Black tribal spiral motifs in a grid of six panels on the upper arm, shown on a seated person in a black top.

Black tribal spiral band on upper arm

Blackwork · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

The photograph shows six identical tribal-style panels arranged in two columns and three rows across the outer upper arm. Each panel contains bold curved hooks and tight spirals drawn in solid black linework with fine grey shading. The ink is set against pale skin, with a black top and a black leather chair in the background.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tui,

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The canoe went into the water at dawn, and the wind has not yet asked anything of us that we could not give. Your grandfather would have wept to see the prow. I cut the six panels myself over nineteen nights, two columns and three rows, each one a hook curling back on itself and a spiral tight as a fern frond just unfurling. Old Mataio said the hook is for catching what lies ahead and the spiral for coiling what is behind, so that a steersman with both carved before his eyes is never lost between them.

Mataio did not live to see the hull finished. Before he died he made me promise I would not carve the panels straight. Every line had to wander a little, the way a current does around a reef, or the gods would think we were trying to make the sea obey us. I have done it. Some of the spirals run a finger's width wide, and the hooks lean like tired men.

The men of the far island laughed when we launched. They said we had carved a cage. Yesterday they came alongside in their own canoe and asked to borrow the pattern. I told them the pattern is not in the wood. It is in the hands that cut it, and in the hands that will steer by it when the swell comes up grey.

Keep this letter. Tie it under the thwart where your fingers will find it when you are afraid. The sea will be the same tomorrow, but you will know which way you are facing.

Your loving father, Sefa

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