Man’s first adornment was in fact body painting. i Tattoo art is one of the oldest forms of body paintings that is closely connected with indigenous identity all over the globe. Scholars and tattoo enthusiasts have documented the diverse beliefs associated with tattooing practices. Enigmatic as those stories are, the unfortunate truth also remains that with changing times tattoos got de-linked from its root and became a globalised statement of fashion. Though the globalisation of tattoos as an art form deserves applause yet the indigenous belief system attached with the designs was rarely accredited if at all. In the passage of time due to several reasons, the narratives of the indigenous body were dissolved into the exoticisation of a detached art. While the art itself spread branches the roots were eventually forgotten. In an attempt to resurrect those narratives anthropologists and documenters have made risky expeditions to those corners of the world which are still less affected by capitalism and the commodification of the body. Through consistent effort, these scholars have been able to document a few of these narratives knowing well that eventually they will be just another fairy tale in the days to come. Change is the only constant in the domain of survival and tattoo art is no exception to that.

This essay is a reflection from my fieldwork in Laju village of Tirap district of Arunachal Pradesh towards the beginning of 2020. I was one of the seven members of the field team of Center for Endangered Languages, an autonomous centre operated by Rajiv Gandhi University of Arunachal Pradesh to facilitate research and documentation on endangered languages and cultural heritages of Arunachal Pradesh.

In this remote village of Arunachal lives a tribe named Olo who have still not forgotten all the practices of their fierce ancestors. Although as per government jurisdiction, they are a sub-group of the Nocte tribe of Tirap district, considerable discomfort exists among its netizens regarding being called a sub-group of Nocte. With a livelihood and culture resembling closely to the Nagas, Olos consider themselves a part of the Naga identity. In the past the Nagas were infamous head-hunters and fearless warriors and tattoo was an intricate symbol of their valour, pride and belongingness to the community. At the present this region is notoriously known for insurgency and opium cultivation. Nestled in the virgin forests of Arunachal Pradesh far away from the limelight of so-called developed modernity the region and her people kindle the curiosity of researchers wanting to document the traditional ways of life among these people. A detailed record of this district is available in the work of J.D.Saul who documented their festivals, customs and ways of life in his book titled The Naga of Burma published around 2005. more than a decade later when we stepped into this region our curiosity suffered quite a setback owing to the rapid changes that the region has witnessed withing this span of time. Although the road connectivity is still weak, consistent efforts by the government to prevent insurgency and check the use and production of opium by making the various facilities available to the villagers have contributed to a major change in the traditional ways of life. Olo language itself has entered the list of endangered languages of Arunachal and that protecting the language from extinction formed the major motive of our week-long pilot survey. It can be well understood that a tribe which is almost on the verge of forgetting its mother tongue remembers little of the narratives associated with practice of tattooing. With the arrival of Christian missionaries, there has been a shift in faith requiring the obvious abolition of practices linked with the indigenous faith known as Rangfra. Tattoo art which is symbolic to transitions of life cycles is now not only an abandoned tradition but also a tradition that is rejected by the modern Olo subjects.

Although we did not find any males with tattoos, to our great relief there were few elderly women who are the last surviving generation with Olo tattoo.

We tried to document some of the available narratives along with the names of this endangered body art within the short span of time allotted to us although much work is still left to be done.

Women’s Tattoo

The tattoo also called Phap in the native tongue, was done on face and hand as soon as a girl attended puberty. According to the common narratives, in the days of the past, there used to be frequent attacks from neighbouring tribesmen. The raiders used to kidnap women and rape them. In order to make oneself look unappealing women used to tattoo their faces. In his work titled The Naga of Burma J.D. Saul has raised concern about the origin of this narrative which is also advanced by another archivist named Mitchellii. In Saul’s opinion, this explanation may have been given to satisfy curious foreigners who were thought to be repulsed by the design or the custom of tattoos. Mr Saul who also studied facial tattoos in Laju clusteriii emphasizes the role of tattoo art in marking certain stages of a woman’s life such as the transition from puberty to womanhood and betrothal. Besides rites of passage, another symbolism of tattoos was in ensuring the safe transition and acceptance of a deceased in the land of the dead.iv Dr. D. Pandey wrote about tattooing practices among Nocte women, apart from being personal decoration tattoos were a significant symbol for religious and social beliefs and the attainment of different stages of life particularly for women v. The design of tattoo was uniform for all women and consisted of sets of lines angling out from the corners of the mouth in a triangular shape, the center bisected by a single line called a Manvephap. From the hairline, three parallel lines known as Ngunviphap came down from the forehead to the tip of the nose, and on the chin, a vertical line bisected a circle and called Khaviphap.

