Transformative Marks Podcast
A podcast that journeys through the world of Indigenous tattooing, amplifying the voices of ancestral skin markers, Indigenous tattoo artists, cultural tattoo practitioners, and those who wear the marks. Through a mix of interviews and solo shows, Dion Kaszas brings you the entertaining, challenging, and transformative stories behind every dot, line, and stitch. Embedded in each mark is a unique story that brings forward the reality of contemporary Indigenous peoples living a contemporary existence. Our Indigenous ancestors' struggle, pain, tears, resistance, and resilience are celebrated, honored, respected, and embedded underneath our skin. This podcast explores the stories, truths, and histories essential to us as Indigenous tattoo artists, cultural tattoo practitioners, and ancestral skin markers. These stories bring forward our ancestral visual languages and cultures' power, brilliance, and beauty. So that those coming after us are reminded of how amazing we are.
Dion and the Transformative Marks Podcast acknowledge the support of:
The Canada Council for the Arts
Transformative Marks Podcast
Ancestral Artistry and Identity: Reconnecting Through Indigenous Tattoo Revival Dion Kaszas and Friends
#048 Unlock the transformative power of ancestral visual languages and discover how Indigenous tattooing can reconnect us to our roots. Join me, Dion Kaszas, on the Transformative Marks podcast as we explore the revitalization of cultural identity through the art of tattooing. This episode features the profound insights of Hacki Williams, a pioneer in Moko Maori tattoo revival, and delves into how these practices offer a path to strengthen community ties and cultural heritage. We promise you’ll gain valuable insights into awakening hidden cultural knowledge and practical steps to embrace your own ancestral visual language, even if you feel disconnected from your lineage.
Can ancestral memory really be encoded in our DNA? Tihoti from Tahiti leads a compelling discussion about "blood memory," challenging us to rethink our connection to ancestral knowledge. Julie Paama-Penngelly takes us on a journey across the globe, highlighting the significance of engaging with ancestral objects found in collections worldwide. These objects hold the keys to cultural revival, fostering both personal growth and community resilience. Engage with the past and resist cultural appropriation by reclaiming the symbols and motifs that define our heritage.
Navigating the delicate balance between knowledge sharing and its potential misuse, we explore the responsibilities of preserving Indigenous wisdom. Tania Willard shares her approach to reviving Interior Salish artistic forms responsibly, emphasizing ethical practices and environmental harmony. We conclude with insights from artists like Terje, Tihoti, and Que, who challenge colonial constraints by evolving ancestral visual languages to fit contemporary contexts. This episode is a powerful reminder of our right and responsibility to honor our heritage while pushing creative boundaries, ensuring cultural expression remains vibrant and relevant.
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.
You can find Terje at:
Instagram @terje_k
YouTube: @terjekoloamatangi2946
You can find Tania at:
Instagram @willardart
You can find Que at:
Instagram @quebidois
You can find Nahaan at:
Instagram @chilkat_tattoo
You can find Julie at:
Instagram @julesartistmoko
Check out my tattoo work at:
https://www.consumedbyink.com
Instagram @dionkaszas
Buy me a Coffee at:
https://ko-fi.com/transformativemarks
I acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts
They are the key actually to unlocking a lot of things, and for a lot of people, the experience of a material object sparks their realization of what their journey actually is.
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 Kazas. I'm a Hungarian Méti and Intikotmuk professional tattoo artist and ancestral skin marker. I started the work of reviving my ancestral Intikotmuk skin marking practice over a decade ago. I've 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. Hello, my name is Dion Kazas. I'm a Hungarian, métis andapmuk cultural tattoo practitioner, ancestral skin marker, professional tattoo artist and the host of the Transformative Marks podcast.
Speaker 2:Welcome to episode 48 of the Transformative Marks podcast. In this episode, we'll be going into 10 tips on researching and working with your ancestral visual language. This is a continuation of my solo episodes that I will be doing as we move into season two of Transformative Marks and in this series the solo episodes what I'll be doing is listening to clips from past interviews. Clips from past interviews, whether those are from my master's thesis, which I successfully defended in 2018, or through past episodes of Transformative Marks. So in this episode, as I said, we're looking at researching and working with your ancestral visual language, and I will be. The format is we'll listen to one of my past guests, I'll introduce them the episode they're from and then we'll have a listen to what they say and I'll be sharing with you the relationship that I have built with the words that they are sharing, and so this isn't necessarily an interpretation of what or this isn't necessarily an exposition of what they were saying. It's actually more of my reaction to the words that they have shared. So this is something important for me, because a lot of times I'll be sharing out in the world and I'll be talking about my ancestral visual language or I'll be talking about ancestral skin marking or tattooing, and many of the ideas I'm sharing are things that I have gathered from other people, and so here's a powerful way to give opportunity to share some of the voices that have influenced me and allow them to influence you.
Speaker 2:I hope you like Transformative Marks. I just ask that you go down like subscribe and comment. I haven't really asked much of you as listeners up until this point, so I'll just ask that you'll go down. Help out the channel, help me grow this project, and a big shout out to all of those who support me on Kofi. It's amazing to see that people are enjoying this work and going over to Koficom transformative marks and just leaving a little bit of a gift, whether that's a single cup of coffee, a couple dollars or something more substantial. So head on over there and head on down and hit like and subscribe and share with your friends and family.
