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
Inked Stories: Indigenous Sovereignty and the Power of Consent with Dion Kaszas and Friends
#054 What if reclaiming your cultural heritage could transform your identity, heal past traumas, and empower your future? That's the journey we're on as we conclude the first season of the Transformative Marks podcast. This episode brings together voices from across the globe, including insights from cultural tattoo practitioner Nahaan, who sheds light on the complexities of cultural appropriation and its impact on Indigenous communities. We celebrate the resurgence of ancestral tattooing, a powerful act of cultural resistance, healing, and empowerment, that reinforces the connection to land, identity, and community.
Join us as we navigate the intricate landscape of Indigenous sovereignty and the profound role tattooing plays in this ongoing struggle. Through conversations with guests like Geanna Dunbar and Keith Callahoo, we explore the critical importance of consent and creating safer spaces within the tattoo industry. We draw parallels to movements like Me Too, underscoring the responsibilities of practitioners in safeguarding mental health and fostering an environment of respect. By sharing personal stories and community insights, we honor the sacredness of these practices and the resilience of Indigenous peoples.
As we wrap up this season, I express my deepest gratitude for the voices and allies who have supported and enriched these conversations. Guests such as Julie Pama-Pengelly and Hacki Williams remind us of the importance of cultural exchange and innovation in preserving our heritage. We urge our listeners to continue supporting the revival of these meaningful traditions, standing in solidarity with Indigenous communities. By doing so, we honor not only the past but also the transformative power of tattooing for personal and cultural healing.
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:
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I acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, ArtsNS and Support4Culture
thankful that I've been able to bring to life two Intacat McBlackwork bodysuits. I'm working on the third and I'll be sending out a call out for a participant for a fourth bodysuit. 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.
Speaker 1:Welcome to episode 54, the final episode of season one of the Transformative Marks podcast. 54, the final episode of season one of the Transformative Marks podcast. I'm excited that you have journeyed with me this time over this past year all 54 episodes. If you're new and this is your first episode, head on back to episode one and begin there. I would suggest it builds a strong foundation for the things that we're discussing now. But that's not necessary because this will be a standalone episode which you can understand as it sits on its own and stands on its own. We'll be exploring the voices of many of my past guests. I'm going to share a bit of commentary on some of the things that they share, not necessarily an explication or, like it will be, a story of the relationship that I have built with the words that they have spoken, not necessarily a rehashing of the things that they say. So I like to give the honor the voices that people share, because I think that's important, and I'm just going to share the relationship I've built with the things that they have said. So this is my understanding and my interpretation and the story of my relationship to the things that each of these guests share. And I would like to just do a quick shout-out to the Canada Council for the Arts, who have helped to support this project from the beginning. I would also like to shout out Arts Nova Scotia and Support for Culture, as they have supported a number of the episodes throughout the years and going into the next season, season two, they've supported close to 15 episodes so far. So thank you to them. I would also like to shout out Iota Institute and the crew over there who helps me with my projects as a project manager and grant writers. And then I would also, as we are moving into this episode, I would just like to shout out To Intunwa, a podcast that supports the revival of Southeastern tattooing, and I think it's An epic little podcast and if you're interested In the topic of Indigenous tattooing, I'd head over there. They got some great guests, some awesome knowledge sharing over there. So a big shout out to intunwa and, uh, the podcast there. They're available on all, uh, you know podcasting platforms, you know apple spotify, etc. Etc. So head on over to intunwa and check them out. So a big shout out and lots of support to them and the work that's happening in the southeastern, so-called United States.
Speaker 1:So we're heading to episode seven, where I speak with my friend, nahan Klinkit, tattoo artist, cultural tattoo practitioner from Seattle, washington, and in this episode we talked about a variety of things.
Speaker 1:I think we'll touch back to this episode in my conversation with Nahon a variety of times. However, in this clip we're going to listen to Nahon speak about the issue of cultural appropriation, and I don't always like talking about this topic of cultural appropriation because I think it gets way too much airtime and I definitely don't want to be known as the cultural appropriation guy, but I think it's important to discuss this topic because this is one of the topics of concern of my community, the community of Indigenous tattoo practitioners, and it's important to take up this space as we move into the conversation around Indigenous tattooing. Too many times I've heard other podcast hosts scoff at the topic and completely dismiss it, so I think it's important for me to fill that space and to begin that conversation. I'm going to share Nahon's comment through this clip and then I'll discuss it with you as we come to the end of it.
Speaker 2:You know, these colonizers want all of our beauty, but none of our struggle. Yeah, you know that struggle is what they caused yeah they don't want. They don't want to look at that, because that would make them feel, uh, either guilt or like they need to do something about it. They don't want to be accountable to what their ancestors did, but they always benefit from what their ancestors did at the same time, and they're playing us to try to pretend like it's not a not a big issue.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it actually is yeah um, but that's also you know um. These colonizers are just, that's their culture is theft yeah their culture is genocide. Their culture is destruction. Their culture is those things, yeah and um, it's hard.
Speaker 2:It's a hard pill for them to swallow yeah that it echoes out in all these different ways, even in the creative arena, yeah, where they're doing tattoos. Yeah, and um, that um idea that they don't have to listen to the people whose culture that they're stealing from is an echo of what their ancestors have done. Yeah, you know the complete disregard and dehumanization of all of our efforts, of all of our stories, all of our land. You know, and because they don't have that, they want to do, they, they can identify with it on a certain aspect, they can appreciate it visually and they can say, oh, native americans were a strong and past tense type of people, whatever, whatever. But by doing so, it is that erasure, it is that um, that um disregard. It is that sweeping their history underneath the carpet so they don't have to actually be accountable to it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, um, you know, and I've organized, uh, I wrote a, wrote a piece, and it's about reclaiming our, uh, our stance on tattooing, and I got 30 or 40 of us indigenous tattoo artists to sign that document and to agree with what we say in that and and to have that available for use towards people that we see stealing our shit yeah and to say it's not just me saying this it's not just one person's opinion, because that's one of the other things that they say oh, you're just, you know, an angry indian, you know.
Speaker 2:so that means to them they don't have to listen to the angry Indian. Yeah, but if enough of us express a common message in a way that we command you know what's happening then they have a better chance of receiving that message.
Speaker 2:You know, when we're unified, yeah, there's nothing more powerful than a fucking unification of indigenous people yeah who are organized, yeah, who know what, what the fuck needs to get done and how the fuck to do it yeah and motivated to do it, yeah, and lifting each other up in that way yeah some amazing shit can happen and we haven't even seen, no, haven't even seen a fucking a tenth, a thousandth of what that actually is.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think, because we're organizing and tattooing in these other areas, we're gonna have these conversations or like, bro, it's not just this. Yeah, bro, how can we support you guys over there? Yeah, bro, it's really happening in your community. I know it's not what they show on the news yeah I know it's not what these colonizers are saying about your people yeah so what's really happening?
Speaker 2:yeah, and how can we fucking change that? Yeah, so yeah, definitely genocidal artwork yeah um, is what these colonizers do anytime that they try to imitate our designs. Yeah, and I've always said that in front of experts on my culture who are of colonial descent yeah and, uh, they don't like that, but also it's something they have to be reminded of, yeah, because it's not their place it's not their, not their shit.
Speaker 2:Yeah and um, it's almost like if I were to take the fucking crown jewels of, uh, you know whatever, the britain yeah, the great, great stolen britain crown jewels. Yeah, and just half-assed it like, yeah, scratched up the gems and brought that around and was like, oh, this is chopped it up, yeah, and it's only like fragments and like bits and fairly, you know, barely even resembles what the fuck it actually was, you know, and uh, but you know, I think we're also saying that we're seeing a shift in the consciousness of these colonizers right now. Yeah, and it might not be happening everywhere happening everywhere, yeah, but it's happening, yeah, and when we have these real ass conversations with them, yeah, and we can spice it just enough, yeah, so we, we get our fucking message across yeah and we show up and show them, yeah, then they're able to understand a bit of that now, yeah, and what you sometimes have to do is say, yeah, you guys are fucking up.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 2:This is why, and this is how you can change it. Yeah, this will bring respect to what you're actually trying to do. Yeah, this will bring education to what you're trying to do. Yeah, this will bring kindness and consideration. Yeah, these are things that are fucking rare in our in our environment now yeah they fucking made it that way. Yeah, they fucking made the poverty. Yeah, if they wanted to change it, they could. They choose not to yeah, big time so all of that shit is established in a way to benefit them yeah and they don't want to hear that shit either.
Speaker 2:But once we point that out and say, hey, this one small portion, you could change this a little bit, yeah, and it'd fucking actually help us out.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Make it clear, lay it out. Yeah. I've recently seen some positive shit happen. Yeah. And been helped out by these folks. I call my friends now.
Speaker 7:Yeah.
Speaker 2:These colonizers who were fucking strangers before. Yeah, you know, we could see each other and not even bat an eye about each other, yeah. But now we're in a place where we're like hey, I know, I know you're about to adopt your, your relative's child. Now how is that how you feeling about that? Are you, are you ready? Yeah, you know like, oh, yeah, you know fucking. So we have like some real ass conversations about that too. Yeah, too, and so I'm happy that's happening. It needs to happen more, and when we talk about things like reclaiming what's ours, the kindness is ours.
Speaker 2:It's always been ours, the love is ours, the generosity is ours. We're reclaiming that too, and our land will return back to us, not just the fucking gatherings or you know us coming together for whatever we're going to have the authority to say. This building is here. Yeah. We're fucking taking it back.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And we're going to use it for whatever the fuck we want. Yeah big time and we're not going to pay you guys shit for it because you guys are here on stolen land. Yeah, nobody asked you to fucking come over here. Yeah, what the fuck you guys still doing over here, pretending like it's your place?
