The latest encyclopedia entry looks at the island of New Guinea which is roughly the size of California and home to six million whom collectively speak over 800 distinct dialects or languages. Home to what many classify as more extreme body modifications, including the Chambri crocodile people and Kanigara tribe, New Guinea offers a fascinating array of tribal body art practices. Frequently echoing other island tattooing styles such as Polynesian, PNG is still highly unique. With the tolerance of pain throughout often held to protect the participant from future suffering, there remains an undeniable inherent transformative cultural power around the art
 
| ‘Festivals were and are an important part of life for many highland Tribes of Papua New Guinea. Many tribes wore elaborate headdresses made of shells, bark, wood, fiber, feathers, hair, and bones for ceremonial purposes, as well as body paint, in order to placate spirits and ensure prosperity. The types of decorations and body paint demonstrated clan membership as well as rank, and at large gatherings such as the annual Mount Hagen Festival, serve to let other tribes know one’s tribal affiliation.
 
Papuan people also pierce their septums and their ears and men wear horns, bones, and tusks through the openings. The Kangi tribe wear bat bones and sweet potatoes in their noses, and other tribes favor pig tusks which make the men look fierce for warfare. Men and women also wear necklaces, armbands, and other types of jewelry as adornment and identification.
 
Some Papuan tribes also practice scarification as part of young men’s initiation ceremonies. Like so many other rites of passage into manhood, Papuan scarification, in which the chest, back, and buttocks are cut with sharpened bamboo, test a boy’s strength, courage, and self-discipline… | full article

New Guinea appeared first on Tattoo Concierge