Bold black tribal sun design with spirals and a stylised face covering the upper back and shoulder blade.

Tribal sun design on a shoulder blade

Blackwork · Back · Black and grey · Photo

A large tribal-style sun motif with a stylised face sits across the upper back and shoulder blade, with a band of triangular points running up towards the neck. The design is built from thick solid black areas and fine negative-space swirls, spirals and bands. The image is a close back view in warm skin tones, with the subject's head and face out of frame.

Blackwork Back Shoulder Sun Tribal Spiral Face Triangle Swirl

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The band at the Rotunda had given up on the waltz by ten, and Ruta Halse stood at the edge of the sprung floor with a glass of lime cordial going warm in her hand. Across the room her uncle Tane was showing the younger men how the old sun pattern had to be cut into the lintel of the pavilion, one stroke for each ray, never lifting the chisel. Nobody was listening. They were watching the coloured lights swing over the dancers.

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The sun on the lintel had a face, two half-closed eyes and a mouth that looked like it was trying not to laugh. Tane said the carver had been paid in fish and had insisted on the face so the sun would have to keep an eye on the village. Ruta had heard the story a hundred times, always with a different number of fish.

When the power dipped and the hall went dark, the only light came from the open doors. The black spiral shapes on the far wall, cut into the timber and painted over every year, seemed to turn slowly as the dancers moved across them. Ruta counted the triangles along the beam the way her grandmother had taught her, one for each person who had left the island and come back. Eleven. She had been counting twelve for a month.

The lights came back on. Tane was already at the door with his hat, looking at her. "You counted," he said. She nodded. He reached up and touched the carved sun's cheek, as if checking it was still there, and said nothing about the twelfth.