Embracing Heritage and Healing through Papua New Guinean Skin Marking with Julia Mageʼau Gray
Jan 09, 2024
Dion Kaszas and Julia Mageʼau Gray
Bonus Episode # 003 When the ink melds with skin, it's not just a tattoo—it's a reclamation of identity and a healing embrace of one's heritage. That's the essence of my conversation with Julia Mageʼau Gray, a Papua New Guinea Australian artist deeply rooted in the Mekio traditions. Julia's transformation from a dancer and visual artist into a revered skin marker unveils a journey of cultural revival, where every stitch and line is a step towards repairing the legacy torn by colonization. Engage with us as Julia shares her powerful story, from documenting the fading marks of her ancestors to the life-altering moment in Samoa that charted her course into the world of indigenous skin marking.
Amidst the resonant hum of the tattoo needle, Julia and I unravel the significance of these cultural identifiers and their role in mending the wounds left by historical injustices. The conversation reveals how skin marking consultations transcend mere appointments and become sacred exchanges honoring transitions, experiences, and phases of life. Julia's insights into 'tattoo medicine' illuminate the process of selecting marks that guide individuals to their next chapter, celebrating the resilience and splendor of their lineage. Join us for an intimate exploration into an art form that's much more than skin deep—it's a testament to the enduring spirit of people and their connection to the past.
I hope you have enjoyed this episode, and I am excited to travel the world of Indigenous tattooing with you as we visit with friends and colleagues from across the globe doing the work. This bonus interview is from my extensive archive of interviews, conversations and presentations I have recorded over the past 8 years.
You can check out Julia's work at: Instagram @melanesianmarks Website: https://www.sunameke.com/sunameke-productions
Check out my tattoo work at: https://www.consumedbyink.com Instagram @dionkaszas
Buy me a Coffee at: https://ko-fi.com/transformativemarks
Bonus Episode # 003 When the ink melds with skin, it's not just a tattoo—it's a reclamation of identity and a healing embrace of one's heritage. That's the essence of my conversation with Julia Mageʼau Gray, a Papua New Guinea Australian artist deeply rooted in the Mekio traditions. Julia's transformation from a dancer and visual artist into a revered skin marker unveils a journey of cultural revival, where every stitch and line is a step towards repairing the legacy torn by colonization. Engage with us as Julia shares her powerful story, from documenting the fading marks of her ancestors to the life-altering moment in Samoa that charted her course into the world of indigenous skin marking.
Amidst the resonant hum of the tattoo needle, Julia and I unravel the significance of these cultural identifiers and their role in mending the wounds left by historical injustices. The conversation reveals how skin marking consultations transcend mere appointments and become sacred exchanges honoring transitions, experiences, and phases of life. Julia's insights into 'tattoo medicine' illuminate the process of selecting marks that guide individuals to their next chapter, celebrating the resilience and splendor of their lineage. Join us for an intimate exploration into an art form that's much more than skin deep—it's a testament to the enduring spirit of people and their connection to the past.
I hope you have enjoyed this episode, and I am excited to travel the world of Indigenous tattooing with you as we visit with friends and colleagues from across the globe doing the work. This bonus interview is from my extensive archive of interviews, conversations and presentations I have recorded over the past 8 years.
You can check out Julia's work at: Instagram @melanesianmarks Website: https://www.sunameke.com/sunameke-productions
Check out my tattoo work at: https://www.consumedbyink.com Instagram @dionkaszas
Buy me a Coffee at: https://ko-fi.com/transformativemarks
Speaker 1:
I think the main thing that this practice does for us is it changes the way we think, from being completely about I, me, me, me to thinking about myself in amongst us.
Speaker 2:
The transformative marks podcast explores how indigenous tattoo artists, cultural tattoo practitioners and ancestral skin markers transform this world for the better, dot by dot, line by line and stitch by stitch. My name is Dion Casas. I'm a Hungarian Métis and Intlacopak professional tattoo artist and ancestral skin marker. I started the work of reviving my ancestral Intlacopak skin marking practice over a decade ago and have helped, supported and trained practitioners and tattoo artists here on Turtle Island. In this podcast, I sit down with indigenous tattoo artists, cultural tattoo practitioners and ancestral skin markers from across the globe, bringing you behind the scenes of this powerful, transformative and spiritual work.
Speaker 1:
Who am I? I am Godzilla to some. I am Julia Mangat-Elgrade. I'm Papua New Guinea in Australian, and my Papua New Guinea heritage is Mekio yeah, the Mekio people in Central Province, papua New Guinea. And on my Australian side, my father hails from Victoria, though he wasn't raised there, so he was mainly in Papua New Guinea while his young years. So, yeah, png is where it's at and I currently live in New Zealand.
Speaker 2:
Beautiful there. I'd love to live there, Ah it's so good. So what got you into doing the work that you're doing in terms of skin marking?
