The Very Last Of Them

While researching traditional tattooing in the jungle of Nepal, I took a photo of an elderly woman who was blind, deaf and heavily tattooed on her legs, upper arm and chest. Unfortunately, she had already died, and her tattoo patterns were only documented in a few of the photos I took that afternoon.

She was working as a midwife in the village. As a child, she received tattoos of artfully strung lines and dots, which solely consist of markings with no discernible meaning to the untrained eye. However, many of these designs take inspiration from natural motifs present in the Terai region, including seeds, rice, different flowers, and multiple versions of a peacock. It is believed that the peacock converts the venom of the centipede it consumes into beauty.

The Midwife from the The Very Last Of Them Collection by Ina Grischau