Encylopedia of Body Adornment.pdf - Print My Tattoo

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PACIFIC NORTHWEST INDIANS
The native people of the Pacific Northwest Coast, including Alaska, Washington,
and Canada, includes such diverse groups as the Tlingit, Haida, Kwakiutl,
Puyallup, Snohomish, Nez Perce, and the Makah. First populated by Asians who
migrated over the Bering Land Bridge into North America starting about 18,000
years ago, the first Europeans to explore the region were Russians in the eighteenth
century. Many of the tribes in the region practiced tattooing, lip piercing,
and nose piercing.
Cheek plugs, labrets, and nose ornaments of all kinds have been found in archaeological
sites throughout Alaska, the west coast of Canada, and the Pacific
Northwest in the United States.
The first European reports in 1769 mentioned women with facial tattoos consisting
of lines which radiated from the mouth to the jaw, similar to chin tattoos
among other Native American tribes, as well as those which extended from the
nose to the ears. Other tattoos included tattooed lines across the foreheads, as well
as tattoos on the neck, arms, hands, and feet. Among all the groups, women are
more commonly tattooed than men, and for women, the chin tattoo was the most
common, received when a girl reached puberty. Transgendered boys, known as
schopans in some tribes, were also tattooed with the chin tattoo, and were highly
valued as wives. The tattoo technique in the Pacific Northwest Coast was to use a
sharp tool to puncture the skin, followed by rubbing soot into the wounds. Certain
tattoos were also associated with whaling, but for the most part, tattoos were
used as part of rites of passage initiating young women and men into adulthood,
protection, status, and identification.
In some tribes, both men and women wore labrets, or large plugs inserted into
holes below the lower lip, and both men and women had their septum pierced. In
some tribes, however, where women wore the chin tattoo, men wore the labret,
while in others, only women wore the labret. Labrets were sometimes as wide as
the lips, and were made of stone, bone, wood, and ivory. Sometimes bones were
worn through the septum piercing and occasionally in the lip hole, and sometimes
beads were strung from the septum piercing, hanging down in front of the mouth.
Beads were also strung from the labrets (into which holes had been drilled), creating
the appearance of a beaded beard.
Some tribes sliced open the lip in order to receive the first labret 20 days after
birth; other tribes waited till puberty, or even till adulthood. For girls it was
common to slice the lips during an initiation ritual which begins after her first