Speaker 2:And we're going to get into episode 48, 10 tips for researching and working with your ancestral visual language. This first clip comes from Hockey Williams. This first clip comes from Hockey Williams, first generation or first wave revivalist of Moko Mari tattooing, and this episode he comes in on episode 33, I believe. So if you enjoy the words that he shares, head on over to that episode and check it out. It's an awesome conversation, but we'll just have a look and hear what he has to say.
Speaker 3:If you want to awaken a culture and awaken the future, you've got to awaken knowledge, all that knowledge that was hidden or was put to sleep, all that knowledge that was hidden or was put to sleep.
Speaker 3:we've got to, as people, as indigenous people, we've got to find all that knowledge and awaken it, but awaken it where it can survive, today, and that's it. So, today, we have all the artistic expressions. Look for it, find it. We have all the environmental hidden knowledge, yeah, or the seasonal or star star knowledge yeah, all the navigational knowledge. We've got a wall, align it all together and make us strong, yeah, but we've got to find it and awaken it.
Speaker 2:So it was a powerful testimony, a powerful comment, or clip from episode 33 with Hockey Williams. You know, the first thing that comes to mind when I think about this is you know, as you will hear throughout this episode, it's really about going out and doing the work, like I shared in my last solo episode, episode 46, where Gord and I talk about really what's important is going out and doing the work, and so we're going to explore how you find your ancestral visual language if you don't have it completely within your circle, within your community circle, within your family circle. We'll be exploring that a lot. But the one thing that I really wanted to share this clip for is this isn't one of the tips for today, but I really wanted to share this clip because I think it is the foundation for the work that we are doing, because we're not actually just looking at reviving our ancestral tattooing practices. We're actually looking at reviving our cultures and our communities, reviving our relationships to our ancestral visual languages and our ancestral oral languages and the lands and the territories and the geographies that our ancestors inhabited. So it's actually the tattoo revival.
Speaker 2:The work that you're doing in your ancestors' community, around the revival of your tattooing, is only a small part of this work that we're doing, and so I just wanted to share this clip that the work that we're doing is actually about reviving our cultures and our communities, and the way that we are doing it is through the revival of our ancestors tattooing. So we're going to head into our first clip, which is with Terry Kuromatangi, tongan and Sami practitioner, based in Auckland, aotearoa, and if you enjoy his comments, his ideas, his thoughts, head on over to episode 10, where you can see the full episode with terry.
Speaker 4:and so here's, uh, going into our first clip for us because there is so little information and there's evidence, which great that gives us enough to charge ahead.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 4:But in terms of specific tattooing you know accounts and information it's very little you know. So we start looking around and seeing, okay, well, and we know all of our art forms are interconnected.
Speaker 1:Yeah, big time.
Speaker 4:They're all interconnected, they're all talking about. We're kind of using these things to express our stories, to contain our stories to share our stories with generations, the next generation and to understand the stories of the previous generation. So it's all kind of interwoven and interconnected, you know.
Speaker 2:So this clip coming from Terry really brings forward the reality that I know that a lot of people out in the world, especially here in Turtle Island, do not have an extensive storehouse of knowledge that has been gathered previously before you enter into this work of revival, and so I always share it with people. You know, it's not really about how many little pieces of coyote that you've gathered, it's the work that you do to breathe life into the bones and the flesh and the hair that you've collected from coyote. You know, coyote representing your ancestral tattooing practice, and when you think about that that's, you're just gathering those little pieces of coyote to help to bring this practice back to life, because these things will help to support not only yourself and the people that you work with as you mark them, but also to help revive your community and your culture. And so the first thing, yeah, that comes to mind is that, you know, don't worry about finding a booklet or any knowledge that specifically states from a colonial place that your ancestors this design means that this design means that you know the fact that you have evidence that there was a practice, one simple line that says your ancestors tattooed. That's the beginning. That's the place that you start from.
Speaker 2:And that's why we're looking at this episode, because we're not only worried about looking for tattoo designs, because a lot of times we get trapped in these anthropological boxes. And we have to break free from these anthropological boxes which state that these are tattoo designs, these are basketry designs, these are painted clothing designs or these are pottery designs, whatever it may be. Those are all anthropological boxes which keep us stuck into the theoretical frameworks which the colonizer and the settler has put forward for us, and we have to break free from those boxes and understand that it's an ancestral visual language, that when you look on the rocks and you look on the pottery and you look on the clothing, those are all the same designs that you find in your tattooing practice. And so this is where you find the inspiration, this is where you reach hands back into the past and bring those designs to the present to help in your contemporary ancestral tattoo revival. And so just take courage that, even if you have one sentence which states that you have evidence that your ancestors tattooed, it's your responsibility and your opportunity to take that knowledge and to reach into the anthropological boxes, break free from them and bring your ancestors visual language to the present, so that you can help to embody the beauty and the power of your community and your culture.
Speaker 2:So we're stepping into episode two with my friend, julie Pama-Pengali from Autaroa, taronga, autaroa. Check out Julie's work powerful powerhouse who is one of the founders and one of the people responsible for the Toikiri Festival of Indigenous Tattooing in Aotearoa and Taronga every year in October, november, usually you know, don't quote me on that, it might change. But if you're an Indigenous practitioner and you're looking for a place to find inspiration and to provide value to the Maori community and the Pacific community by sharing your ancestral skirmishing practices, head on over to Toikiri, either on Instagram or on their webpage. So go check it out. But we're stepping into episode two with Julie Palma-Pengali, here with clip number two.
Speaker 1:I think that's where my education in Māori visual arts was very much about looking for the abstract concepts and the abstract language first. It was really full grounding on surveying everything and understanding our language, how that sits with our language, which is a metaphor. So if you say the language is a metaphor, the visual language is a metaphor.
