Indigenous Bone Tattoos
Join Henricus Historical Park as the site hosts indigenous tattoo artist Kerri Helme! Learn about the different processes of creating dyes, how the bones were crafted for tattooing, demonstrations of the practice, and hear the history of designs unique to this region and the 17th-century period.
Stick and poke tattoos are among the oldest forms of tattooing, with the oldest record being 5,200 B.C.E. The practice can be found among several cultures, Samoan, Mayan, Japanese Ainu, and Native American being the most well-known.
One of the earliest written records of tattoos in Tsenacommacah, or what is now Virginia, came from John Smith’s remarks: “their women, some have their legs, hands, breasts and face cunningly imbrodered with divers workes, as beasts, serpents, artificially wrought into their flesh with blacke spots.” (Smith, The Generall Historie of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles, 1624)
Date: Saturday, May 18
Time: 10 a.m. – 4 p.m.
Cost: $12/adult, $8/children ages 5-12; Henricus Members: free; Tribal Members: free
Time: 10 a.m. – 4 p.m.
Cost: $12/adult, $8/children ages 5-12; Henricus Members: free; Tribal Members: free