Speaker 7:yeah, yeah, it's your fucking home.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know shit like that. And then seeing seeing the colonizers, like you know, nod their head, you know like, and try to connect those dots for them too sometimes, yeah, and knowing when it's right, like discernment, knowing, like, how you're saying, knowing that discernment, yeah, if I say this to this person, it's going to benefit them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's work for me yeah but if that little bit of work is going to help out all of us, yeah, I could tell them that for for right now, yeah, I could, I could school them up, I could game, game them up on this shit. Yeah, so that they understand that I took the time that I showed them our people's kindness. Yeah, I showed them our people's generosity. Yeah, I showed them our people's love. Yeah, I'm not going to fucking do that with everybody. Yeah, but with the ones I know that were potentially down to help us back, yeah, I will. You know, it's a beautiful thing. It's a beautiful thing to see happen. Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 1:So I wanted to start this episode with this clip because it starts to lay the foundation and bring a reminder to everyone's view that this podcast is for Indigenous people, by Indigenous people. I have a variety of guests, a few non-Indigenous tattoo artists that are friends and colleagues who exist within marginalized communities themselves, but I wanted to share this episode to remind people that the foundation for this podcast is the revival and the resurgence of Indigenous peoples' relationships to themselves and then to their land and to the sovereignty of us as Indigenous nations. I don't want that to be forgotten when people listen to us talk about the beautiful parts we have to address, some of the challenging parts of this work, some challenging parts of the history of the colonial project for Indigenous people and, very specifically, for the revival of Indigenous tattooing. The simple fact that we are talking about revival speaks to the reality of colonization and genocide, and so this podcast is really about the sovereignty of Indigenous people over their own bodies, their own minds, their souls, their spirits and then, ultimately, our sovereignty as Indigenous nations to be able to have complete control over our lands and territories. Control over our lands and territories when you think about the revival and resurgence of ancestral skin marking in Turtle Island and across the world.
Speaker 1:In those places where treaties and territories have not been ceded and the treaties that were signed are not being lived up to, it's time for us to stand together to bring forward a new day in the relationship of our communities with those people and those so-called governments that occupy our lands. You know my own unceded territory. It's time for us to come together and to begin to assert our rights and our sovereignty in those places, and so I wanted to start this episode, episode 54 of season one, the final episode. It'll be uploaded on the final day, the 31st of December, and I think it was important for me to come back to this place and to talk about the sovereignty of us as Indigenous people and that the revival of our ancestral skin marking is not just to make us feel better. It's actually to help us to find a sense of responsibility for our lands and territories and begin to assert those rights in whatever way they need to be asserted. And I'm thankful for the constant reminder of friends and colleagues like Nahon, who constantly bring this back to my focus, help me to refocus and, to you know, make sure that that conversation never goes quiet. You know, when I think about this work, it's really about bringing us back together as communities, and not only just in our own individual communities, but communities of like-minded people.
Speaker 1:In the end of this episode, nahon talks about those folks, those allies, those people that we build relationships, who are outside of our Indigenous communities. But those people have to start to stand up and to move forward, and you know it's always asked, this question is always brought up well, what can I do as a non-Indigenous person person? Well, when you see Indigenous people standing for their rights and their sovereignty, it's your opportunity to come forward and to stand in the front line in front of Indigenous people who are defending their lands, their waters and their territories. Those are the things that you can do. When you see an event happening in terms of like an Indigenous tattoo school, when you see an event happening in terms of, like an Indigenous tattoo school, some type of project that's going forward, start to support with the resources that you have in your pocket, which were extracted from these lands and territories that we are stewards over, and we never ceded any type of authority over to the government of Canada or its predecessors to give the right to title in any way, shape or form. So the question and the reality of cultural appropriation is very simple that it is a continuation of a project of colonial genocide. It is another form of taking, alongside the taking of lands, along the taking of children and the taking of our spirits. And so don't do it. This is the beginning of the conversation. For me is our sovereignty as Indigenous people, our sovereignty as Indigenous beings, as well as our reclamation of the kindness and the care and the compassion. We talk about these things because these are the things that we need to bring forward into the world, because there is a vacuum that has been created in the indigenous. There's a vacuum that's been created in the tattoo community, and it's time for us to step forward and to fill that gap.
Speaker 1:I'm going to episode 16 with Gina Dunbar.
Speaker 1:We're talking about in this clip about consent and safer spaces. This is another, you know, difficult topic to address, another difficult conversation to have, but I think we need to have it because I'm continuing to hear about folks in our communities, in our movement, taking advantage of their points of privilege and their authority as practitioners, and so I'm not going to call out any names or any of that type of stuff, but I hope you're listening, and if you are texting people, you are sending messages, inappropriate messages to people. Stop it. It's time for you to stand up and to stand in the right place. If you're claiming to be a cultural knowledge holder, those things come with responsibilities. Those things come with responsibilities, and those responsibilities also involve you having a high standard for yourself as a practitioner and not taking advantage of that place of privilege and that place of authority and power that you have over your clients and the people that you work with. This is, again, a difficult topic, but one that's important to address and to look at. So we're going to episode 16 with Gina Dunbar.
Speaker 8:The Me Too movement, where women were standing up for sexual assault in different types of workspaces, and it was worldwide throughout it. So it shook a lot of every, almost every community, every community, you know. It really woke up women and gave them momentum to speak up, and what was happening specifically in my industry was women asked to be unclothed.
Speaker 8:They didn't need to be unclothed you know, uh, they would use their numbers, uh, from their consent forms and add them to Snapchat and they would tattoo them and then be like you know, this could be free. If you did this or this or this to me, or if you know you met up or you send these pictures, I'll give you a discount. Right. And with doing both piercing and tattooing, my youngest client for piercing is six years old and I've been piercing now for almost eight years eight years ish and uh.
Speaker 8:So a lot of them grow up and they become my tattoo clients, yeah, or they want to go get tattoos. So then they'll be like, hey, I want to go to this person and I'm all like, well, hey, actually this guy did this. Right, like you should, if you like, even if I don't want to do it, I'll be able to send them somewhere safer. Right, like why, you know, fine line script go to this person or this person. Right, like you only really navigate about it. The best thing that we can do is like educate our clients what's normal and what's not normal, right, and it's similar with other things too. Like, even when you're getting a massage, you don't have to be 100 naked, you know, for some things like you don't have to, and you have every right if it feels wrong yeah it probably is you know like
Speaker 8:there's a moment where you don't feel comfortable, it's probably because something is happening that shouldn't yeah, uh, no artist should be using their your number for anything else except your tattoo, like they shouldn't be texting you outside of anything. They shouldn't be adding you to apps you know they shouldn't be inappropriate ask, like, talking about, like, the underwear you're wearing or something like things like that. They shouldn't be doing that.
Speaker 8:Or even, um, if you're getting work on your, your ribs and it's under your bra like, or it's like by a bra area, you don't have to take out your, take off your bra yeah, half the time you don't even take off your shirt, you can just roll it up, tuck it in, and then that's what we have dental bibs for to protect clothing and yeah we have those barriers for a reason um you're not getting major surgery like you don't there's no reason why you need to be in like fully nude with a drape sheet over you, like there's no reason for that.
Speaker 8:Yeah, and I feel, uh, as we like the older clients get it, they know, um, but these younger clients don't know yeah, big time because right now we're in a we're at like we're at a spot in um western tattoo culture where that traditional way of teaching and running a shop is like just ending. We're at the very, very end where, like now these new shops are changing how they run. Now these new shops are backtracking and be like wait, maybe we shouldn't be doing cocaine every night in the shop.
Speaker 3:Wait what.
Speaker 8:We shouldn't be partying and doing beers and all that kind of stuff with our clients. No, we shouldn't be offering every young girl in here apprenticeship? Yeah?
Speaker 1:for sure.
Speaker 8:Just those things where they're just checking themselves a lot more, yeah, which is also super gross because it's like you're still a shitty person. You're just now doing it more stealthily, you know, like and um. It's just really important for us to speak about that too, even when I do um piercings on young folks if they're not, if the no's no yeah like if a child's six and their parents like just do it. I'm like no, they said no we're not doing it like, and that's when you teach consent yeah you know you don't want that uncle to hug you.
Speaker 8:They don't have to hug you, you can say no yeah, you know like if you don't want to wear that two-piece bathing suit at 11, you can say no you know like that's what you need to really implement.
Speaker 8:Yeah, it has to be taught, because I even think I even remember growing up like I just always knew I had to be quiet, don't stir, don't get people mad. You know like don't argue like with anything or anybody. You know, and that is taught for so many years, that you're conditioned like that. So then that follows you into your relationships, that follows you into your work. Situations where you are like oh no, I better not say no.
Speaker 8:Or you know like or I'll lose my job or he'll get mad or yeah yeah you know I better not speak up for what I want out of this relationship because I might get yelled at or you know I might get hit, or you know, like, who knows, like you never know. It's always that sense of fear that if you do speak up, something will happen and you know. And now I'm just like roll up, let it happen.
Speaker 7:I hope you do get mad.
Speaker 8:You know like totally at this point where it's just like yeah what's gonna happen?
Speaker 1:so another difficult subject to bring forward, but one that you know I'm really speaking to those in my community, in our community as practitioners, because many people's ways of going about things have been brought to my mind and to my attention. Attention, and so this is really kind of that early warning system which saying, hey, like, cut that shit out, stop texting people, stop, you know, reaching out to people in appropriate ways, stop being inappropriate in all of those type of ways. And I guess it's also another opportunity to begin the conversation of consent. When I think about this issue of consent, it's really about consent begins with knowing what you're consenting to, and so when I step into a tattoo project, I always try to be as clear with my communication in terms of what's going to be happening for the day, what's the process going to look like, you know how to dress most appropriately. You know giving all of those cues before people show up and then having a conversation during that initial, before you start tattooing, like, hey, this is my plan for the day, you know, this is how you're going to be dressed. I try to, you know, avert my view and my eyes when somebody's adjusting themselves, whether they're getting up from the tattoo bed, or getting down or moving. You know these are all things that you can use to help people to feel like they're in a safer space, and I think this will be another conversation for in the future. But I'm just bringing this forward now because I think it's important to address here as we're ending out episode 54, the final episode of season one.
