” notes the self-taught researcher, whose work will be published by the University of Oxford.
Historically, “women never get tattooed for themselves, they get tattooed for the group,” she recalls.
“But today we take these models and compress them into a Westernized form where individuality reigns supreme.”
For her part, she had her facial tattoos removed – on her forehead and chin – because they did not reflect her Greenlandic origins, but were characteristic of Canada, something she was unaware of when she began her research.