The design of both the forearms consisted of parallel lines bisecting each other and is known as Dyakviphap

Traditionally ink is made out of soot obtained from beneath cooking pots. The soot was mixed with water or sap from certain leaves to give it a form of dye. Inscription was drawn with bare hand by tapping cane needles with perfect control over the depth of puncture. Some also used wild thorns as needles. Maintenance of clean hygiene was essential during and sometime after the making of the tattoos, till the ink dries and the skin heals. Only rice cooked separately was consumed by the doer from banana leaf. And during this period consumption of meat and vegetables and using common utensils of the household was forbidden.

“For thousands of years, the tattoo arts of indigenous women have been important vehicles for expressing, reinforcing, and camouflaging the psychological dimensions of life, love, health, illness and death….Her (Tattoo artists’) ultimate creation, the tattooed body, was a vessel imprinted by successive generations of indigenous belief that at once embodied personal, social, ecological and metaphysical values through a wide array of visual symbolism. Thus, as a cultural practice deeply rooted within the memory of ancestral and everyday life, tattooing defined local perceptions of existence” (The Tattooing Arts of Tribal Women- Lars Krutak, p.15)

Presently, tattooing can be considered as an abandoned tradition among a new generation of Olo women. Tattoo marks can be found among women who belong to the age group between 45-90. They are the last surviving generation with traditional Olo face tattoos. Nearly one and a half decades from Saul’s work, we were faced with ever more difficulties in unearthing the possible reasons for face tattooing by Olo women. To our deep regret, we could not find even a single artist who could enlighten us on the elaborate process of making tattoos. The formation of a nation-state coupled with religious reforms and transitions brought about by the spreading of Christianity can be seen as a crucial reason behind the unfortunate discontinuation to a century-old tradition. The end to fear of imperial intervention in tribal life together with the promise of ‘development’ by the inclusion of tribal people to the mainstream ‘modern’ society/life through formal employment, outsourcing and connectivity to the ‘modern’ world through institutionalized education from schools, there probably remained no need for a traditional and ‘primitive’ identification mark. In another way the process of globalisation created a new need for physical assimilation into the ‘modern’ world by abandoning traditional markers of ethnicity. The religious reforms brought about by the spread of Christianity discourage the believers from continuing any traditional practices that is significant in indigenous religion (Rangfra). Once tattoos were a mandatory symbolism of Olo identity in order to be honoured in the Land of the Dead.

The Christian individuals of modern times no longer feel the obligation towards such acceptance by their ancestors. Although the role of Christian preaching is significant yet the absence of facial tattoos among the young Ollos who are still members of the Rangfra faith does indicate that the need to fit in the present times of modernity is more vigorous than the necessity to be honoured by the past(deceased).

The creation of the market as a centre for multicultural assimilation resulted in greater exposure and connectivity of Olo village with the outside world. Today women fear of shaming and discrimination if they wear face tattoos like the older generation. Also, the concept of beauty has seen a considerable alteration with the introduction of electronic media. I have been told that modern women hold a form of disgust towards face tattoos since it will only make them look ugly. With the break in the continuity of face tattoos the designs made in forearms are also vanishing. However, it is difficult to conclude whether inking as a practice has stopped altogether since there are Olo subjects from younger generations who are inscribing minimalist designs at the back of their arm.

More investigation into the matter is required to understand the nature of continuity in tattoo-making among Ollo women. As for now the marked faces of women are a repertoire of mythologies lost in the passage of time. The vulnerability of a tradition so distinct from the homogeneous modern world of embodiment is clearly evident in the eradication of tattooing practices among the new-age Olos.

British anthropologist Mary Douglas once theorized that the physical body symbolically reproduces the anxiety of the social body. She writes that body symbolism is always in service to social intentions, and the body cannot be endowed with universal meanings.

“I’m sure it must be true that people opt out of the mainstream society because they feel that there are going to be no rewards for them if they stay.”

In the context of Olo tattoos of women, it might be safe to conclude that the discontinuation of a crucial mark of community affiliation and ethnicity is probably a necessary change towards the creation of a new identity which will secure smooth integration to a world of ‘global flows’ (Appadurai, Disjuncture and Flows in Global Cultural Economy).

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References: 

• i Thevoz, Michel; The Painted Body;1984, International Publications, INC.
• ii Report of Naga Hills (Upper Chindwin), Expedition for the Release of Slaves, Report on a Two Months’ Tour in the Unadministered Area West of the Chindwin, Confidential Report on the Naga Hills (Upper Chindwin) Expedition for the Abolition of Human Sacrifice, cited in Saul, J D; The Naga of Burma;2005
• iii Saul, J D; The Naga of Burma, Chapter 3, pp. 39
• iv Saul, J D; The Naga of Burma;2005; Chapter 3, pp.40
• v Pandey, D; History of Arunachal Pradesh

Author: Saheli Chakraborty

• Junior Research Fellow, CFEL, AITS, RGU (2019-2021)
• Mahatma Gandhi National Fellow, Ministry of Skill Development and Entrapreneurship (2021-2023)
• Tribal Welfare Officer, Andaman & Nicobar Administration (2024- Present)