Speaker 1:I know as we step into season two, I'm going to be having these conversations with future guests. We're going to be talking more specifically about some of this stuff, but it's important for me, as one of the front runners, one of the spearheads of the revival of Indigenous tattooing in Canada, to speak up and to Share that. You know, these are some of the concerns that I have as I look out into our community of practitioners, and I just ask that you know, if you're doing any of the things that Gina was discussing, that you Cut that shit out out. It's not right. You know you have a position of power and you have to acknowledge that position of power and act accordingly, because really, this is about protecting our community, this is about protecting our movement and for too long and too often, things like this get go on addressed. So, so, before you're publicly called out. Take care of that shit and move on to better ways. And so this is a little comment, a little idea that needed to go forward.
Speaker 1:I think this is another important topic to bring forward and to highlight on this final episode, this roundup, this kind of conclusion to the season as I begin to edit and to record season two.
Speaker 1:You know I know that this topic will come up again, so stop being a creep and, you know, act like you deserve the position that you have as an ancestral skin marker, cultural tattoo practitioner and professional indigenous tattoo artist. So we're heading to episode nine with Keith Callahoo. In this episode we had a great conversation and I always enjoy speaking with my good friend Keith, but in this clip we're going to talk about health, and so, as you can see, the beginning of this episode is all about some of those challenging bits that I think that are important for us to highlight, challenging bits that I think that are important for us to highlight, because sometimes in the episodes when I'm having conversations with people, I don't get an opportunity to address things or to highlight some of the things that I think are important, and sometimes at the end of an episode, when I'm in the editing suite I'm like I wish I would have said that.
Speaker 13:So this is an opportunity to uh have those discussions if we're here to do our part in helping the individual heal in the community, heal we. Well, I'll speak for myself. Is that I send it out there to anybody that's listening or watching? Is that I'm not here to gatekeep and tell you if you can tattoo? However, I really want people to take into consideration the intention may be good, but if you don't know the dangers that may come into play with not knowing about bloodborne pathogens, about what it is to have cross-contamination, I've had people come and say, well, our ancestors never wore gloves or never did this, and I say, well, our ancestors never had to contend with these superbugs or HEP and HIV.
Speaker 1:As I move into this conversation around some of the health aspects of tattooing, I just want to make it evident and knowing that when we talk about, uh, hiv, aids, uh, hepatitis, uh, mrsa, any of the blood-borne pathogens, uh, you know, this is not a comment for anyone, a looking down or a moral judgment on folks who live with some of these diseases, some of these challenging situations. I know that you know all of these things are things that happen to us as individuals who live in this society, and so in no way, shape or form, is this conversation targeted towards people who live with HIV, aids, hepatitis, mrsa, etc. But it is actually a pointed conversation to practitioners who are doing the work to ensure that we are protecting our communities so that we don't get more people sick. So I hope that's entirely clear. This is not a moral judgment on anyone, except for practitioners who are practicing unsafe practices. And so in this conversation, keith talks about bloodborne pathogens. Of course, I think that's the beginning and the foundation. So if you don't have your bloodborne pathogen certificate, go get it. You can take a course online.
Speaker 1:If there's a convention in your area, a lot of times they'll have health professionals which relate the subject of blood-borne pathogens to the practice of tattooing, and so, uh, I think the next thing that keith brought forward was the reality of blood-borne pathogens in connection to cross contamination, because really that's what you're concerned about. It's one thing to understand that how you know what HIV is, what hepatitis is, what MRSA is, all of those health things but it's actually more important for us to understand how do those things relate to the practice of tattooing? And so how are you handling your equipment? What steps are you taking to ensure that you're not cross-contaminating from one client to another? What steps are you taking to make sure that your implements are clean and sterile and disinfected? What are the steps that you're taking between clients? What are all of those steps that you're taking in terms of your setup, in terms of the steps and the protocols that you have in place to ensure that we do not contribute to the genocide of our own people?
Speaker 1:Because the reality is is that this process of colonization and genocidal treatment of our people was also related to germ warfare, was actually related to the transference of smallpox smallpox blankets being passed around, smallpox blankets being passed around. The intentional use of germs and pathogens was actually used in the genocide and the treatment of our people from the beginning of the colonial project here in Turtle Island, and so this is where that conversation, for me, starts and begins and ends is that we do not want to make our people sick. We do not want to contribute to the reality of the genocide of our people through the transference of bloodborne pathogens or things like MRSA or staph infections, etc. So take those steps that you need to to keep your community safe and do the work in a way that ensures that we are lifting each other up. I think that's what all of these three comments have actually done is to emphasize the reality that this practice is about lifting each other up.
Speaker 1:I'm thankful and I get a lot of messages about people being inspired by the things that I share on this podcast, and I feel it's a bit of my responsibility to step forward and to share some of these challenging pieces, because these things have to be addressed in our own communities and if we leave them unchecked, that's on us. And so, just sharing some of the things that I find concerning some of the things that I've always found concerning when it comes to the work of tattooing, whether it's in indigenous communities or outside of indigenous communities, you need to be trained in the health aspects of tattooing, and not only what are bloodborne pathogens, but how does that relate to your practice and what protocols have you put in place to ensure that you are not making people sick in your community? 27 with Julius, a moko practitioner from Aotearoa, and this quote, or this clip, really addresses and ties together nicely the main principle that is contained in the first three clips that we've watched so far in this episode, and so we go into episode 27.
Speaker 5:It's a rongo, a medicine, eh yeah, big time. It is. One of the biggest things for moko that I acknowledge is that it is a rongo, yeah, and it's very, very important when someone comes in to see you that that besides the aesthetics of it yeah the experience that they, that you give them.
Speaker 5:Yeah, because a lot of the times, especially within my practice, a lot of people when they come to get moko, they sometimes are getting it for help. Yeah, to help them get through something that they're going through. Yeah, and so you know, if they come in and they walk out, they've had a bad experience, you know, and they feel worse off than they come in. You know, who knows what they could do? Eh, yeah, big time. And so someone's mental health is in your hands. Yeah, big time.
Speaker 1:This is the foundational principle for the work that we do. When I think about how we interact with our clients and our collaborators and our community members, the reality is that when people come to you to get the work done, they are in a very vulnerable state, and so it's important for us to remember that somebody's mental health and their well-being is actually in our hands when they're interacting with us as practitioners, as tattoo artists. You know that is the foundational principle to remember that as people step into that vulnerable state whether that is just in that you are putting them through pain which puts them in a place of not being fully in the present. And in many places and in many ways, the reality is that when we do this work, we're doing this work in a spiritual sense and we step into that spiritual plane and that spiritual practice. We are very much putting people in a vulnerable place, and so you have to be aware and conscious of the steps that you're taking in terms of how you are caring for people, of the steps that you're taking in terms of how you are caring for people and this is also related to the practice of consent and creating safer spaces, and this is why you have to step forward and step up into the reality of your practice to ensure that you're caring for people in that cultural way. Because if you're stepping in as a cultural tattoo practitioner or an ancestral skin marker, you're actually taking a privileged position in our communities and in doing so you have to act in a way that honors that respect that people are giving you, because if you don't do that, then you're going to put us back in terms of our movement, in terms of the way that the hard work that's been done to get us here. It's going to be difficult for us to move forward if people are taking advantage of the work that they are doing.
Speaker 1:So ensure that you put this thought into your mind as you go into this work.
Speaker 1:You know, before you send that message, before you say that thing, before you take those actions, before you decide to skip a step in the setting up of your tattooing station or the cleaning up of your tattoo station, take a step back and remember that a person's mental health, their spirit, their well-being is actually in your hands. And when we think about that is actually the reality of our community. The well-being, the mental health and the well-being of our communities is actually in our hands as we take the steps to care for those who are in our community, and so we don't want to tear each other down, we don't want to tear our communities down, we want to lift each other up, and so we're stepping into episode two with Echo Alec. We talk about pain and healing, and I think this really pointedly connects to the reality of the first few clips that we've talked about in terms of creating safer spaces, in terms of the reality and the understanding that people's mental health and their well-being is in your and the sacredness of this work at the most paramount place.
Speaker 12:I'll just start by acknowledging that I am the daughter of a residential school survivor and cycle breaker for my two young children. I am the daughter of a residential school survivor and cycle breaker for my two young children. My childhood brought me to places of reaching for art for the sake of sanity and survival. Living in a very angry home and In my early teen years I had started to self-harm and my mom tried to redirect that and show me ways that I could utilize that same sourcing for pain but make it art. And so she brought me to get my very first tattoo at 13. She lied and said I was 16 and didn't really care. She's like this needs to be done. You need to understand what's possible. Didn't really care. She's like this needs to be done. You need to understand what's possible, and I think that kind of paved the way of like what was coming down the road. It really showed me what's possible in utilizing pain to support the emotional healing that we are craving as Indigenous like, especially Indigenous youth.
Speaker 1:For me it was important to bring this clip forward because it's important to celebrate the intuition of, you know, echo's mother and bringing her to finding a safer way to regulate that pain and that trauma that has been inflicted on her through the Colonial Project in the form of intergenerational trauma and the results of residential school in her family and her community. So I celebrate her mom for that and I also celebrate Echo for being able to give voice to this reality. But when I think about that, I really want to emphasize a couple of things here because I don't think that I have done this conversation enough justice. When I think about this conversation of pain and healing, I want to make sure that people know that I am not what would you say, encouraging people to engage in self-harm, cutting etc. Not placing any blame or shame on people who have experienced this or gone through this or inflicted these things on themselves. What I am actually doing is saying that let's find positive ways to inflict pain, and tattoos are one of the positive ways that we can do that in a safe way so that we can control that situation.