Speaker 2:I wanted to share this clip with you because I think it's important to realize that you know, not only is it essential, even if you have a booklet that shares the patterns, designs, symbols, motifs that your ancestors used to mark their skin, it's important to find a foundation of your ancestral visual language, foundation of your ancestral visual language. So, going to museums, going to your community, looking into the books that have been written about your ancestors and finding a really firm foundation that relates to your ancestors visual language, the stories that your ancestors told and as much as you are possible to connect with your ancestral oral language, so these are kind of the foundations and the building blocks. And then I would also say the next foundation, as we'll explore later in this episode, is going out onto the land that your ancestors inhabited and that you have rights. You know you have rights, relationship and responsibility too, and so, uh, this is the bedrock and the foundation is actually your visual language. So it's not even that.
Speaker 2:Uh, even if you have a record of the design, symbols and motifs that the settler, anthropologist, the colonizer recorded associated with your ancestors' tattooing, go into the record of your ancestral visual language and find your inspiration there, and that is actually the bedrock, so that you know and you have an idea of, maybe, a pattern that somebody hasn't interpreted before, but because you have that grounding in your ancestral visual language, you can interpret those patterns in a way that is connected to your ancestors and helping to bring them forward to today. This next clip is with Tehoti, who is from Tahiti, and I recorded this clip in 2015 while I was in Auckland. I recorded this clip in 2015 while I was in Auckland staying at Terry's house for the Indigenous Ink Tattoo Festival that he hosted back there in 2015. And so this clip is powerful and I hope you enjoy it, but the meaning?
Speaker 5:who educate us? So big challenge. We don't know nothing, but I believe we're inside a gene. Our ancestors made us Short but powerful clip.
Speaker 2:Too often we allow the insistence of objectivity to creep into our thinking, and I've heard it said many times before that we don't actually understand how colonized we are. And so, as we move into this practice, I like to keep these words of Tehote in my mind as I think about these practices. You know, so often we feel really down and defeated because we don't know what this means. What does it mean? What does this symbol mean? Like Tehote shares that that's not a problem because of blood memory. You know this concept of blood memory the memory of your ancestors, ancestral practices are in your DNA, in your genes.
Speaker 2:John Trudell, the Native American activist and poet, shares that we want to learn about the old ways when he says that, no, we really just have to remember. So it's really. This is a practice about remembering those things that our ancestors have left in us through our ancestral DNA. And so this is the place that you go to look for some of that inspiration, some of that value, and I would also say this is one of the reasons why the folks who try to take our stuff Nahant shares that the artwork that non-Indigenous people do, that are associated with, that are inspired by, that are a copy. The theft of our ancestral design, symbols and motifs is a form of genocidal artwork, and so this is why one of the ways that this connects to that argument around cultural appropriation is that this is connected to our blood. This is connected to who we are and comes through our ancestors and helps us to move forward for our communities and to use these things in the way that we decide to use them.
Speaker 2:So we're going to go into the next clip, which is Julie Pamapangali, and this clip is actually not part of the podcast. That is actually from an interview I did with julie in preparation for a documentary film around my journey to visit all of the artists in the true tribal exhibition that I co-curated with the iota institute and mire bourgeois, and it's a powerful little statement, and maybe I'll release it to the podcast or more publicly and widely in its full form once the documentary is out. But I thought it was appropriate to share this clip with you because the words that Julie shares so relate to this conversation that we're having.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, apart from the bureaucracy that can be different from place to place, I think it's essential that you visit them. I mean, the first thing is they deserve your presence. Is they deserve your presence, you know, because in a lot of senses they've been, you know, isolated from the love that they had, I guess for want of a better word and that you claim them as a First Nation or Indigenous person, that you claim your right to do it. They are the key, actually, to unlocking a lot of things, and, for a lot of people, the experience of a material object sparks their realization of what their journey actually is.
Speaker 2:So Julie begins this clip sharing that you know it actually is our responsibility to visit our ancestral material, ancestral visual and material culture in the places that they are found.
Speaker 2:You know one of the places you know. Of course, julie, in the beginning, says that you know the bureaucracy to visit your ancestral visual material culture that's housed in museum collections, private collections, in university collections. You know the bureaucracy. The way that you go about visiting those things is different everywhere, but the beginning is always to go to their website, check out their website, have a good read through and find out some of the objects that are there. Send an email to them and say hey, my name is Dion Kazas, I'm from the Antiqua nation, I'm a community researcher, because you really are. You're doing research for the revival of your ancestors, tattooing, introduce yourself and let them know that you are going to be coming to visit your ancestral collection, some of the objects that are associated with your community. And you know Julie says that in her quote in Julie shares that in this clip that we just listened to that it's important that we visit these objects, not only for our own benefit, for actually for their benefit. My friend Mel Lefebvre talks about these objects are actually our kin. You know these objects need to be visited. You need to let them know that we're still here and that we're still alive. When I think about that, I think about some of the phrases, or the way that Keone Nunez talks about it in terms of the Hawaiian, about it in terms of the Hawaiian ancestral objects that you know. You want to help to renew the mana, the energy, the life force of those objects, those beings, those kin that are housed in museum collections, because some of them have not been visited by one of our people in hundreds of years two hundreds of year, you know, to 100, 200 years who knows how long it's been? And so go and visit these ancestral objects, not only for yourself and for your practice, but also to revive them, to give them more energy and more life force so that they can help us to move into the next phase of our communities and our cultures resurgence.
