Black tribal-style shark tattoo with dotted and patterned fill on the side of the ribs, shown in a photo of a torso wearing low-rise jeans.

Tribal shark tattoo on the ribs

Blackwork · Ribs · Black and grey · Photo

A black ink shark drawn in a Polynesian tribal style curves diagonally across the side of the torso, with its tail sweeping upward and its head pointing down towards the hip. The body is filled with bold solid black patterns, including swirls, checkered bands, dots and a sun-like motif, with thick outlines and sharp tribal edging. The skin is lit evenly against a plain background, with a wall of flash sheets visible behind.

Blackwork Ribs Shark Tribal Polynesian Swirl Sun Dot

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Take it to an artist as a reference. A good artist will make it yours rather than copy someone else's tattoo.

A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Hold the net steady, boy, or the old fish will have your fingers before the sun is up. I'll tell you how Teuru came home from the far atoll with a shark swimming at his stern. Forty years back, before the causeway was built, he took the outer canoe through the reef gap with nothing in the hold but a bag of bone combs and a jar of soot ink. He was going to mark a young man for the dance, and everyone was marked in those days. Don't look at me like that.

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The shark came up under the hull at the turn of the tide, long as the canoe and grey as wet slate. It did not bite. It kept its nose to the timber and slid along beside him like a dog told to heel. Teuru spoke to it the way you speak to a pig before the knife, low and certain. He said, I have no sun to give you, only what I carry in my hands. When the squall hit, the shark stayed under the bow while the waves broke over its back, and the checkered pattern along its flank was the same reef-stone pattern cut into the old meeting house posts at home.

They made the far island at dusk. Teuru worked through the night by lamp, combing the shape across the young man's side in bands and dots, a sun set at the hip, the tail sweeping up toward the ribs and the head turned down as if the creature were diving for something it had dropped. The shark circled the lagoon until first light, then went back through the gap without a single fin breaking the water.

The young man never again crossed open sea without touching the mark, and he swore the sun-dot grew warm whenever the tide turned. So when you go past the gap at slack water and see a dark fin keeping pace with you, don't reach for the paddle. Just nod to it. It has been looking after one of ours for a long time.