Speaker 1:And you know, I think this is the reality of our ancestors' practices. You know, this was a medical epistemology and understanding a medical knowledge that our people use to help us through some difficult and challenging ways and places. You know our medicine. People would use this practice of tattooing to help people to move through some of the challenges and so you know, I relate this again back to this idea of consent, this idea of the sacredness of our practice. You know, if you are putting yourself forward as a cultural practitioner, act in a cultural way, and that means to do no harm and to do your best and to not take advantage of the power that you have.
Speaker 1:And when I think about this conversation around pain and healing, I wanted to emphasize the reality that I'm not encouraging people to self-harm or encouraging people to go forward and bring pain upon themselves in a way that is not controlled or safe for their well-being and their spirit, and their spirit Seek some help. You know, seek help. Tell your family, tell your friends, your close loved ones, that you're in need of assistance If you find yourself in a place where you feel like you need to harm yourself. You know these are the challenging realities of the world that we live in, a world dominated by power and authority, and I just want to emphasize that it's important to lift each other up and hold each other care in a careful way and to honor the sacredness of life, and so that's really what I talk about, you know.
Speaker 1:That's why it's important to have this part of the conversation, as well as to understand what Julius was saying that people's mental health is in your hands, as well as the conversation around the health and safety aspects of tattooing, that you know, the sacredness of life, the reality is, is that this conversation around the sacredness of life is what guides, you know.
Speaker 1:That is the foundational principle of all of the things that have come before the conversation around cultural appropriation, because the reality is is that many of our practices, our ancestral skin marking practices, are related to foundational principles of reincarnation, the foundational principles of the transference of land title rights to fishing, also related to the healing aspects of our ancestors' practices, the use of our ancestral skin marking to support the well-being of our community, and that connects to the sacredness of life, connects to consent, connects to operating in such a way as to honor the sanctity of each human being, and then this relates, of course, to the health aspects of tattooing.
Speaker 1:So, you know, this idea of the sacredness of life is one of those foundational principles that we need to honor as we move through this work. This, you know, when I thought about bringing together these clips in the way that I brought them together. You know, this is the beginning of that transferring from some of those challenging pieces to some of the more joyful pieces, because I think it's important for us to address some of those challenging things but then also to celebrate and so this is a celebration of the reality that our ancestors knew what they were doing when they used tattooing as a healing practice, and so, whether we choose to call ourselves medicine people or not, this is the work that we do when people find a sense of who they are in their practices. So we're moving into episode 31, with Jacqueline Merritt creating safer spaces, and this is a nice clip from Jackie talking about her own practice and how she goes about creating safer spaces.
Speaker 9:I definitely feel, even stating in safe space in a lot of you know, my social media posts or when I'm connecting to people, is I feel like a lot of times our people had to be solid and like stiff and like calm and cool and collected and really in. And I feel like we're not able to receive the markings very well when we're too inside ourselves yeah, to receive, um, the markings very well when we're too inside ourselves, yeah. And then, with myself as a marker too, is like I can't be like this because I'm too stiff and I hurt myself. So creating that safe space is like, hey, if you're needing, if emotions come, let it come. Like this is your space to be able to feel, to able to feel seen and to be validated in that.
Speaker 1:Hey there, listeners, it's Dion Kazzas, your host from the Transformative Marks podcast, where we dive deep into the world of indigenous tattooing, ancestral skin marking and cultural tattooing. 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-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 two. So if you like what you hear and you'd like to help me keep the lights on, head over to my Ko-Fi page, wwwko-ficom. Forward slash transformative marks. The link is in the show notes. Dot com. Forward slash transformative marks. The link is in the show notes.
Speaker 1:So two things come up as I think about this clip of Jackie sharing and the positioning of it in this conversation for me is creating safer spaces. Number one is we talk about safer spaces because the reality is is that we don't know what a safe space for each person is, but it's our responsibility to take actions to build protocols and procedures that allow for that safety in our practices. And so it's actually your responsibility to be conscious of how you are creating a space. What are you doing in the environment that you are working in and how are you supporting the safety and security and the sanctity of that individual that you are working with? And then you know that's.
Speaker 1:The second piece was creating safer spaces. So not necessarily saying that this is a safe space, but you're creating a safer space, or doing everything that you can a safe space, but you're creating a safer space or doing everything that you can, because the reality is is that we don't know what people's triggers, what their trauma has been, and so we don't know what would make somebody feel safe. But we are letting people know that we are creating safer spaces, and so when we use that phrase, it's important that we don't abuse that phrase and put it forward and say that we're creating safety, say that we're working to create safer and more secure. This phrase safer space is that we do everything that we can, put protocols, procedures in place to ensure that we're creating a more safe space for our culture, our cultural practices and our community members as they step into our tattooing practices, into our tattooing practices. And if we're going to be using those phrases safer space or creating a safe space we don't abuse those terms to trick people, to make them feel that they are stepping into a safe space, when really you are becoming a predator on them. You know, know, be genuine in the work that you are doing and the way that you use this terminology in this, these frameworks for safety.
Speaker 1:And so when I say creating safer spaces, that means that it it's your responsibility as the practitioner to create that safety, to take the steps to make people feel comfortable in the work that you do.
Speaker 1:Whether that is buying a covering so that if somebody comes in and maybe they haven't brought the appropriate clothing, you have a way to facilitate that clothing. You have a way to facilitate that. Maybe that is buying pasties, maybe that is having a privacy barrier in your studio or your space so that when you're doing that work it's separated from everyone else. Or maybe that is sharing with the people that you're working with it, like hey, maybe that's not an appropriate conversation or the right thing to say at this very present moment, and so those are all ways of creating safer spaces, and part of that is also just having that conversation around consent. These are the things that you can, the processes and the procedures as we move forward. So, uh, we're moving into episode two with julie poma pangali, uh moko practitioner, and we're uh beginning to move forward in this conversation around knowledge and the production of knowledge, and so we'll just move into Julie's clip.
Speaker 11:I mean, that is what instinctually we've been working on to be those mediators.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 11:You know, we know, as practitioners, that we become the psychologists, you know, and quite adept at it.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 11:At managing that for our own health as well as their health.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 11:But that's, you know immediately what comes to the surface for them. And I think, and the other thing is since seeing the success of the revival, because now we're at the point where face tattooing, particularly on women, is almost like it's almost a birthright active now you know, is that it's really important that we have our say.
Speaker 11:You know that we actually and documented in every way we can, because, because in the past our proof of reason was white male history book. So it's really important that we sit in the moment and we contemplate what we want our people to hear from us. So I've learned to not be silent, because I was also a very shy person and even though I was quite smart intellectually, I processed it and kept it to myself and it wasn't until there was a growth in women practitioners that I went oh, I have a responsibility. It was their responsibility.
Speaker 11:My mentor did this and blah, blah, blah, what do you think about this? And how do I do a puhoru? And I'm going you know, my mentor did this and blah, blah, blah, what do you think about this? And how do I do a puhoru? And I'm like, oh okay, you know, I need to share stuff now and I need to look for ways that they don't have to navigate them to find their research without going through the gatekeepers. And so when people stand up and go, oh, you know, you do moko like this and you get it from this and you get it from this, and I go, no, you don't, not if you're a woman.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 11:That's not. That wasn't my journey, and I need people to know my journey wasn't that. Yeah. Because otherwise they're going and doing the wrong things. Maybe.
Speaker 1:There's a lot of good stuff in this clip. As we begin to think about the words of Julie and the process and the production of knowledge, the first thing is that taking responsibility for the recording, the documenting of our practices so that we can leave an archive for those who are coming after us, I would say, is the first thing. The second thing that comes to mind is to ensure that wherever we, and however we decide to disseminate, to share our knowledge is honored and protected by those people who are taking that knowledge and putting it out into the world, whether that's with you know people in your community or outside of your community, you ensure that that knowledge is being respected by whoever is putting it forward out into the world. And I would just argue that you know it's important to support each other in the work that we do as practitioners, honoring each other's capacity and ability, but also taking the steps that we have the ability to do to help support each other. The next thing again, it's always challenging when I hear some of the comments from you know.
Speaker 1:I would say that this podcast has really brought to my mind the reality of how challenging some of this work is as a woman or a two-spirit person, because that's not necessarily my reality but, uh, that those challenges come from, uh, men who are, uh, imposing their uh power and authority over uh, uh, these, over women and two-spirit people.
Speaker 1:So it's, you know, always challenging to sometimes have these conversations is hear these little tiny clues to what's actually being said. So, you know, let's begin to talk about that and to bring those forward and start to correct those things in our own practices and in our own communities. Yeah, but I just love how Julie, you know, asks us to take responsibility for our own actions in our own community. I just love how Julie asks us to take responsibility for our knowledge and being able to bring it forward into the world, from us to us. So we're going into episode 6 with Gordon sparks, a Mi'kmaq ancestral skin marker, professional tattoo artist and traditional woodcarver, and in this piece, this clip, we're going to listen to Gord talk about the spirit of the work.
Speaker 7:And so. But when I was working with non-natives, they were just who's the best? Yeah, you know how clean is your line? Yeah, you know who cares? I'm not a machine, I'm a human being and you're going to get the mark that you're supposed to get, yeah, and then there's that. And so that's why working people ask me do you ever go to convention? I said no. I said I haven't, because I wasn't. I wasn't with my own people at a convention and I was always with, uh and as, when I say my own people, it's not just indigenous people, because it's it's people that think of tattoo medicine the way I do. Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. If it was a non-native that thought the same way, well then we'll be hanging out together. Yeah Right, it's how I approach the medicine of tattooing. It's just, I never met anybody else but Indigenous people that think this way.
Speaker 1:So this is such a I had to bring this, quote this clip, into this final episode of season one because it got such traction. You know, final episode of season one because it got such traction. There was so many people who reacted to this in a positive way and also, especially, in a negative way. When I posted this simple clip to uh my Instagram, you know, so many people chimed in and started to discuss it and to throw shade at Gord for saying that you know it, it's not. You know how clean is your line, etc. Etc. So many people took offense to this clip so I had to bring it forward and also to have a little chat about it, and I love how Gord makes it clear that when he is talking about it, it's not necessarily. When he says his people, uh, it's not necessarily indigenous people alone, because there's a lot of folks who do the work that don't think about uh, our practices as to tattoo medicine or uh position it in that way. They're just indigenous folks doing tattoos, which is totally fine. So those are not the people he's talking about alongside uh, non-indigenous uh tattoo artists, and so I just love how he brings that forward, that it's not necessarily, you know, uh, one's uh culture or race. It's actually about the way that they see the world and way that they walk in the world.
