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Agence France-Presse

Moeko Heshiki is no ordinary tattoo artist: she is one of the few people keeping the once-banned tradition of hajichi body art alive for the indigenous Ryukyu people of Japan’s Okinawa region.
The traditionally hand-poked markings were once common on women of the Ryukyu, who lived throughout the southern islands of what is now Japan.
The monochrome patterns, ranging from delicate arrow-like symbols to arrays of large dots, marked important moments in a woman’s life and, in some cases, were believed to ensure passage to heaven.
When Japan annexed the Okinawa island chain in 1879, however, a process of forced assimilation set the hajichi tradition on the path to extinction.

In mainland Japan, tattoos were associated with illegal behaviour, because criminals were sometimes tattooed by authorities to mark them out.
“Those with hajichi were fined and discriminated against,” says 30-year-old Heshiki in Naha, Okinawa’s main city.
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“[The body art] was degraded as tattoos, rather than understood as hajichi.”
A ban on the markings was lifted after World War II, but the practice did not resume, and as women with hajichi died, the culture seemed destined to die out.
Heshiki, born to a father from Okinawa and a mother from Japan’s main island, Honshu, stumbled across hajichi while researching possible tattoos.

“I was dying to have them on me,” she says. After a tattooist specialising in tribal work inked her, she felt “more connected to myself, or to Okinawa”.
“I felt I had finally become my true self.”
She wears hajichi shaped like arrows on the tops of all her fingers, dots and geometric patterns on the backs of her hands and larger versions around her wrists.
Okinawa: where arts, culture and tradition come alive
Today, she works as a hajicha, reproducing the traditional designs on clients who connect with her through Instagram.
While tattoos are still often frowned upon in Japanese society, younger generations are increasingly open to body art.
But Heshiki thinks hajichi should not become just another fad.
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She offers traditional patterns to those with roots in Okinawa, and takes time to discuss the markings and meanings with clients beforehand, researching designs in books about the art.
Hajichi was traditionally applied with a bamboo stick and ink made from charcoal and the Okinawan spirit awamori. Heshiki hand pokes the designs, but with regular needles and ink.
One of the best-known documenters of hajichi is Hiroaki Yamashiro, who photographed dozens of elderly women with the body art from 1970 onwards.

A native of the Okinawan island of Miyakojima, the 73-year-old began the project almost by accident as a student, when he spotted an elderly lady as he scouted for subjects.
“She had hajichi, and a very graceful look,” he says.
He photographed around 30 women with hajichi until 1990, including a 107-year-old who still remembered the pain of having the markings done.
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“She had to put her swollen hands in a bucket of soybean pulp left over from making tofu to cool them.”
Yamashiro welcomes the revival of hajichi but believes it should not be reduced to a mere fashion statement.
“This is a culture only practised by Ryukyu women, it’s something completely different from tattoos.”
He hopes younger generations will be “even more proud” of being Okinawan, and “retain the Okinawan culture, way of thinking and identity”.


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‘Completely different from tattoos’: how body art indigenous to Okinawa, Japan, is being revived for a new generation as a way to ‘retain the culture’

Photo: AFP

Tattoo artist Moeko Heshiki displays her body art. The “hajichi” body art, once banned, is a tradition among women of Japan’s Ryukyu island chain that nearly died out. Heshiki is helping revive it by inking clients - as long as they have roots in the Ryukyus. Photo: AFP

Tattoo artist Moeko Heshiki, who is half Okinawan, stumbled upon the “hajichi” body art traditionally worn by women of the Japanese island and others in the Ryukyus while researching possible tattoos. Photo: AFP

Heshiki says that since being inked with “hajichi”, she feels more connected with Okinawa. Photo: AFP

Veteran photographer Hiroaki Yamashiro checking archived negative and transparency films at his studio in Naha, Okinawa. Photo: AFP

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A tattoo Leung did for a customer inspired by cha chaan tengs, or Hong Kong-style cafes. Photo: Georgina Leung

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Lifestyle

Arts

Hajichi, hand-poked markings worn by women, is a traditional part of Ryukyu culture once banned in Japan; the practice had all but disappeared until recently
Now tattoo artist Moeko Heshiki is reviving the body art, inking those with Okinawan roots but conscious of the need to avoid it being reduced to a fad


Hajichi, hand-poked markings worn by women, are part of traditional culture in the Ryukyu island chain of Japan that had all but disappeared. Now a tattoo artist is reviving the body art.
