My old friend Damien, who started tattoos.com back at about the same time as BME, also from here in Toronto, went to China last fall for the Beijing Convention (he’s currently organizing NIX again for Toronto, and working on a convention in South Africa for next January). He took these pictures of facial tattoos on Dulong tribal women while he was there
Dulong facial tattooing died out in the 50s after China took over the region, and these days there are perhaps fifty people that still wear the tattoos, which were done as a coming of age rite. The designs vary from clan to clan, but their meaning has been largely lost to history. Continue after the break for more pictures by Damien.
Check out Damien’s article for more information — he had a chance to interview them via a translator while he was there for the convention, and they describe the “painful memory” of being tattooed.
