Click image(s) to see the larger version(s).This awesome tattoo, of an egg, a raven, a whale and a woman with a labret piercing, comes to us from the Flickrstream of Zach_ManchesterUK and is licensed under Creative Commons. It was designed by Haida artist Freda Diesing.
The Haida were and are American Indians of the northern coast of British Columbia near the border of Alaska. Like many native peoples their use of symbols and mythic figures on masks, totem poles, etc., often denote lineage and status. Unfortunately, much of their myths have been lost to time leaving us with only educated guesses as to the meaning of many of their symbols. We do know that the raven features heavily in Haida mythology and art and serves as their trickster who provides freedom but also threatens chaos.
2 comments:
This is a hawk. While it is possible to confuse the beak of Hawks, Eagle, Thunderbirds the Raven it quite different
Hi Tim, thanks for your comment. If you visit the original Flickr page of the tattoo owner you'll see, down in the comments, that he himself says it's a raven. So I figured that it's his body and he asked for, paid for and suffered for the ink so I went with what he said.
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