Speaker 1:And you know, I've had my own experiences with trying to connect with non-Indigenous practitioners and a lot of times you think they get it but in reality they don't get it because they begin to use our words, our positions, our frames and their own practices and start to what would you say, position themselves in ways that appropriate our knowledge and our understanding and our framing of the work, especially when it comes to this idea of tattoo medicine. Of course I didn't create that word. We don't have a what would you say. It doesn't belong to us necessarily, but when it comes from people who have supposed to build relationships with us, it kind of hurts sometimes when people take those things.
Speaker 1:But you know we'll continue to have that conversation in future episodes of this podcast. But yeah, I just had to bring this clip forward from episode six I believe it was Episode six with Gord talking about positioning himself and finding his community and primarily that community being in the Indigenous tattoo movement. So our next clip comes from episode 33 with Hockey Williams, part of the first wave of the revival of Moko or Maori tattooing in Aotearoa, and so we are talking about the awakening of knowledge.
Speaker 3:I'll leave you with a train of thought. Thought, and it's 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. 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, in today, and that's it. So today we have all the artistic expressions. Look for it, find it. And we have all the environmental hidden knowledge, all the seasonal, all the environmental hidden knowledge, all the seasonal, all the star knowledge, all the navigational knowledge. We've got to all align it all together and make us strong, but we've got to find it and awaken it.
Speaker 1:I love this quote by Hockey because it brings to mind the reality that the revival and the resurgence and the reawakening of each of our cultural practices helps to support the one to the right and the reawakening and reinvigoration of basket making, of hide, clothing making, which then supports the knowledge around hunting and the tanning of hides and the working of harvesting the proper roots and the proper protocols around doing those type of activities, those cultural activities. And then that also supports our ancestral, the revival and the resurgence of our ancestral visual languages and then, from there, the revival and the resurgence of our oral languages, which then supports the continuation and the resurgence and the reawakening of our spiritual practices. And the reawakening of our spiritual practices and you know, I would like to, you know, acknowledge that when I speak about this, the reality is is that it's important for you to go out and to gather that knowledge, whether that's from academic textbooks. Take, you know, read between the lines, to understand the little tidbits that your ancestors left for you in those conversations they had. Go and speak to your elders, your community members, because the reality is that maybe some of the knowledge that was shared with anthropologists and ethnographers you know, I've heard it said before in community that you know we didn't tell Tate everything, and so Tate was a anthropologist in my community and the reality is, is that some of that knowledge, whether that is a process of reawakening or whether some of that knowledge went underground, as I've heard more recently?
Speaker 1:You know, some of those tattoos maybe were hidden or moved, or the you know, in the case of the Northwest Coast, many of those tattoo designs, those crest patterns and designs, move to bracelets, move to jewelry, move to clothing, and so that knowledge is all there. It's just important for you to go and reawaken it, to discover it, to bring it forward and to help your community as you do so. So we're going back to episode seven with Nahon Tlingit, ancestral skin marker, cultural practitioner, language speaker and woodcarver artist, and we're going to talk here. Nahon talk about the very important topic and I would say the reality of this work, when I think about it, is the reframing of this podcast back to the reality of our ancestral skin marking, is supporting our struggle for the sovereignty of our nations and the sovereignty of our right to have the appropriate stewardship relationship to our territories and our geographies to the practitioners who hold their work in a specific way is really needed in our communities because there's, like I said, the people who created the, the machines.
Speaker 2:They feel like they own all the designs as well. So when we're we have these conversations, it empowers each other to say, actually you know what? I'm gonna go to that tattoo shop and rip down all of the culturally misappropriated, fake shit, genocidal artwork that they got hanging in their their shop yeah and say you guys can't do this shit no more yeah this is our land.
Speaker 2:Yeah, if you don't like it, y'all can go back to europe or wherever. Wherever else that is, yeah, and just knowing that that's not like a some shit that we just laugh at nowadays, it's some shit that we can actually organize to do yeah and to unify and support each other um through as well. So recognizing the different ways that our tattooing echoes out into things like sovereignty, echoes out to things like re-empowerment, medicine, healing, community building.
Speaker 1:This clip, for me, just re-emphasizes the reality of why this podcast is important, because this podcast isn't just about the work of ancestral skin marking. It's about our fight and our struggle for the sovereignty of our governance systems, our ancestral governance systems, our right and our struggle for sovereignty as distinct communities, distinct cultures, distinct entities, as Inukkut Nation, as the Seelk Nation, as the Cree people, as the Métis All of these are part of the work of the revival of our ancestral tattooing. And I think the reality is that when we see our marks, we're reminded of our responsibility and our relationship to our territories, our lands and to the fight for our struggle for sovereignty. But of course, in the beginning it is about the revival of our spirits. It's about the revival of our relationship with ourself.
Speaker 1:The tattoo medicine begins with the relationship we have to ourselves and our identity and with our spirits and our souls, and then it moves from there and so it's, you know, levels and rings of responsibility and growth as we move from understanding who we are, how we're connected to this world, how we're connected to our communities, our lands, then we move out into responsibilities for our families and then we move from responsibilities to our families, to our communities.
Speaker 1:What is our responsibility in terms of community, which then of course, relates back to consent, doing things in a way that ensures the health and safety of our community, and then out into the larger world, in terms of when we find health and wellness and all of these other rings, we can then begin to fight for our responsibility to the earth and all that is. And so that is a moving out from the finding out of who we are and the reinvigoration of our relationship with ourself out into these other struggles and these other rights. But this is really about sovereignty. This is really about the health and well-being of our cultures and our communities. So we're moving into episode 26 with Makwa and we're talking about marking the resistance.
Speaker 10:The most powerful one I ever did. It was for a non-Indigenous man, actually, and he built a barricade when we were in Fairy Creek. He was kind of he was the leader of it, right. He planned the whole thing out and it was a crazy barricade. It had a car inside it. We called it the Beaver Dam. We had a Lorax, we called it. Inside it there was like three people chained inside this thing. There was two people chained in the car. We made a whole like mousetrap all the way to the barricade. Like that was, you know, rebarbed wire, logs, nails, anything that we could manage to put together into this thing.
Speaker 10:But I ended up um, laying him in front of the barricade and I tattooed the side of his face with his family, his family markings, like and I think that was one of the most powerful like in the moment outside. Like yeah, it was beautiful and you know it was. He's such a. I find so many people on the front lines. They have so much trauma to begin with and like they're. You know, our need is to protect mother earth. Like that's what we're put here for. It doesn't matter what we're going through, but still like to be able to address that at the same time it was, it was a really powerful moment to share that with him, whether Indigenous or not.
Speaker 1:This clip reminds me of the importance of lifting up those who are doing the work of the protection of our lands, our rivers, our waterways, our oceans, and so those land defenders and those land protectors, the water protectors. So I just lift everyone up who is doing that work, uh, in their communities, out on the land, um, and I would say part of that is also, you know, we talk about land back, but I think back to the land, those folks who are living those subsistence lifestyles, continuing to build the relationships with the deer, with the moose, uh, with the rabbits, with the coyotes, you know, continuing to build that relationship with the pheasants, with all of the birds and the animals that live in our, you know, the fish, etc, etc. That live in our waters, live in our lands, the four-legged, those who swim in the water, you know, with the roots, with those different food plants and the plants that give us sustenance out on the land. You know, I lift all of you up who are doing that work, whether that's hunting, whether that's gathering your ancestral medicinal roots, whether that's fishing for your community or your family or just to feed yourself.
Speaker 1:You know, I lift everyone up who is doing that ancestral work of land, back and back to the land, and so this clip just brought forward that reality that it's important to lift up those people, because I think sometimes those struggles get lost in the shuffle of what's happening in our current world, and so I lift everyone up who's doing that work. And then I also think it's important to continue to explore this reality of the resistance of land offenders and its relationship to tattooing, and so I'll be going into more conversations around this topic in season two, just an important topic to keep in our minds and in our hearts as we continue to build each other up and move into the future as sovereign nations. Going back to episode two to talk to Julie, with Julie Pama-Pengali from Aotearoa, and another conversation around taking up space. So we're going back to episode two.
Speaker 11:But at the time when everyone was appropriating our stuff, then for me it was like okay, I can see that there's our community, understand where it sits. Now there's non-Maori that really, really want it. So how do I convert them to one of our soldiers? Yeah, you know rather than just going to a book and ripping something off and then they're none the wiser. Yeah. If they become one of our soldiers, then they're one more voice for us.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 11:And especially overseas. When you see how much we're being ripped off, I think it's really important that we work in that space, not for money or any other reason other than claiming it in its authentic form.
Speaker 1:So a few thoughts bubble up to the surface of my mind as I think about this quote by Julie. This idea of taking up space, I think, is important Number one in terms of. You know, I've been working on a book that asks ancestral skin markers from across the world to represent their experience as the true experts of their community's practices and gives them the opportunity to share in the way that they need to share, to share the voice, you know, share in their authentic voice, not a voice, you know, processed through the colonial project of publishing and academia and professional, careful scholarship. It's about allowing people to speak from their authentic heart, their authentic soul and their authentic spirit. And so this book will be coming out. I'll be working on it over the next year and it will be published, hopefully in 2026, truly Tribal Critical Exploration of Contempor, of contemporary Indigenous tattooing. And I'll be sharing about this in the podcast and across my social media throughout the coming year as we go into the development, editing and the page layout, etc. So it'll be cool to share that journey with you.