Speaker 2:And then, the last thing that I'll just key in on that Julie talked about is the. She says this is the key. These objects are the key to our ancestral revival movements, because these are the things that our ancestors touched, these are the things that our ancestors left and these are the things that our ancestors touched, these are the things that our ancestors left and these are the things that were important to them, that helped them to navigate through their life. And so it's time and opportunity for you to go there.
Speaker 2:And the reality is, as Julie shares, it's not just the tattooing that will revive you. It's actually the visiting of these objects, maybe the thing that starts you on a journey to find out who you truly are, as an Intacama person, as a Cree person, a Mari person, a Tongan person, etc. And so go visit these objects. It's important that we visit them, and this is the key to the revival of your ancestors tattooing. And so we're going to go back to episode 10 with Terry Kodomatangi, the Tongan Sami practitioner, and we're going to hear what he has to say relating to this topic of researching our ancestral visual language.
Speaker 4:I think it was 2018, I think it was.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I got the opportunity to go to Switzerland as part of a kind of arts conference and through that I got to meet the curator of the Museum of Cultures I think that's what it's called Museum of Cultures in Basel, basel, switzerland, and you know, I'd arranged with her to visit the collection and visit the storeroom and, you know, see if there were any kind of Tongan objects in there that might be of interest and other objects that may not, any kind of Tongan objects in there that might be of interest, and and and other objects that may not be identified as Tongan but I might be able to identify as Tongan.
Speaker 4:Yeah, you know, and uh, we went, so she was kind enough to uh to take, take, take me to the storeroom and, uh, we went out the back and we were looking at kind of an area, a section that was kind of western Polynesia, so it had some Fiji, samoa, tonga those were probably the three main areas that it covered and she pulled out this like probably like a shoebox size archival box and she said, oh, there's, you know, there's probably there's a few things here that might in, here, that are, that are from this region.
Speaker 4:There might be something in there that's of interest to you and it was bro, it was literally, like you know, shoebox and just everything like the junk drawer. Yeah, pretty much, it was that junk drawer right, yeah, just the one just above the plastic bag drawer.
Speaker 4:Yeah, um, yeah so. So she opened up the box and we just, you know, started and pulling things out and looking and I recognized a couple of things like uh, there was a, there was a feke loa like an octopus loa in there. So I was like, oh yeah, that's cool. And we got to this little, almost cleared the box out and then I saw this kind of like this little bone sort of object.
Speaker 4:That was, you know, kind of yay, big, yeah, and I was like whoa so I kind of picked it up and sort of there was a little tag kind of hanging off it and it was, and it said it was a tattooing needle from Tonga.
Speaker 4:And I was just like man, I was floored instantly because you know, I'd been researching Tongan tattooing and kind of mark making for some time at that point and the reason I was there was to give a talk on tattooing and sort of share what I, I guess, my research to date. And there were descriptions of tattooing that you know, of dots and kind of small markings that to me, I don't know, just sounded like they would be made with some kind of hand poke tool. You know, because it's just kind of made. As a practitioner you start to kind of understand all that that would work for this and that might not work for that. And and I was just like, yeah, I was completely floored and you know I'm holding this it's a beautiful little object and on the end of it the very tip was snapped off so it was potentially you know that much longer again and it was just all stained in black ink and you know it was a discovery of a hand poke, a Tongan handged tattooing tool.
Speaker 2:So this is an exciting part of the work of researching your ancestral visual language is that by visiting our kin that are housed in museum collections and private collections, it is an opportunity to dig deeper into these things that we've only scratched the surface. Many of the books that are out there that we use as references by past and present anthropologists, academics, are you know, even the things that I have written are actually just scratching the surface of the knowledge that is housed in these collections that are scattered across the entire world. Many times that we reserve ourselves to looking at the collections that are found in our own country, in our own small community. But it's important to look not only within your current community, within your current country, even the current continent. It's important to go overseas to look into collections because the reality is, as a practitioner, you have a certain eye that an anthropologist or a researcher who is a non-practitioner does not have. You have a certain type of knowledge that is associated with doing the work, things that have been set dormant from the anthropological scrapings of our culture, the stripping of our communities, kin, our communities, ancestral visual material culture, in many times and in many cases was collected during the outlawing of our ancestral festivals and practices, our governmental systems, like the potlatch. Many of the objects that are housed in museum collections came from those times of outlawing and banning of our culture, and so when we go to these places, we have the opportunity to find some little gems that have never been found before.
Speaker 2:Community because not everything is not everything needs to be shared with everyone, because the reality is is that, you know, even from my own experience of sharing with non-Indigenous practitioners, sometimes the knowledge that I share, just because of that friendship that we have, is taken advantage of, is taken and used and manipulated and transformed in a certain type of way that allows them to think that they are justified or in some way gives them validation to use the knowledge that I've shared with them, which isn't cool, it hurts and you know maybe that'll be dealt with at some time, but you know it's opportunities like this. To go out and do this research is to find things that have never been found before and then, like Terry says, that knowledge that you have as a practitioner, you know, take courage in that, take that to heart, because the reality is is that you are the expert if you have been doing this work for a little bit of time because nobody else has been doing this work. So you are the current and contemporary expert on your ancestors tattooing, and I would say that expert maybe isn't the appropriate term because I don't ever claim to be an expert, but I have built a strong relationship with my ancestors tattooing, and so you are the one who has the strongest relationship with your ancestors tattooing, and so take that to heart and know that when you go into these places, you will have knowledge that curators, anthropologists, will not have simply from being in the trenches doing the work with your community. Hey there, listeners, it's Dion Kazas, your host from the Transformative Marks podcast, where we dive deep into the world of Indigenous tattooing, ancestral skin marking and cultural tattooing.
