AFN Coverage

Photos: Hand-stitched Native tattooing

Marjorie Tahbone pushed a needle into and back out of a woman's forearm, allowing the ink-covered end of the cotton thread to soak in the skin for a moment before she pulled it out and began another stitch.

Onlookers crowded around Tahbone in Anchorage's Dena'ina enter this week as she continued to weave the thread through 60-year-old Becky Bendixen's skin. It left behind a permanent thin black line.

"It hurt a tiny bit," said Bendixen, a Unangax woman from King Cove who counted it as her 19th tattoo. Bendixen comes from a tribe that, like many, traditionally marks significant life events with tattoos or piercings. "It's still not like the tattoo gun, but there's definitely some sensation," she said.

Tahbone, a 26-year-old Inupiaq woman from Nome, sat next to Bendixen and wielded the needle with hands dressed in latex gloves. She smiled often while explaining each step — from marinating the needle in alcohol to the shallow depths at which she moved through the skin. She's a licensed tattoo artist. "This is legit," she told the group at the First Alaskans Institute Elders and Youth Conference.

Read more: Inupiaq woman joins movement to revitalize traditional tattooing

ADVERTISEMENT