Speaker 1:But I think that's part of taking up space that julie's talking about. You know, the curation of exhibitions. Uh, speaking up when we go into spaces. I would also say that part of it is going into those places that, uh, we find people, uh, appropriating our work. So that's going to conventions with the intention of taking up that space. Maybe you don't have to say anything when you're there, but the fact that you're there doing the work in the reality of your ancestral practice will show people that those things that are happening off on the side, that you know, or even maybe in the mainstream, you know, those people who are pride of place, who are non-Indigenous, who are doing your work, ripping your stuff off, who are in the process of practicing genocidal artwork, you know those things will be exposed by the reality and the power of your marks. Those things will be exposed by the reality and the power of your marks.
Speaker 1:And then, I think in the beginning of this clip or this quote, julie talked about sharing our ancestral skin marking with non-Indigenous, non-community members as a way of making them part of our allies, but not only our allies, but one of our soldiers, one of those people who step forward in the front lines of these conversations and, you know, hold the responsibility of the marks.
Speaker 1:And that's what I always talk about with people who are not from my community who are non-indigenous, I say that you have a responsibility to speak about these marks. This is part of the payment, of the process of receiving these ancestral marks from me, and that part of that payment, part of that process, is your responsibility of speaking about the revival of indigenous tattooing, speaking about the power and the beauty of my community and sharing about the processes and the things that I'm doing and ancestral skin markers are doing across the world, and so that's part of the process, and the reason why we share our marks outside of our communities is to help people to understand who we are, how we go out into the world and how they can support the work that we do. We're going back to episode six with gordon sparks and we're talking about this process of indigenization and that's crazy what they did, too right it's like.
Speaker 7:So as you're in there, you're looking and you're learning about their culture of course we're doing it with respect.
Speaker 7:We're like, yeah, cool, well, I got some oral stories too and I bring in my stuff and they're like, oh, wow, I really like your stuff. I'm going to bring that home to my king and queen. I got to show them your stuff. Then we're going to have enough people there that we're going to be like fuck, now we're going to take the land too. Now, yeah, and it was slowly, methodical done, yeah, but that's the beginning of it. Yeah, and it was fucking crazy. So it worked. Yeah, so I'm doing the same fucking thing that worked, because it's proof.
Speaker 7:Exactly thing that worked because it's proof exactly here comes our culture.
Speaker 1:Yeah, man, it worked man yeah, gourd's laugh always brings joy to me, and so, uh, I was. It was important for me to leave that little bit of laughter in there, and I think it's true. Uh, the reality is that, you know, this work is about bringing people to understand who we are and to stand with us as we stand and fight for our sovereignty as nations, as well as the struggle to deal with the world in a nation-to-nation relationship and then also from there moving out to the struggle to have sovereignty over our ancestral markings, to have the sovereignty over our ancestral design, symbols and motifs and the autonomy that we have as individuals, human beings, in this world. And so this is a beautiful clip that helps to emphasize the importance of sharing our culture out in and beyond our own communities. So, going into episode 25, with Kanahirio Seth Laforte, and we're talking about resistance and that process.
Speaker 14:I always had an interest in our traditional tattoos but there wasn't anyone doing that and so I was in the early 2000s. I got a tattoo done and I went around all over the place. I got this armband and I memorial for my children and my family and stuff, and these are all designs that I had found out what the meanings were right, but I couldn't find anybody. It took me a really long time to even find a modern sort of like Western tattoo artist. What do you touch it Like? Oh, I'm not doing all those parallel lines.
Speaker 14:I'm not doing all that, no right. So I finally found someone and she did that tattoo for me, and then it was a long time before it was nagging at me, nagging at me. And then we have a mutual friend, you and I, isaac Murdoch. Well, one day, a friend of mine it happens to be Isaac's brother says hey, my brother's in town, town, and he needs to use some internet and we don't have very good internet here. Can we, can you use your internet, your house? I was like, yeah, sure, whatever. So they came, him and christy belcourt, and they and I didn't even know who they were like yeah I mean I guess they were fairly well known.
Speaker 14:I would say, uh, more famous than really, you know, right, I wasn't paying attention so I didn't know. So they just come and set up on my table nice people doing their show. And I was kind of I think they were doing a zoom meeting of some sort and I'm walking through the kitchen and I'm listening and I'm hearing them talking about resistance and like protecting the land from nuclear waste, and I was like stop me down my tracks. I'm like who are these people? Right? And so it sparked a relationship.
Speaker 14:And that night we sat and we talked about how we needed to bring back our old painting, our body painting, and our old tattooing and that we really need to do that to help ignite our ancestors' energy and the meaning and the power of the medicine to help our people heal. And I was just taken with that right. That conversation just freaking blew my mind. Yeah, and Isaac was like, yeah, we're going to do this ceremony and we're going going to paint young people and young men and young women and we're going to start tattooing. And I'm like I want to do that too. Yeah, and so was right. Shortly after that, a friend of mine messaged me and she's like, hey, there's this tattoo school going on in DC and you should go. And I'm like, well, when is it? She's like here. She sent me a link and it was like tomorrow, kind of thing.
Speaker 1:What.
Speaker 14:So I called, I think I called and you and I spoke on the phone. Yeah, and you were like, look, dude, it's too. You cannot get here in time. You're going to get on a plane and fly out here and you're going to miss the first day or two and there's too much to cover in our little set. Oh, it was like five days long or whatever it was.
Speaker 14:And so you were like just practice and learn and then come back, come apply next year. So I'm like, all right, so I didn't mess around, like you said, I put legs and things over the side, but I'm doing this. I don't just kind of do it. So the next thing I know I do like 30 tattoos or 40 tattoos or full face tattoos and like doing crazy stuff. So then the next year, the school come around and I sent in my portfolio and some of my stuff and you're like, dude, we can't teach you anything. I was like what? So I was like I'm all by myself, right, I was doing this traditional tattoo work.
Speaker 14:I had all these people come to my house I'm tattooing, and I built a studio and it was just kind of like snowballing and my little girls were like here, draw tattoos on me. And then my older girls were like we want a tattoo, and so it was just kind of happening, but I didn't have anybody else. There was no other of my people doing it, and the Longhouse community, the traditional community I was coming from, they were frowning on it. They were like, oh, we come here natural, we should leave natural. I'm like our ancestors didn't do that right, what are you talking about? But you know influence of colonization and Christianity. Even a lot of traditional people are like, oh, no, no, but it is that right. And so then Isaac and Christy announced they were going to do a tattoo gathering. That wasn't a thing I never even heard of that before. Maybe it happened before that, but I was not aware of that.
Speaker 2:Not here.
Speaker 14:No, so we go. I'm like I'm in, I'm going, I get invited. And I'm like I'm in, I'm going, I get invited. And I'm like this is the first time I've been invited to anything. I've been tattooing all by myself. I've had no interaction with any other tattoo practitioners at all. And I go up there. I'm like holy shit, there was like so many of us I don't even remember. I think it was like 17 or 18 of us in total. I think it was like 17 or 18 of us in total and all those Inuit women.
Speaker 14:they just blew my mind. I was like what? Anyways, it changed my life. That weekend changed my life. I watched, do you remember?
Speaker 14:The Inuit women went off and they had a meeting because they said they said, well, we only tattooed Inuit, inuit, right. And they came back and they said they only tattooed Inuit. But they seen how much need there was and how much, how much the, the indigenous people, the native people in the cell, needed that, that they were going to break their own tradition and they would assist and they would tattoo women that and what that needed. Uh, chin tattoos and face tattoos and stuff. And I was like this isn't just about sticking ink in, like there's rules and there's like this is ceremony. And I'm like I was inspired and I watched 53 women that weekend got tattooed face tattoos and I had been already looking at what was happening in Samoa and look what's happening in the malarys and stuff and I've seen the massive transition in terms of their position with in the political spheres in new zealand and elsewhere where they revised their traditional tattoos.
Speaker 14:It. It impacted the politics in a huge way in the positive for for the people who have been oppressed, right, and I was like, so I knew like we need to do this. This is a part of that. That was just a part of overthrowing this oppression, right, like to be like I'm rejecting assimilation, I'm rejecting to be swallowed into the sea of white faces, right, all of that sort of thing, and I was watching it happen. I watched our friend Kanahos tattoo a woman's face while she was breastfeeding their baby, and we were standing in what looked to me like stretch limo teepee, right. I was like what is this building up in?
Speaker 14:There's like furs on the ground and people are singing. We were standing singing and I was like this is not the tattoo experience I had in a tattoo shop in Peterborough when I got my arm done and I'm like, well, this can't stop. And so that's how we got here, because I was like I went home, I met you, I met a whole bunch and you showed me some things and you and I began a friendship, right, yeah and yeah. And then I got invited to go out to another tattoo gathering and I went out there and it was the same kind of experience and I got this face tattoo and it was a face tattoo my son helped with and it's medicine. Right, I'm not going to share what that's, for Some of you will try to use it against me.
Speaker 14:But, it's real right and it's not just pictures. And I came home and it changed my direction. I was like the people need this and this is something I can help with and it's something that it's beautiful and it's powerful. And, like, I was involved in helping with tattoos for young people, you know, becoming young men and young women, you know, in their rites of passage, and I was talking about what kind of tattoos are for that and then offering those to those families. Right, I said, well, this tattoo is for this person who did this. You know they fasted for four days or they did you know whatever it was this person who did this. You know they fasted for four days or they did you know whatever it was.
Speaker 14:And the impact I seen that have on the young people like I could do the tattoo and they change, yeah, and the young, the kids around them, treat them different, like it changes, and the adults treat them different, and it was like, but all in a positive. And then I seen the same thing with I had young people when I first started, when I remember being at that first gathering and there was, uh, I had three or four kids come and see me, you know, like they weren't children, but yeah, but young people, younger, you know, 20s or whatever all full of scars, you know, cutting themselves, cutting themselves, and they wanted, they were ashamed of them and they wanted to cover that all up and I, uh, I made a special tattoo for them, right, and I was like, no, like you, you made it through, right, we're all living under this incredible oppression and you did what you had to do to make it through and you did, and and you're past that and you, you can wear this tattoo as a badge of honor. That you know, and and those of us who know what that is will nod and know you had some struggle and you made it right, and that I've seen kids would do that tattoo and I watched their shoulders change, I watched them straighten up and, like the shame they were carrying around went away, right, and we weren't trying to hide it, right. I'm like that's okay, celebrate, celebrate, you know. And so that drove me to do something.
