Native American tattoos: Identity and spirituality in contemporary America

Influences from counterculture movements and tattooing traditions from around the world have transformed the North American tattoo experience. Consultants' narratives reveal a desire to align with a primal human essence, seen as somehow lost through the process of civilization. Images are intentionally chosen to seek connection with people considered to embody a simpler, truer form of human life; what scholars routinely refer to as the “primitive,” or the Other. In the cases under consideration, an effort is made to connect to a particular so-called primitive, that is, the American Indian. Thus, the current renaissance of tattoo as fine art provides an occasion to reconsider American fascination with “playing Indian” and all things Indian.