Tribal Tattoo Designs – The Growing Collection

With the resurgence of tribal tattoos, comes many different tribal tattoo designs, and they all relate back to an ancient tribe with ancient meanings. These tattoos are quite common today as well. Tribal designs are often used as tattoos to denote a person's religious affiliation or other type of beliefs. This comes from the tribal desire to belong to a certain group.

The word tattoo derives from the word "tautau" from Marquesan Islands in Polynesia. The Marquesan tribal tattoos covered their whole body. Whole stories were told within thee tattoos that explained who the people were or what they had done. This tribal tattoo design is a from a symbol type of language that often contains shells, shark teeth, lizards, whales, turtles, fish hooks, etc.

The design of a Celtic tribal tattoo comes from the old Celts that lived in England or France. Interlace, spirals, dogs, birds and humans, are typical designs often seen on Celtic tribal tattoos.

The Maori tribes from New Zealand traditionally have facial tattoos and leg tattoos. These tribal tattoos resemble the wood carvings of the Maoris, making spiral designs typical. The Maoris believes their tattoos mean inner strength.

The Haida (Indian) tribes lived on America's Northwest coast. Their tattoos resembled wood carvings, but with designs of thunderbirds, beavers, bears, or fish. These tattoo designs usually have something to do with astrology. The Indians believed you could garner strength from that animal in your tattoo design.

The Borneo tribe tattooed their headhunters either as protection, or to show off their achievements. A tattoo with a spiral in the form of a flower would go on the front of the shoulders to mean going on a long trip, or that they had just cut someone's head off. Typical tattoo designs for them were pictures of scorpions, flowers, dogs, dragons and spirals.

 

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