TattooTribes is a team of people who share a strong passion for tattoos and their significance.
Over the years several friends joined the crew, each one specializing in a different style of tattooing, from tribal to realistic and old school, but the main focus has and will always be on Polynesian tattooing.
WHY? Because we love them, plain and simple.
The cultural background that nurtures this thousands of years old tradition is so rich, and complex, that we simply got lost in its beauty, fascinated by the hundred of symbols and by the histories behind them.
In many cases, the only information available about ancient traditional tattoos comes from dusty books written by the first explorers of the Pacific islands: anthropologists, navigators and artists who documented the first contacts and were equally fascinated by the visual strength and appeal of Polynesian body decorations.
This knowledge, together with the traditions still alive nowadays, help understand Polynesian tattoos, their significance and their meanings, in order to approach them respectfully.
TattooTribes' reference for Polynesian tattoos is GiErre (Roberto Gemori), author of The Polynesian Tattoo Handbooks.
And if you like reading, you'll find gigabytes of old books in the following links:
Don't have time to read through them all? Well, we went through A LOT of them, and many of those gems were included in our The Polynesian Tattoo Handbook Vol. 1 & 2
...you're welcome!