Skin Songs

Sometimes the tale of a tattoo is the history of a people.

Reprinted with permission from CODE, The Magazine of Style for Men of Colour, Issue November, 1999.

By A.G. Britton, Photography By Brett Panelli

There is a bond between tattooists and the people they penetrate with ink, and a language shared among the tattooed. We are tribal. One tattoo watches another tattoo's back.

Tattoo shamans Leo Zuluetta and Pedro Balugo of Black Wave and Roni Zulu of Zulu Tattoo, both in Los Angeles, see the symbol in our skin before it appears on the surface. Because that's the way a tattoo really gets done -- it's already there waiting to be brought out, if the tattooist is a seer and not just a decorator.

Zulueta, Balugo, and Zulu are on a mission to keep tribal tattoo art alive. Listen for a while and you'll hear them speak of Ta Ta Tao, an organisation dedicated to nurturing Polynesian body art -- so many light-years from racist macho sailor designs. Look at any one of these men and see how they live their work with bodies, faces, limbs adorned by their interpretations of Polynesian and African symbols, all meant to mark a rite of passage or call on some type of healing. Meet with one of them and they will not tattoo you on the spot. They will get to know you, ask you questions, find out where you are in your life -- then tell you to come back at a later time for the ritual to begin.

We celebrate the beauty of their work in these pages.

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