Speaker 2:If you found value in our episodes we've made you laugh or you've learned something new consider showing your support by buying me a coffee on ko-ficom. Ko-fi is this incredibly creator-friendly platform where you can support me directly for just the cost of a cup of coffee. No subscriptions, no hidden fees, just a simple one-time gesture that goes a long way in keeping me on the air Plus. Ko-fi doesn't take a cut, so every penny goes directly into improving the podcast, from updating equipment to visiting with new guests as I go into recording Season 2. And you'd like to help me keep the lights on.
Speaker 2:Head over to my Ko-Fi page, wwwko-ficom. Forward slash transformative marks. The link is in the show notes. The next clip that we're going to is with Tanya Willard, a Schwetmuck artist, activist and professor at the UBC Okanagan campus, and this was a powerful conversation I had with Tanya in episode 44. So if you missed that episode, head on back a couple episodes to check out episode 44 with Tanya Willard and we talk about the revival and resurgence of interior Salish artistic forms in that conversation. But here's the next clip for our episode 48, researching your ancestral visual language.
Speaker 6:I had to learn to also pay attention to kind of what my insides were saying yeah. And to value that in the same way as some of the textual records and you know I tend to be, uh, really invested visually and emotionally and sometimes I'm not paying attention to like details, uh and so I learned some of that, but also learned that there's details in inside ourselves that we need to pay attention to too, and they're just as valid. So yeah, you know, sometimes you bring stuff back.
Speaker 2:It's important to kind of you know, cleanse yourself going in leaving, but also I feel like, yeah, you learn so much.
Speaker 2:This is a powerful clip in a variety of ways. The first thing I'd like to pull from this clip is to warn you many of you will know that some of the objects that you're going to be visiting in museum collections either were taken in a very violent way through confiscation and the outlawing of our practices, like the potlatch ban in the late 1880s, or some of these objects were actually used for the healing by our medicine people. They actually might be objects that were created to cure a sickness, to take some negative energy or to send out negative energy. So you know, it's important to be conscious as you enter into these places and when you leave these places, that you cleanse yourself. So, whatever your ancestral teachings are around cleansing yourself, take the opportunity to do a smudge or go wash, go to the water. Any of those things that your elders have taught you or that you've picked up on your journey to help you spiritually cleanse yourself is important. And as we talk about smudging, one thing I really want to emphasize is just make sure you're smudging with the things that come from your community, because the stripping of sage from the California region is actually having a devastating effect on those plants that come from there, and so the white sage that you gather from, sometimes the gift shop or online on they probably sell it on Amazon, who knows? But you know those things are actually stripped, poached, I would say, from the California region, which is where that sage grows. And so find the stuff that comes from your community, find the smudge and the sage or the other things that your community used to cleanse. So that's just an important thing that I wanted to bring up, because, you know, my friend, heidi Harper Lucero and Sage Lapina brought forward a video, made it conscious, brought it to my consciousness that many of these things are actually collected illegally and it's actually devastating the plant population of white sage out in California. So you know, do your part and find the things that are actually from your community that help you to cleanse yourself and look into that and make sure that you're not destroying the white sage population. And the next thing that, the next reason I shared this clip from Tanya is that you know it's important not only to gather the accession notes, maybe some of the archival material related to the objects you're visiting, but, as Tanya says, to be conscious and to take into account the internal knowledge that you're gaining, you know, when you go and visit these objects, sometimes there's something that's happening inside, some intuition, some thoughts, some feelings that are happening when you're visiting these objects, and so these are important things to take in and apply to your tool belt as you do this work. So it's not just visiting that visual knowledge that you're gathering, but also that internal knowledge, that intuitive knowledge that you gather when you're visiting these objects. So it's important.
Speaker 2:This is one way of like re-indigenizing, decolonizing our research. A lot of times people will ask well, where did you get that? Where did that come from? Et cetera, et cetera. Well, this is the blood memory, this is the knowledge that has been left in my genes that I'm just remembering. You know, I don't have to learn that knowledge. That knowledge is already there, and so, you know, this is where those comments from Tehoti and Tanya begin to merge together and build a relationship in my mind and in my heart, and so that's why I share these things, because it's an opportunity for you to build a relationship with these thoughts and ideas, and this is the way that we are taught to do this work.
Speaker 2:For me, I think about the weaving methodology.
Speaker 2:Research methodology that I developed in my master's thesis is a basketry weaving methodology, where we weave all of these voices, these thoughts, together so that we can come to a fuller understanding of the topic at hand.
Speaker 2:And today, that is researching and working with your ancestral visual language, and some of these are principles that will help you as you go out into the world. We probably will get a little bit more technical down the line, but, yeah, these are the things that I've brought forward as we move through this topic and the next conversation that we'll be looking at, the next clip we'll be looking at as we look at these tips for researching your ancestral visual language. This clip comes from Tristan Jenny Sanderson Cree, ancestral skin marker and professional tattoo artist based out of Edmonton. Tristan and I had a conversation in an earlier episode, but this clip actually comes from a conversation and interview I did with Tristan for the documentary I'm working on that documents the True Tribal exhibition that I curated at the beginning of 2024 that opened in the Museum of Vancouver, which is now closed, unfortunately. However, this is a powerful quote, some knowledge that Tristan shares with us about her practice and the work that she does around ancestral skin marking.