Speaker 1:
I'm a dancer, visual artist, and so I was working with three other Papua New Guinea Australian women making a documentary to raise awareness about our marks, our old women and their marks, and the whole idea was to encourage people to talk to their grandparents or grandmothers and the families about what we felt was, yeah, was disappearing. So the designs were there, but the practice not so much. But all of it's still in living memory. So part of that was to travel to Samoa, and whilst we were with Suwa Sulwapia Aleva, we yeah. He basically said you need to pick up the tool. That's how you revive this practice, and so I did. Yeah, changed my life, gosh.
Speaker 2:
Do you want to say more about that?
Speaker 1:
I'm still recovering. So, yeah, I suppose it's not really what I wanted to do, and it took me some time to just accept that that's yeah, that that was my path, but everything that I have ever done has led up to this mahi, this work. So, yeah, it is what I do now.
Speaker 2:
Why do you? You know, when you know this whole event has been about? You know our practices, reviving them, continuing them, all of those things. Why is it important? Why are these marks important?
Speaker 1:
Ah, I mean the obvious. Our marks are cultural identifiers. That's what they were in the past, and they identified not just where you hailed from, where you came from, but also you know the people before you and the people around you. So they were identifiers, and why that's important today is that's been stripped from us. So to where the marks again means it means that we reconnect to our old people's thinking and we have a visual language that is in use again and it really is about repairing the damage or sort of healing that wound that has just that big slash of ugliness that came with colonization. So yeah, that's in a nutshell.
Speaker 2:
You know you touched on kind of the next question. You know, because in the work that we do in Canada, you know we started to frame a lot of that work around this idea of tattoo medicine you know, you've talked a little bit about the identity and those things. When I say that phrase, what comes to mind?
Speaker 1:
So the work today is about you know, I do consults with women, occasionally men when they yeah, when they're brave enough to sort of step up. It's not that we don't mark men, it's just it's up to them. But when we do the consult because I choose what and where after the consult and you read their experience and you read their body and you see what's happening and where the marks of transition need to be, because that's what our marks are Essentially they're marks of transition, so they move you from one phase of your life to the next. They acknowledge where you've been and how you've been and then you yeah, you move onto the next level. So it's not that you move forward, it's just that you expand and you become fuller because you open yourself up to more. And so I think this work today is really, you know, about hearing our people's stories and finding a way to transition them through the marks into, just straight up, loving themselves, because that's actually what our issue is.
Speaker 1:
We've been, we are encouraged to not even like what we see. You know, with the wrong color, whether we're not enough of this, we're not enough of that. We're constantly having to justify who we are and the marks, once they're on your skin, there is no point, you don't need to justify because you are. So that's what. That's the healing aspect. I mean that's today.
Speaker 1:
I think in the past you know life was different and so you know if there were ailments they would have done different things through their own medicines and through the marking, but essentially, the marks really were about for us just transitioning you to the next phase, and that's from young girl to woman, and then you pass that on. So it just continues, continues and continues, and I think the main thing that this practice does for us is it changes the way we think, from being completely about I, me, me, me, to thinking about myself in amongst us. And so, yeah, it teaches you to shelve the ego, and to shelve to just put that in check, cause sometimes and most of the time, it's not as important as the people around you yeah, namely your family.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I love that concept that you just brought up of like it's not about moving you up, it's about expanding. You know cause. I think it just brings that picture to my mind that you know, we've been squished and we've been asked to take up less. Yeah, diminished. Yeah, and so yeah, that picture of like no, I'm actually going to take up some space.
Speaker 1:
Yeah.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, that's beautiful.
Speaker 1:
Totally, that's what it is.
Speaker 2:
So how is? How is tattooing the tech or the mark making that you do participate in work with? How is that connected to the land?
Speaker 1:
Oh man, all of the patterns, the designs, you know they're from our surroundings. They're from what crawls through the glass there, what flies in the sky, yeah, what is the ocean? Everything it's our surroundings. It completely connects us to where we live and it's all inclusive. In that way, it's not something obscure. You know, these are centipedes, these are birds, these are fish, spines, the. You know there's, yeah, and then it's also marks that our women, marks that are men. It's our surroundings. You can't really. You know there's this idea that you categorize. Things like this needs to fit into that box and that box.
Speaker 1:
We, you know, we had people that would like specialize in different roles, but it was never that that was the only thing you did. If someone was so all of a sudden, if you're someone that was a healer and then they were to start singing over there, it's not as if you wouldn't know how to do that. You would just. You know, you would just be like. It's not as if you wouldn't know how to do that. You would, because you're a part of a collective of people.
Speaker 1:
So it's not about my role is this, it's this is what my family specialize in, but we all do this, and so the idea of it is only about the design, that it's so interwoven that you can't even like this idea that you need to separate stuff is just dumb, you know? Sorry, colonizers. I suppose that they needed to do that, to try and understand us, I suppose, but unfortunately we've taken that on and so, you know, I am a dancer, I am a filmmaker, I'm an artist and I'm, you know, I'm from Papua New Year, australia, and I'm a mom. That's my main role. I'm a mom, yeah.
