A “V” on the temples, dots on the cheeks or lines on the chin: in the Canadian Far North, Inuit women are reclaiming the art of facial tattooing and its “therapeutic” virtues, banished for decades by the Anglican and Catholic churches.
• Read also: “Finding the North”: Braving the Great Cold with Human Warmth
• Read also: Residential school: a mega lawsuit to recognize the cultural impact on communities
• Read also: The pope says he received the testimonies of Indigenous Canadians as a “slap in the face”
Eyelids closed, a few centimeters from the gleaming needle that moves, Micheline Kilabuk-Cote, 37, has decided to trace on her temples the symbol of the siblings that she forms with her two sisters.
This resident of Iqaluit, the capital of Nunavut, is “looking forward” to finally take the step she has been waiting for “for so long”. A tattoo that this civil servant sees as a tribute to her cultural and family heritage and to her Inuit mother, who died when she was 18.
“I haven’t had the chance to really connect with her and her culture as such”, says this woman, with a calm voice who wants to “reclaim” what her mother, not tattooed, did not have. could not have.
Visible in particular on the chin, the forehead or the chest, traditional tattoos were for a long time a means of communication to transmit information on the life of a woman, her interests, or her status in her community.
Some had their fingers and hands tattooed to honor Sedna (the goddess of the sea). Others, on the thighs, to indicate that they were mothers.
But this practice has come up against opposition from the Anglican and Catholic Churches. These tattoos “were considered evil,” Gerri Sharpe, president of Pauktuutit Inuit Women of Canada, which represents Inuit women in Canada, told AFP.
Gradually, the tradition was lost.
But a few years ago, an Inuit artist started a project to revive the practice after learning that the last traditionally tattooed Inuk was dying. Hovak Johnston travels to northern communities to teach different techniques and enable Inuit women of all ages to receive their marks.
Public figures have also contributed to the rediscovery of this art: in 2019, at age 25, Mumilaaq Qaqqaq became the first MP in Canadian history to wear a traditional Inuit tattoo on her face.
Then in 2021, Shina Nova, an Inuit singer and influencer, posted videos of her tattoo session, viewed over 40 million times on TikTok.
“Feeling of Power”
“Wherever there are Inuit, there is a strong demand,” says Zorga Qaunaq, who recently led a training workshop with six people in Iqaluit.
This employee in an Inuit university program does two tattoos a week at her home in the federal capital Ottawa – home to the largest population of Inuit outside of the Far North. It mainly receives young people aged 20 or 30, but also a few teenagers.
This art is for some Inuit a way to heal trauma: “it’s therapeutic,” she explains.
After leaving the north as a teenager, 34-year-old Zorga Qaunaq felt “disconnected” from her culture. Getting a tattoo has been a way of asserting one’s identity despite a context of “systemic racism” towards native people. “My tattoos give me a feeling of power.”
Same feeling of “pride” for Gerri Sharpe, 52, who sports visible marks on her fingers, wrists and face.
“Very significant and sacred” tattoos that she insisted on showing to the Pope during his trip to Canada at the end of July, when the sovereign pontiff came to apologize for the violence of the Church against the Canadian natives.
“It was important for me to show him that we still had our tattoos, that they are still present and revitalized, that they have not been lost.”