Speaker 7:You know there will be a lot of times when people kind of give me a little like, oh, you know, I kind of want a wolf and I'm like, okay, perfect, you know where do you want to put it, and then that's all we give. And then at the tattoo, you know, at the tattoo appointment, when I have it all drawn out, we'll look and they'll be like this was for my anniversary. And you know that that one tattoo I did it was in a heart shape with floral and there was a mountainscape in the back with a wolf. And, uh, I picked a mountain in Jasper and she was like, how, how did you know? She's like this was for my anniversary.
Speaker 7:And I met my husband in Jasper and she was so like baffled and I was like, wow, like it was just something that come to my dream. You know, I woke up and then I drew it and you know I was like, okay, this is. You know, this is what I have to show her if anything ever does need to change. You know I'm always like flexible with anything, but yeah, it was very. It's kind of stuff like that. You know it's that's how they kind of speak through me and it's happened more times than I can count of, just you know, and I'm like wow, okay, like thank you for being in tune.
Speaker 2:So this quote brings forward another way of decolonizing our research and another way of decolonizing our practice as ancestral skin markers is. A lot of times we look to the anthropological or the colonial way of researching and doing things, and the reality is is that our ancestors speak to us through our dreams as well as our intuitive reactions to situations, and so this is a powerful quote and a testimony of Tristan about how her process of designing, or their process of designing, manifests into reality. You know, it's so powerful to realize that, you know, without knowing, we are developing these patterns, these designs, and when we talk to our clients, they're like, oh, actually, this is why, uh, this is how that relates to my, my own life. I think about this and I think about, uh, the body suit that I'm working on with Stephen Racoma and we're doing, uh, a chess piece, and there was just a little tiny piece left from the design that as I was building it, and so I just put an interesting little form in there, not really thinking about what it represented or what it actually looked like. It was just that was the space that was left, and I put some fun little designs in there, and as I talked to Stephen. He was like hey, you know, like this looks like a war paddle for our canoe, because Stephen is a skipper for his community's canoe, and so it's pretty awesome to know that, intuitively, when we do these designs and we develop these tattoos, that our ancestors are speaking and working through us.
Speaker 2:Yes, I think that it's important for us to check ourselves sometimes to see if the things that we're doing, you know, fall in line with the principles that we understand from our ancestral stories. Sometimes, you know, it's easy to be what would you say fooled, to allow our ego to fool ourselves. But when we check ourselves and we check back in with our practitioner, friends or community members or elders, those mentors that we have in the work you know, we can begin to see that, you know, maybe that intuition that you're following, maybe that dream that you had has moved out and is following along the principles that your community has put forward for dreaming. And so you know, that's another piece of knowledge that you can look into is, you know, how have your, how has your ancestors, what are the principles that they have for interpretation of dreams? So I'll be looking again at Tehoti, who is from Tahiti, tahitian practitioner. I did this interview in 2015 at the Indigenous Ink Tattoo Festival hosted by Terry Kulomatangi, and we are going to listen to Tehoti.
Speaker 5:Revival, but it's not easy. Now we're going back to 2000. So how? Because I don't have any reference, even if at that time there was internet. Even if you go on the internet, you're not fine, because the missionary raised everything.
Speaker 5:It was very sad, so we lost him. So what I'm doing is a big challenge as an artist. This is 2000. I think and I think. So what can I do to bring the tension up? And one night it ignites? Okay, yes, I think I find the answer. I am in Tahiti, so I know all symbol. It's just around me in the land. So what I'm doing? I tell me fear, close. Okay, we have our own fish in Tahiti. I take all the fish, the design, it has a name. We have our own trees, tahiti Rivers, mountain, they all have a name. We have a bird, we have a gecko too. We have a turtle, and all have a name.
Speaker 5:Luckily, I speak very well in my Indonesian. I grew up my dad, dad maybe a turtle and all that happened. Luckily, I speak very well my Indonesian. I grew up with my dad. My mom and dad speak almost no French, luckily, so I grew up with my language. So exactly what does it mean? All that I write, all those animals on the land, all the animals in the sea, all the animals in the bird, the air, the stars, all that Intention, waves, reef, lagoon, valley, as all name or temple, and from that and a design, each word Okay. My design that's when I say this is from Tahiti and I create my own style from that when I heard about Teodi's practice of reviving Tahitian tattooing, it absolutely floored me.
Speaker 2:So you know, it's just absolutely mind-boggling that we allow the anthropological boxes and the colonial boxes to keep us stuck within these really rigid and defined ways of thinking and being in the world. And Tehote says in this clip no, I'm not going to accept those things, just because I can't find examples of my ancestors tattooing and my ancestors art and our visual language. The reality is is that my ancestors were inspired by the land, the place that I live in. You know I'm in Tahiti, and so he says you know I have to look out onto the land, so it's the birds and the fish and the trees and the mountains and the water that actually inspired my ancestors to originally create the design, symbols, motifs and patterns that inhabit Tahitian art. And then the second thing that he talks about, which you know it was just amazing. You know, tehote writes his ancestral word for that specific fish, writes the specific Tahitian word for that mountain or that tree or that plant or that animal, and from the visual you know the internal visual creation of the metaphor that's found in that Tahitian word for that being, he creates a design from it. So, even though you may not have references from your community's ancestral visual language, your ancestors were inspired to create their visual language from your lands and territories, and so go out onto the land, go out onto your territories, visit and become familiar with the place that you are from, and this is the way that you begin to develop your ancestral visual language from the land and from your ancestral oral language.
