About | Indigenous Tattooing

The History of

indigenoustattooing.com

Hello my name is Dion Kaszas, I am an Indigenous person of mixed Hungarian, Métis, and Interior Salish heritage and an urban Bill C-31 member of the Lower Nicola Indian band in Merritt, British Columbia, in the nation state of Canada. I started indigenoustattooing.com in the summer of 2012, at that time it was connected to a Undergraduate research project. Since then it has developed into a resource for Indigenous peoples involved in the revival of their traditional Indigenous tattooing practices, as a virtual archive of reference materials.

The original website was a database of historic North American Indigenous tattoo references, I am working to expand the scope of the site to contain references and highlight Indigenous tattooing from all across the globe. This virtual tattoo gallery will share contemporary and historic examples of traditional tattooing from all across North and South America, New Zealand, the Philippians, Papau New Guinea and many more cultures and continents. I intend this storehouse of material to help Indigenous peoples to reclaim their traditional tattooing practices.

The creation and continuation of indigenoustattooing.com stems from my passion and responsibilities as a cultural tattoo practitioner and Indigenous scholar. I have been working as a cultural tattoo practitioner/tattoo artist in the revival of Indigenous tattooing on Turtle Island (North America) since 2012. I began my professional tattoo apprenticeship in 2009, under my mentor Carla Romaniuk, the owner of Vertigo Tattoos and Body Piercing in Salmon Arm, BC. Vertigo Tattoos is the longest continuously running tattoo shop in the Shuswap, opening its doors in 1998, under Carla's careful tutelage I have been given the gift of tattooing and I am honoured.

I now live and work in Halifax, Nova Scotia @ HFX Tattoo, you can check out my portfolio and artists website @ www.consumedbyink.com

The foundation of this website is the, United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Article Eleven, Section One:

“Indigenous peoples have the right to practice and revitalize their cultural traditions and customs. This includes the right to maintain, protect and develop the past, present and future manifestations of their cultures, such as archaeological and historical sites, artefact's, designs, ceremonies, technologies and visual and performing arts and literature”

The New

indigenoustattooing.com

indigenoustattooing.com is being reimagined as a virtual community platform for the global Indigenous tattoo community. A place to research our tattoo practices, to share our work, and be inspired by artists and cultural tattoo practitioners from our nations and communities, extending out across the globe. You will continue to find the original historical databases that have made

indigenoustattooing.com so popular and find new content beginning with featured Indigenous Tattoo Artist and Cultural Tattoo Practitioners. In the featured artist section of the website you will find artist biographies, portfolios, and contact information, including links to websites and social media for each artist.

My work as a cultural tattoo practitioner and tattoo artist has allowed me many opportunities to visit national and international tattoo festivals and conventions, to take part in grassroots Indigenous tattooing events that protest the power of colonial regimes to destroy our land and waters. indigenoustattooing.com will become a virtual diary of these adventures. I welcome you to meet my friends and colleagues through personal interviews and to experience the excitement of political protest and healing of our lands through the embodiment of our ancestral tattooing practices.