Speaker 2:
Awesome, I guess in in as far as you're comfortable, you know, when you see the impact, or what impact do you see this having on the people that you're working?
Speaker 1:
Oh man, easy it is about. It's probably better to give an example One of these ladies that I marked when she first walked through the door she showed no skin, none at all, maybe her fingertips and her face. By the time we'd finished marking her, over a year, she was in her skin. The confidence and the you have no right to judge me by was like she was just full. I think it is simply the reward. I know that this will just keep moving on because you change that generational trauma that's been sitting in your body. You move it out by learning to love yourself. When you let the marks do their job and then you don't question or doubt and you just sort of live through that, then what that does is it's simple If you love yourself, then that's what passes on, rather than if you have been completely ripped apart, or that's what passes on. That's why this works important because you are giving people just a tool, something to mark that it's okay to be who we are.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, that's powerful.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, our work is.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, humbling yeah. You're just in it, that's how you're just doing what you have to do and then you take a second and people start sharing what you're doing.
Speaker 1:
And then you go.
Speaker 2:
Oh, man is that what I did. Cool.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, totally. I was just worried about that bit of ink like eating under the skin.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, yeah, it's like Am I going to sweat on this work? Then, yeah, totally, you know, because the work that we do is very challenging. You know again, in this far as you're comfortable, what are some of the things that you help to ground yourself or to deal with the pressures of the work that you do.
Speaker 1:
You have to move. You have to, and I think this is just because of all the dancing. When we do our sessions, oh man, they live in a good space, but what ends up happening is all of that gets transferred to us in some way, and the best way to move that out of our system and to sort of keep ourselves grounded is to move. So we dance or we swim, but yeah, it's, and it's literally. You ask it to leave and you take care of yourself, but it's movement. If you don't move, it has no way to move out of your body.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, that's an important thing because, you know, a lot of times I'm able to just go OK, I'm here to do this thing and it doesn't usually affect me. Sometimes it does, but a lot of my students are haven't had that training to be able to go. This isn't mine, so that's important and you know, just again, I think that supports the idea that I've had that this revival can help other, oh, totally, in terms of movement, in terms of dance like there's another place where we can bring those ceremonial, those dances back.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, I mean, I think it's also learning about not getting carried away in, like you acknowledge that this is what's happening, but you don't allow that to sort of don't invest in it and become like a you've actually it's. It's just being quiet about it and not being shocked and just allowing it to sort of you acknowledge that it's it's pain, or you acknowledge that it's anger or or whatever it may be that you're feeling, and then you let it go. And often what we do is you know we'll find the ocean or we'll find water, but we talk and you talk it through and then you let it go. But if you and it has to be with others it can't just be by yourself, and because that's where the danger is, if it's just you, then you've got no way. No one can pull you up. It's, yeah, it's a constant balancing act, but it needs to be done with people. Yeah, it can't be done, can't be done by yourself. Yeah, completely alone. You need to be able to move it out, yeah.
Speaker 2:
Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, that's, yeah, it's full on, eh, some of the stuff you deal with.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:
Gosh.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, sometimes I'll be like yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:
And wine, sometimes just sitting over a glass of wine and just going, wow, what was that? Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:
So I have two more questions and they're very open, okay, and you know I just asked this one because part of this is also to like create an archive of the work you know that we as a community of practitioners have been doing, and you just never know who may listen to this in the future in terms of you know, especially people from your community, and so I always ask what message do you want to send to the future generation?
Speaker 1:
It's really hard to say. I mean, I could say the normal stuff, like you know, stay rooted in your identity and all of those things, but the thing is I don't know what comes next. I know that we're doing our best to move this into the next generation so that our children take it up, but I think it's just to not forget our old people's thinking and, in whatever way that you choose to do that, that it's not about, yeah, that the ego doesn't take over, that it doesn't become. Yeah, I think that's and maybe that's just a reflection of conversations that we've been having over the last couple of days but yeah, it's just stay connected to our old people's thinking and identify what that is. That there's more than one way.
Speaker 2:
So the last question is also a very broad question and, you know, is there a question that you wish an interview would have asked you.
Speaker 1:
No, because I hate talking.
Speaker 2:
Okay.
Speaker 1:
No, I can't think of anything other than.
Speaker 2:
Or is there anything that you know you've wanted to communicate, that you maybe haven't yet, or something that you think is important, that has to be shared?
Speaker 1:
Oh no, not really. I think everything's been said. Yeah, just, there's always more than one way, but not to lose your way.
Speaker 2:
Hey listeners, thank you for listening. I hope you enjoyed this episode. I just want you to remember that, no matter who you are, where you're from, what you've been through, what you've done, that you are amazing and beautiful and I'm excited to see you next week. If you haven't already subscribed, please go and do so, and if you have subscribed, I appreciate you following the Transformer of Marks podcast, and the last thing that I will ask you is to do me a solid and share this episode with somebody that you think will enjoy it. Thanks a lot and see you next week.