Inked in tradition

The importance of Tattoos in Indian tribal culture 

 In India, tattoos are often regarded as something to judge, either from some perspective or another especially from religious people. They are often chalked up to being rebellious or backward but the judgement misses one thing that these tattoos are not a modern development out of the West, they are an ancient Indian practice that is thoroughly part of the cultural and spiritual landscape of our land.

Tattoos were used as symbols of identity, survival, resistance and beliefs long before they became a fashion statement. Body art in India dates back to the Mesolithic period, with cave paintings in Bhimbetka, Madhya Pradesh revealing human figures adorned with what might be a first look at body art. These marks were not just pure decoration, but seen as expressions of belonging, designed to be protective, forms of memory.

In India, and among several tribal communities, tattoos were never just adornments - they were stories written on skin. The Gond and Kharia tribes tell a story about how tattooing began: Goddess Parvati was looking down on women and saw that it was hard for women to differentiate themselves from one another and therefore commanded that they tattoo themselves. This was no divine act of vanity; it was an act of identification. Tattoos became personal markings and signatures in gatherings of hordes of people and in shared spaces. No longer society had established a way to keep your self-identity apart from everyone else's

In the hills of the north in India, it became taboo for a woman to be seen in public without tattoos on her naked skin, while facial tattoos and nose plugs were no longer just marks of beauty or adornments, but a sign of resistance. Tattoos were a visible presence of identity and a form of protection to be warded off as an outsider, while such visible marks protected them from kidnapping by rival tribes. In a society that normalized hunting for women because of beauty, tattoos became a shield.

The ink functioned as protection against forms of social violence elsewhere. In Bihar, Dhanus women from lower castes were tattooed to mark them "undesirable" to upper-caste men, who targeted them. What began as imposition and disfigurement became an icon of resistance. These women turned their tattoos into public statements of agency, loud and unapologetic. What was meant to demean them was now a sign of honor. 

Some tattoos inscribed triumph and memory on the skin. Among Kharia, there is a legendary account of women who fought off abductors during a migration. In celebration of their valor, they tattooed their foreheads with designs similar to flags. The women turned their skin into a memorial, soulfully honoring their collective strength.

In central India there's a apocryphal account that gives meaning to Ojha, a man who was gifted by the gods with music but cursed with poverty. One day, in utter frustration with his life and no coins to give to his wife, he forced her to go beg for her to give him something, anything. She silently in pain and with tears streaming down her face complied. The gods saw this sacred moment and took interest in her plight. God came down and dipping his fingers in the deep black sticky sap of the Sarei tree and marking her face with dots. This became the first tattoos, and the beginning of a profession, and a culture. Since then many tribal women have taken up this holy work and create sacred, cultural, and personal meanings with tattoos.

And then there are the Ramnamis of Chhattisgarh, who are a powerful reminder of ink as a form of protest. They were denied entry into temples and recognition as spiritual beings by upper caste Hindus. In turn, these Dalit people tattooed the name of Lord Ram across their entire bodies. Faces, arms, chests - there wasn’t a part of their skin that did not become scripture. What was denied to them inside temples and by Hindu spirituality, they carried in their flesh. They became sacred texts, their bodies reclaimed faiths from caste.

India’s tattoo tradition is anything but skin deep. To indigenous people in India, tattoos are an expressive, painful, and powerful history of when ink was used as voice connected to a people who were silenced—to belong to a group of people who were pushed away—to protect themselves when they knew that no one else was going to.

So next time we look upon tattoos with suspicion, we should remember: in India, tattoos are not just ink. They are history, rebellion, faith, and identity- written not upon paper, but upon skin.

...✒️ PRAGATI SHARMA