Speaker 14:And then COVID was happening and people hadn't been together in a really long time and no one was traveling and no one was meeting each other and no one was doing anything, and I'm like we were trying to have meetings in our community and like gather together and everyone was like we were getting blocked, we couldn't use the buildings, we couldn't use the public spaces and whatever. And uh, and I've been involved, quite heavily involved, in land back Right and like in the shutdown Canada movement and that sort of stuff, and for those of you who don't recognize me, I may have been involved in a train incident, anyways and so I thought I was asking the kids, you know, young people in the community where I'm living with my son's friends and stuff, he doesn't want to do a social, he wants to do something. And they were like, nah, they were disengaging, he wants to do a social, he wants to do something. And they were like, nah, they were disengaging, right, and I'm like we got to do something. So I just announced it. I'm like we're having a tattoo gathering.
Speaker 14:And then I went around and I went to this traditional gathering place Land that we used to go to when I was a kid and it was all grown over and I was like what happened? Right, yeah, so we cut all the trees and cut the grass and like cleaned it up and made this bug just did it me and the me and a buddy and, um, I had no idea what we're doing. I didn't have any, you know, I just dug in my pocket and we got a, and we got, and I asked people to donate their time and whatever, and, and there's, we had this beautiful event. Right, right, that happened and that had never happened like that before.
Speaker 1:A lot of things come to mind as I listen to this commentary, this story, the story of Seth as he moved through from being inspired by a conversation with Christy Belcourt and Isaac Murdoch and being inspired to pick up ancestral skin marking as a form of resistance against the colonial project. A key phrase that comes forward from this conversation, this clip from Seth is. This clip from Seth is you know, I refuse to become a part of the sea of white faces. I think that that is part of the resistance to make us visible again as Indigenous people, as people who have been assimilated into this project, the colonial project here in Canada, and taking that identity back, taking that sovereignty back over our beings. And I think it's also a great opportunity to lift up those who have taken on the challenge of putting together tattoo gatherings, because they're not easy to put together, they're not easy to what would you say host in terms of sometimes the politics, of community politics, as well as the gathering of people and the caring for people. It's not not easy and it's even harder to do that, especially when you think about those people who do this without the support of agencies, funding agencies, arts funding, etc. But just do it from their own pockets and from the support from the community. So I lift up Seth, and I lift up all of those who are, you know, taking up that challenge of supporting this movement through the hosting of tattoo gatherings.
Speaker 1:And I, you know, lift up, uh, christy belcourt and isaac murdoch for holding their gathering in, uh, uh, nimby ashbacan back in 2017, I believe, uh, but sometime around there, so I left them up, kind of started this movement of the uh gathering, the tattoo gatherings, and then also, uh, point to the reality that many of those early gatherings were part of land back, part of the resistance against the colonial project. And so I lift up canna hoose and the tiny house warriors for putting on the tattoo gathering back in bc, and that being a tattooing action moving against the pipeline projects that are going through many parts of British Columbia, including my own territory. And so, yeah, just another reminder that this work is not just about marking our skin, but it's about, uh, marking our relationship and our responsibility to our lands. We're going back to episode seven with nahan and another little piece of this conversation as we move forward there's a lot of matriarchs now self proclaim a lot of you know chiefs and yeah uh, kind of who's.
Speaker 2:She said this one thing she's like uh, too many chiefs and matriarchs, not enough warriors, yeah you know. And and what does that look like? How do we function in that way?
Speaker 2:yeah and how do we, how do we support these other components that are also involved in our cultures? 100 yeah, because we're allowed. We're allowed to do our shit now. Yeah, we're allowed to practice. They made laws now where we can be Indian again after they fucked us up so much. But as long as we don't get too fired up, as long as we don't organize militarily, as long as we don't pack our weapons with us like our ancestors always did.
Speaker 1:Another powerful reminder of what this work is about, and I won't comment that much about this clip by Nahon, but yeah, it's an important what would you say? An important thought to put into your mind as you think about the balance of our communities as we move forward in the contemporary time, you know, are we really chiefs, are we really matriarchs, uh, or should be warriors? What is our position? How do we move forward? What is the, the place, the gifts that we have, and how do we utilize them in a way that supports our fight for sovereignty? Just moving to episode four, with n Malbuff Métis, ancestral skin marker out of Regina, saskatchewan, we're starting to move towards the end of this episode and I wanted to give some joy and some light as we move forward.
Speaker 15:Tattooed my sister, and I don't want to romanticize it too much, but as soon as I hit the skin with a needle I was like I found it. You know it was just this realization, but I didn't find it. Yeah, it found me yeah, you know the circumstance created this thing where I would, you know, yeah, so that's kind of it.
Speaker 1:And then Beautiful thought sentiment.
Speaker 1:I think you know, those of us who are involved in this movement, in this work, can relate to the reality that you know.
Speaker 1:When we hit the skin, when we go in to do that work, whether that's with machine or hand poke or skin stitch or with the ancestral hand tap tools um, you know, we realized that we found something special, and the reality is is that, as uh nolan shares here, that we didn't find, it actually found us, and it's just one of the gifts that the creator has given us and that's our responsibility to pick it up and to hold it carefully and gently and also, uh, ensure that we do those things in a way that honors the gifts that we have been given.
Speaker 1:Um, we're moving into episode nine with keith callahoo again, um, and talking about the reality of tattoo medicine. When I think about tattoo medicine in the beginning it was really about the struggle to find out who we are, who I am, and how do I fit into the world and what are my gifts and how do I share them with the world, and so this is a beautiful reminder of that reality, of what tattoo medicine for me started out as and here's Keith from episode nine from what I'm hearing from my brothers and sisters, is that moment that, okay, it kind of starts with like um, I remember watching a Maori woman sit up and the amount of emotion that came through in witnessing their journey and vulnerability, but it was like it was always there.
Speaker 13:And there are so many times that after the marking and then the person rises they say it's like it's always been there, and, and their family says that, and so what? I don't know. There's probably lots of things, but it's like when I walk down the street or um, I walk into a store and someone just locks eyes with me or staring at me, I forget I have my markings. Yeah, you know, I'm not walking around, going, I'm marked, I'm marked, I'm marked. I look at the person. I go. What do you need from me? Yeah, and they're either angry at it or they're enraptured by it.
Speaker 13:The um you know those stories about um. When we pass on, our ancestors will know us by our markings and I'm not going to hide. Yeah, and and and. So I think that that's where one of those are, where it's comes from resistance, resurgence. Yeah, and and and. So I think that that's where one of those are, where it's comes from resistance, resurgence, revival, um, and it it's being present and I think, yeah, it's like that story I shared with you about my face markings. I knew it was going to come, but I didn't want to arbitrarily, uh um, mark my face. I didn't know what that meant, yeah, nor did I know when I was going to be ready for it, mm-hmm, until I saw a group of young men turn on themselves and then turn on me.
Speaker 3:And I didn't know them.
Speaker 13:Yeah, and I share this because it was like, okay, I'm going to mark my face now because I want them to see who they are and who.
Speaker 13:I am, yeah, and that you're not present. You're being manipulated, yeah, you're being manipulated and you're doing harm and, uh, violence, because that's what you think you're supposed to be doing. Yeah, and we already have enough of that against us from you know, because we're not that people, we're peaceful people. Yeah, don't mess with our peace. Yeah, exactly, and and and then again again that you know my contribution or my responsibility is to help those young men and my brothers and the older ones too.
Speaker 13:Yeah, I'm a human being, we all have a place. Yeah, one's not better than the other. No, so I think that that's what that resistance is, and it's like stop. Yeah, one's not better than the other. No, so I think that that's what that resistance is, and it's like stop.
Speaker 1:Yeah, take inventory and so many powerful comments, so many powerful quotes and clips that I could bring forward. But you know, when I think about this is like, you know, a couple of thoughts bubble to the top of my mind. One is, you know, being present. You know, this work is about making us present in this time, in this place, in this reality, which helps us to remember who we are. And when we remember who we are, remember who we're related to and what those relationships mean and what the responsibility to those relationships are. And then another thing that comes to mind is you know, Keith said that I'm going to mark my face so you can remember who you are.
Speaker 1:So when we mark ourselves, we become a mirror to those around us to remember who they are. Not only to remember who we are, but we help others around us to use us as a mirror to their own journey. So just a powerful quote coming here from Keith. There's just so much in here that could be talked about, but I know we're going longer and longer as this episode goes forward. We're going to move on to episode three with Echo, alec and talking about the transformation.
Speaker 12:As I can speak for myself, but I know many others who feel the same. As an Indigenous woman, I have grown up feeling like I needed to be blonde and blue-eyed and skinny to be accepted into society, been chewed up and spat out through the modeling industry and the acting industry, have had many, many different experiences of, even in the music industry, people telling me who I should be, how I should look, what I should do, how I should speak, how I should sing, all of those things and all of that feeds into our internal dialogue of how I'm speaking to myself, and so I've had a really unfriendly internal dialogue for most of my life due to the capitalist society that we live in that tells me I'm not good enough because I'm an Indigenous woman and I knew that before we started. That was my intention. Going in.
Speaker 12:I got way more than I intended, but that was my initial intention is. I wanted to be comfortable in my body. I wanted to love my body exactly as it is and I could freaking walk down the street naked right now. Could freaking walk down the street naked right now like. I am so content with, um, the shape I'm in, the like, the ways that I hold my body. Um, I learned how to be comfortable in my skin, but it actually took me being really, really uncomfortable, like physically uncomfortable in it.
