Truly Tribal: contemporary Indigenous Tattooing
Book Description
Truly Tribal: Contemporary Indigenous Tattooing
After generations of colonial suppression, Indigenous tattooing practices are coming back, led by the artists and communities who hold them.
Truly Tribal brings together eighteen Indigenous ancestral skin markers from fourteen Nations and cultures around the world. Cherokee, Tongan, Māori, Métis, Nlaka'pamux, Mi'kmaq, Cree, Fijian, Filipino, Tlingit, and more. Each contributor tells their own story: how they found their ancestors' practices, how they brought them back, and what they're building for the generations coming after them.
I edited this book and wrote two chapters: "Coyote Juggles His Eyes" (the introduction) and "Gathering Pieces of Coyote and Breathing Life into Nlaka'pamux Skin Marking" (Chapter 7).
This book exists because there was nothing like it. There were books about us written by anthropologists. There were chapters in academic texts. There were magazine features that got some of it right and some of it wrong. But there was no book where we told the whole story ourselves. Now there is.
Contributors: Dion Kaszas: Hungarian, Métis, and Nlaka’pamux, Julia Mageʼau Gray: Mekeo, Nathalie Standingcloud: Cherokee, Jerrid Lee Miller: Cherokee Archivist, Julie Paama-Pengelly: Māori, Donita Vatuinaruku Hulme: Fijian, Yasbelle Kerkow: Fijian, Dulcie Stewart: Fijian, Terje Koloamatangi: Tongan , Jacqueline Merritt: Tsilhqot’in, Mel Lefebvre: Michif, Nehiyaw, French, Irish, Sheri Osden Nault: Métis, Natalia Roxas: prePhilippine Tattoo Practitioner, Anne Spice: Tagish/Tlingit, Nahaan: Tlingit, Missy Dunn-Mahan: Tohono O’odham, Yuchi, Mvskoke, Gordon Sparks: Mi’kmaw, Nolan Malbeuf: Métis
Details: Publisher: Fernwood Publishing Format: Hardcover, 256 pages, 8" × 10" Price: $65 CAD Release: May 2026
Contents
- Chapter 1: Introduction: Coyote Juggles His Eyes (Dion Kaszas)
- Chapter 2: A Visual Language: Poapoa - Skin Marking in Mekeo, Central Province, Papua New Guinea (Julia Mageʼau Gray)
- Chapter 3: Cherokee Tattoos: Medicine for the Marked (Jerrid Lee Miller and Nathalie Standingcloud)
- Chapter 4: He Kākano Ahau I Ruia Mai I Rangiātea: I Am a Seed Which Was Sewn in the Heavens of Rangiātea (Julie Paama-Pengelly)
- Chapter 5: Na Veiqia Meu Talanoa: Skin Marking for Indigenous Fijian women with The Veiqia Project (Dulcie Stewart, Yasbelle Kerkow and Donita Vatuinaruku Hulme)
- Chapter 6: Embodied Fonua: Reconstructing Tātatau in Aotearoa (Terje Koloamatangi)
- Chapter 7: 7Estez: I am Tattooing (Jacqueline Merritt)
- Chapter 8: Nlaka’pamux Skin Marking: Gathering Pieces of Coyote and Breathing Life into Practice (Dion Kaszas)
- Chapter 9: Skin Marking to Heal: Ancestral Skin Marking as Healing and (re)Connection for Indigenous 2SLGBTQIA++ (Mel Lefebvre)
- Chapter 10: Foregrounding Care: Tattooing in Caring Relationship to One Another and the Land (Sheri Osden Nault)
- Chapter 11: PrePhilippine Living Traditions: Motifs and Practices from the Filipino Diaspora (Natalia Roxas)
- Chapter 12: The Stories that Make Us: Tracing Ancestral Lines of Responsibility and Connection (Anne Spice)
- Chapter 13: Emerging from the Tides: My Community and I (Nahaan)
- Chapter 14: Tohono O’odham and Yuchi: Reclaiming Ancestral Tattoo Practices (Missy Dunn-Mahan)
- Chapter 15: Learning the Visual Language of the Land: Mi’kmaw Blackwork (Gordon Sparks)
- Chapter 16: Wahkóhtowin: Building Connections across Time for Those That Are Coming (Nolan Malbeuf)
The practice informs the writing and the writing informs the work.
The book and the tattoo practice are connected. The visual language I tattoo in Nlaka'pamux Blackwork is the same visual language I write about in the book. If Truly Tribal moves you to wear the work, the consultation form is here: