The tribal style of tattooing finds its roots in Polynesia but there is no one tribe there to which we can look for the types of designs flourishing i

The tribal style of tattooing finds its roots in Polynesia but there is no one tribe there to which we can look for the types of designs flourishing in tattoo studios everywhere today. Instead, the tribal style of tattooing is one that is inspired by those that have traditionally been done in Polynesia for thousands of years. Below is a photograph that was taken by Frances Hubbard Flaherty in Samoa in 1923. She and her husband were already famous for their film “Nanook of the North” which debuted in 1922 and was widely shown and praised as the first full-length, anthropological documentary in cinema history.