Speaker 12:First, and I think a piece that isn't always talked about that I would like to speak about is the shedding that happens after you get a tattoo and so I went through a full body snakeskin shed and that piece for me was so transformational in like I would have the intention, with the skin pieces that were shedding, of like. I'm letting this go, I'm letting this story go, that I am not good enough, that my body's not good enough, that I am not tall enough, that I am, whatever, all of those things the not enoughness. Yeah, shed with that skin yeah, um yeah, and it's a.
Speaker 12:It's a different, it's a different feeling now to show up in every space and go no, I'm good enough.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm good the way I am powerful testimony by echo, uh, relating to the work that we did in creating echoes into comiccomic Blackwork bodysuit. It was an honor to work with Echo on bringing the first female Intercomic Blackwork bodysuit into existence in the history of our community. It's just such an honor and a privilege and it's really humbling that people honor you with the privilege of working with them to bring these things to life, and I'm thankful that Echo allowed me to bring my vision to life in collaboration with her. So I'm a big shout out to Echo and all of those participants of the Antiqua McBlackwork project and those who are going to take the next steps in this project. The reality is that I need to do one more Intercontinental Black Work bodysuit. You know four is a really big number for me and for my community, and so I think you know I'm just finishing off the third Intercut McBlackwork bodysuit Actually Stephen, which is Echo's partner, and so I think one more, and so there'll be more conversation, more call outs coming, and then I'm also going to be beginning another project, intercut McBlackwork project, called Land Back Back Pieces, and part of that project is to extend a back piece across two people's backs. So, uh, starting a design on one person's back that extends onto the second person's back, and so it's a, a community collaborative project that I'm just calling land back back pieces and so, uh, more, uh more will come out about that really soon.
Speaker 1:I'll be doing a call out for people who would like to be part of this project and part of that would be to uh, you would be applying with another individual, um, you, you could also um apply if you didn't have a friend or a loved one, somebody who would like to go into this project together with you. Uh, you could apply as an individual and I would pair you with somebody if I didn't get enough pairings, individuals coming together as a pair. Anyways, more to come about that in the future. But, yeah, just a powerful testimony of echo about the reality of the power of this work and how the marks can help us to feel comfortable in our own bodies. And I'm just going to go into the next clip, which is episode 40, and this is megan sam's uh intricate book um, creative, intricate book, and uh, migma creative from uh newfoundland.
Speaker 6:So, externalizing the internal struggle you think it's going to be one way and it's like that in every decision in life. You know, we think about what it's going to be like and maybe romanticize it, but it's always something different, which is something I love. About committing to a project or a work yeah, and I'm sure at the time it was about resilience and like sharing the work and I guess that was part of it. Yeah, and reconnecting and claiming making like non-possessive claim.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 6:But so, yes, joy and resilience and all of these things. So, yes, joy and resilience and all of these things, but as we've moved through it, it's also become about externalizing a deeply internalized pain and isolation. So taking that out and making it into something like touchable and palpable and going through it in a very physical way, which has worked for me.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 6:Yeah, so that's been a big part of it and that's also made that more internalized struggle processable. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So this is another conversation I had with a participant, a collaborator, of the intricate mcblockwork project.
Speaker 1:Uh, with megan we did a full back piece, an intricate mcblockwork back piece uh that goes out onto her arm, which we blocked out, some old work that she had there, and so this is, uh, megan's, uh experience of receiving intricate mcblock work so that reconnection is reconnecting her back to her ancestral symbols, designs and motifs and, um, you know, I would say that this is the tattoo medicine that I'm beginning to understand, uh, as I go through this work.
Speaker 1:In the beginning it was about the reconnection of our identities as Indigenous people back to our communities and our lands, and now, as I begin to think about it, it's also about that internal healing work, that trauma work, that working through some of the past tapes that we have from the old programming of this capitalist, consumerist society, and then also the reality of moving through trauma, the things that we've worked through that have been held in the body, and so this is a process of healing from all of these things and you know there's there will be future episodes that will explore these more in depth, but here is just a tidbit of some information and some beautiful testimony about the work that I have done with these community members in the creation of Intricate McBlackwork.
Speaker 1:Moving into episode 33, with Hockey Williams again just talking about his aspirations for the future, this is an inspirational conversation I had with Hockey when I was over in Aotearoa for Toikiri, the Toikiri Indigenous Tattoo and Arts Festival held in Mount Manganui or Taranga, aotearoa, new Zealand, usually held in the fall. So if you're an indigenous practitioner, keep an eye out and send in an application to Toikiri to be able to share the beauty of your culture and your practice with the Moko practitioners and ancestral skin markers from across the Pacific practitioners and ancestral skin markers from across the Pacific. This is a powerful and inspirational clip from Haki and we'll just have a listen from episode 33.
Speaker 3:I have an admiration for the Japanese art form of tattooing, especially the bodysuits. So you start thinking of how would that look in a Tamako style or the Samoan Tatao style? And so I started designing, designing bodysuits. This was probably about 2001, 2002. Yeah, and that actually got me a lot of attention, especially with the Sulawesi family. Oh, yeah, yeah, because not only was I doing a Maori body suit and a Samoan body suit, but I was doing a fusion bodysuit. Yeah. Never been seen, Ah cool. It was new, it was fresh yeah.
Speaker 3:The Tofunga. His name was Bola Suruape. At the time when I started apprenticing he was there and he was the one who was killed in the in 2000. So I just caught him before he left yeah, and I had enlarged a sketch into a big poster, realistic, full-size. Yeah, and he walked in and goes who done this? You know thinking, oh, I'm going to get a reprimanded.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Oh, it's very beautiful. Yeah, yeah, yeah, and that was my beginning. And then we sat down and he talked about you know, this means this, this means this. You can put this on this placement. Yeah, yeah, but in a very short time he gave me you know, he was sharing and feeding me. You know, feeding me stories. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I haven't, I haven't realized a full body suit yet. I'm not sure if I ever will. But yeah, and I haven't seen too many that have taken that approach start to finish. Yeah, I know of one person that's started with that goal in mind.
Speaker 1:yeah, it's a rare thing it's pretty inspirational to started with that goal in mind. It's a rare thing. It's pretty inspirational to realize that Hockey was dreaming of a full body suit and he was creating these designs back in the 2000s. I'm just inspired by that because the reality is that we've had the same dream and the same vision. I'm thankful that I've been able to bring to life two Intacut McBlackwork bodysuits.
Speaker 1:I'm working on the third and I'll be sending out a call out for a participant for a fourth bodysuit. Not sure what that's going to look like, but uh, you know I'll be providing and putting up uh over this next year some examples of intercut mcblockwork bodysuits that I would love to do and hopefully somebody will, the right person will come along that uh will embody this work, and so keep your eyes peeled and your eyes on the social media, as I'll be doing a call out again for the fourth Intacot McBlackwork bodysuit and for participants for the Land Back back pieces, again, as the Land Back back pieces will be a back piece, that an artwork, an intercom block work, artwork that goes across the full canvas of two people's back, interconnected, just speaking about the reality of the connection that we have with each other and with the with the earth and all that is going into episode 10 with, uh, terry kolomatangi. Uh, we're talking about tattoo medicine and remembering who we are. Um, just coming and winding down this episode.
Speaker 4:Uh, going into episode 10 with terry kolomatangi for me, the work and the carrying of the work and the whole process around the work is a way of us remembering who we are remembering in a Tongan context, remembering our indigeneity, remembering that this practice is part of what defines us and has defined us. You know, um, and can define us moving forward.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know I think this is a powerful uh reminder that, you know, these things are not lost, these things are not dead.
Speaker 1:The reality is is that we just have to remember these beautiful things that you know have been put to sleep, that have been put to sleep purposely for the protection of our communities and our cultures.
Speaker 1:So it's important for us to emphasize that we are remembering not only who we are, but we're remembering these practices in the current and contemporary time. So, just a powerful reminder as we move out of this episode into, uh, the new year. Um, you know I don't always put some great emphasis on the new year, but you know, uh, for me it's important to uh bring this back to a? Uh final wrapping up of season one of the transformative marks, and so it's exciting to be able to share these last few clips with you and emphasizing that we are just remembering who we are in this time and in this place. We're going into Episode 7 for the final clip with Nahon, and I'm excited to share with you this final episode, episode 54, of the Transformative the transformative marks podcast, and we're going to episode 7, uh, to hear nahan I think we all have those fears, doubts, insecurities.
Speaker 2:Those things come from other places. Yeah, not from our.
Speaker 1:Our traditions is not from our culture, it's not from our people so, as we wrap up the final episode and move into the new year, move into the second season of the Transformative Marks podcast, I just want to leave you with this thought and a reminder that those fears, doubts, insecurities are not ours, those are not from our practices, those are not from our teachings, and that this podcast and this work is about lifting each other up, taking us together so that we can make this world a better place for those who are coming after us. The reality is, as I started this work because of being inspired by the reality that this work can help to anchor our youth into this reality and into this existence, through a friend, a young friend of mine, deciding to exit, to take his own life and to leave this plane of existence. And so I found the reality that our ancestral cultural tattoo practices, our ancestral skin marking practices, are a way of anchoring us into this plane of existence, helping us to live into the next generation, so that we can do and answer the question that the creator asks all of us, which is what will you do for the people to be? And my answer to the creator's question what will you do for the people to be? And my answer to the creator's question what will you do for the people to be? Is the revival of intracatmok tattooing and the assistance of the revival of ancestral skin marking in Turtle Island and, very specifically, the nation state of Canada? And so I'm just honored that you have taken this journey with me throughout the year and that you have journeyed with me through this long episode. I hope that you have found it valuable and, if you found it valuable, remember to like and subscribe and to leave a comment. I'm just excited that you have journeyed with me through episode 54.
Speaker 1:Hey everyone, thanks for stopping by and taking this journey with me through this episode. 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.
Speaker 1:I appreciate you following this journey. I just want you to remember that, no matter who you are, 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. 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.