Speaker 2:These are some of the foundational pieces for working with your ancestral visual language. So a lot of times we feel down, we feel sad. You know, I've had many conversations with people over the years who, you know, haven't been able to find a storehouse of knowledge that is associated with their tattooing and or their ancestral visual language. Maybe they don't have access to a museum that is in Ottawa or a museum that is in England. So it's easy go out onto the land, start to develop your ancestral visual language from the things that inspired your ancestors.
Speaker 2:As gourd said in episode 46, we talked about the language of the land, and so gourd says, yes, colonization has implanted a structure, a new structure on the land, but the rivers are still the same, the lakes are still the same, the oceans are still the same, and so it's from that ancestral territory and geography that you bring forward your ancestral visual language. So for this next clip, we're going to go to episode 14, with Q Bidwa, a Maori Moko, who's speaking, again, uh in a similar vein to uh, episode 46, with gourd talking about the language of the land, and also this past clip that we heard from tihoti um. So we're just going to have a listen and then I'll uh share some of the ways that I've built a relationship with this clip and the words and knowledge shared by.
Speaker 8:Q. The way we design our work is based on our environment. So we look at the fish, yeah, and and, and we use those patterns to say that, hey, this person is an ocean dwelling person. Yeah, we use um seafood to show that, oh man, this fellow comes from a specific sub-tribe. For example, our sub-tribe over here in Tauranga, or Ngāti Tapu, we have a flounder, and a flounder for us is what we call a kaitiaki. So if we walk around and we see someone walking around with a flounder, we know that that person comes from Matapi. Wow. And another example is we have round mud snails, we call them titiko, and we sort of are known within our tahuna or our bay for having a lot of titiko. So if you see titiko in designs and patterns which are beautiful spiral patterns too you know that that person is from within the tahuna. Wow, yeah. So everything's environmental for us, see, yeah, and we are a reflection of our environment. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:There's a little tiny piece in here that I like to pull forward. You know, as I say, it's a little tiny thread that I like to pull on, and it's this idea that a lot of times, people, when they think about our ancestral visual language or developing a ancestral visual language based on our environment, a lot of times they think about that in a very, what would you say like realistic way of rendering that. And so they think about a mountain. It has to be, you know, a realistic representation of that mountain, that specific mountain. Or they think about a specific animal. It has to be actually a rendering of that animal, almost like a what would you say, a silhouette of that animal.
Speaker 2:But in this clip, q talks about the spiral pattern that comes from that snail, and so it's actually the patterns that these beings have that can be the inspiration have, that can be the inspiration.
Speaker 2:So it's not just, you know, a realistic rendering or representation of the snail, it's actually the pattern that is found on the snail that represents that and that actually gives a clue to where that person is from, because it's actually that specific place is where those snails are from. So this is just another clue on the way to go about finding inspiration, contemporary inspiration to build your ancestral visual vocabulary and your ancestral visual language from your land and so you know, is that hoof prints or the prints that come from the intestines of a specific animal, are there patterns that are found in the way that you tan the hides. You know, etc. Etc. These are just examples of ways of finding inspiration for developing an ancestral visual language that can help you in your ancestral tattooing practice. So the next clip comes from episode two and is with my friend Julie Pamapangali, and this is another awesome little clip that punches a lot of power. That punches a lot of power.
Speaker 1:It's not the ritual that locates it, it's not those things that locate it. It's actually deeply embedded in the language. That connects us to why we actually do it and why it manifests who we are.
Speaker 2:So in this clip Julie talks about a lot of times there is an argument that it's the ritual, it's the prayers, it's the things that are done prior to the work, the tattooing work, that make it the thing.
Speaker 2:Language is the most important part, and this is one of the reasons I bring this forward is a lot of time we have this conversation around ancestral tools and technology, which are very important and powerful things and processes that we can go through that help us to reconnect.
Speaker 2:It's another level of reconnection back to our ancestors, but it's not those things that actually connect us back. It's actually the ancestral visual language that connects us back, and so it's just important to you know, bring forward this reality that, just because you don't know, there's no need to have shame around not knowing what that ceremony is, or that protocol is, or that story, that chant that is related to your ancestral tattooing practice. It's actually the patterns, and so that is, as Julie said in the beginning, that is the key to this work, and so go and do the work to find your ancestral visual language. So the next clip comes from the documentary that I'm working on around true tribal, and this is Terry Kolomatangi, tongan and Sami practitioner, and this is around working with your ancestral visual language you know, there's a term which is like, it's like the, the, the point where things grow from.
Speaker 4:You know it's the and it's the, it's the, it's an ancestral point, it's a point where, yeah, where things kind of well from and evolve from. So I love you know, I'm constantly looking at the marks and the visual language of the ancestors. For sure, you know, that's always a starting point, but I'm also really interested in what happens when I start playing with these things as an artist. That's kind of part of our job, right, we explore the possibilities of things and I think it's important, you know, even as we are working within that sort of traditional space, that we give ourselves permission to explore and and and be bold with it. You know, and it's coming from us, so it's coming from ancestors, yeah yeah.
Speaker 2:So again, uh, here's another clip, uh, from terry talking about, uh, the visual language, you know being inspired by coming from the ancestors and then sharing.
Speaker 2:That is our responsibility to begin to evolve these things, to work with them, to play with them, to manifest them into our current contemporary reality in a way that speaks to our creativity. So it's just a powerful little clip that talks about, yes, we need to reach back and, yes, we need to find all of the things that our ancestors left for us, but in the end, we really need to begin to work with them, and that it's our responsibility as artists to develop these things and to move them forward into our contemporary practice. We can't leave these things in the past. This idea of authenticity sometimes freezes us into the past and doesn't allow us to do the work we need for our people today, because we are trying to emulate the past and we don't want to do do that. We want to reach into the past and bring those things into the present for the future. So this next clip is from my conversation I had with Tehoti, who is a Tahitian practitioner, and we'll just listen. Have a listen here, but take the idea.
Speaker 2:I can't take it because they make me, because I'm the descendant no problem, I wanted to include this clip, uh, because it really brings home, uh, this conversation, and I've heard it a lot of times in the past. You know I don't want to self-appropriate, which is like such an interesting concept that you know we are applying this concept of appropriation, cultural appropriation, to ourselves. And in this clip, tehote says it's not a problem, I'm a descendant of the ancestors, I can use it no big deal. And so, as Terry said in the previous clip, you know, this is giving you permission to experiment with your ancestral visual language, of course guided by your elders and the knowledge keepers from your community. But this is your permission, because it's your right, and Terry argues that it's your responsibility, and I would also say, yes, it's time for us to take up these things and to break free from the anthropological boxes. Let's not be scared to work with our ancestors' visual language, and it's our responsibility to do so. So this is your permission to do that work.
Speaker 2:Just stepping into our last and final clip for this, episode 48 of the Transformative Marks podcast, I said 10 tips for researching your ancestral visual language, but it's a little more than 10 clips, 10 tips. It's actually just some tips on researching your ancestral visual language and working with it, researching your ancestral visual language and working with it. And so we're going to the episode that contains Q Bidwa's conversation I had with Q when I was at Toikiri in 2023. And so, again, just honored to be able to visit with my Maori friends in New Zealand, in Aotearoa, and we'll just go to Q for this final quote or clip for this episode 48.
Speaker 8:Yeah, because it's not about just taking the designs from our ancestors, it's about progressing them as well. Yeah, you know, because that's what they do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they progress their designs all the time, yeah, so it's taking what they've given us and being able to progress it through our environment today I guess the reality is is that these last three clips are probably all related to the same topic, and that topic is your right and your responsibility to progress and evolve this practice. You know so often, even in the court system, the colonial court system, they make us prove that we have a continued use of our lands and our territories and our cultures and they require us to prove that our current contemporary practices, our cultural practices in the current day, resemble and look like our ancestors' practices. So we're really actually doing the work of revival in the contemporary time in a way that speaks to and allows us to move forward into the future, breaking free of that colonial box which says that our practices have to look like what they used to look like. That is agreeing with the colonizer, that says that we are not allowed to evolve as a community, as a culture, we're not allowed to begin to develop and to evolve these practices so they fit us today. And you know the reality is is that Europeans are not living in castles anymore, europeans are not riding horses anymore as their main mode of transportation, and so why does our ancestral practices have to look like the past when theirs didn't? And you know it's important for us to progress these things.
Speaker 2:Having said all of that, I would say that it's important to also balance our progression, our evolution, our moving forward and pushing of our ancestral practices into the future, because we have to make sure that they're still connected to the past and still connected to the principles that are told in our stories and our elders share with us. And so, you know, don't be too quick to run way, way, way ahead. Make sure that you're still connected, make sure that you're still moving, make sure that you're still moving in the way that you know we need to move forward. You know, this is actually one of the things that you know I always struggle with, to be honest, because I'm always about pushing forward. I'm always trying to move things ahead and to evolve things, and so I'm always reminded by the bear, by the elder, by the wisdom of the elders to, you know, slow down a little bit, take the time that I need to to move these things forward. And so you know it's important to do that as well, and so that's why I always really, really appreciate the words and thoughts of Keone. You know, one of you know a mentor. I would say. You know, I always say a mentor, because in the beginning of my work it was actually Keone's words that helped me to move through the work. Words that helped me to move through the work, not necessarily because I had a relationship with him at that time, but because those words were shared in documentary films or written in books and articles about him, and so it was his words that helped to balance me out. And so I'm always thinking about some of those things that Keone says to try and help balance out my personal reality of trying to push, always move forward, always evolve, always progress these things carefully and gently but boldly. Because it's our responsibility to visit our ancestors visual, material culture, whether that's in museum collections, whether that's out on the land, visiting pictograph or petroglyph rock art sites, whether that is to visit the rivers and the oceans and the lakes where our ancestors found their subsistence lifestyle from, whether that's climbing into the mountains or into the valleys to pick those roots for the baskets, whether that's moving out into the world of researching anthropological textbooks. You know, do those things carefully and gently but boldly, because this is the work that we need to do for the revival of our cultures and our communities, not just our tattooing practices.
Speaker 2:Hey everyone, thanks for stopping by and taking this journey with me through this episode. I hope you enjoyed it. I'll just ask that you would go and subscribe, if you haven't already done so and if you have subscribed, thank you very much. I appreciate you. Following this journey, I just want you to remember that, no matter who you are, where you're from, what you've done or what you've been through, that you are amazing, that you are loved and that we need you here today and going into the future, so that we can transform this world for the better through our collective thoughts, actions, feelings and our compassion for each other as human beings.
Speaker 2:Head on over next week's episode, where I'll be talking to Injilkatmuk community member Lena Nicholson about the revival and the intersection of Interkatmuk language and Interkatmuk tattooing, and we will talk about Lena's embodiment of Interkatmuk black work and the receiving of a full sleeve. Remember, every coffee helps me to bring you the content that you love. So head over to my Ko-Fi page and let's make something great together. 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.