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Lars Krutak (Lincoln, Nebraska April 14, 1971) is an American anthropologist, photographer, and writer known for his research about tattoo and its cultural background. He produced and hosted the 10-part documentary series Tattoo Hunter on the Discovery Channel, which traveled the indigenous world to showcase vanishing art forms of body modification. Between 1999-2002 and 2010-2014, Krutak worked as an Archaeologist and Repatriation Case Officer at the National Museum of the American Indian and National Museum of Natural History, facilitating the return of human remains, funerary objects, sacred and ceremonial objects. Today, he is a Research Associate at the Museum of International Folk Art.

Early life and career

Krutak was born in Lincoln, Nebraska, to Dr. Paul Krutak, a traveling geologist and university professor, who moved the family to Mexico City in 1979 and then to a series of states including Louisiana, Texas, and eventually Colorado where Lars grew up in the small mountain town atmosphere of Rye, Colorado. Krutak attended the University of Colorado at Boulder studying art history and anthropology and upon graduation (1993) he moved to San Francisco to work as an art gallery preparator for Paul Thiebaud, the son of American Pop artist Wayne Thiebaud. In 1996, Krutak attended graduate school at the University of Alaska at Fairbanks where his thesis One Stitch at a Time: Ivalu and Sivuqaq Tattoo focused on the ancient tattooing traditions of the St. Lawrence Island Yupik people.

Krutak briefly attended Cambridge University as a PhD student in 1998 but he returned stateside joining the National Museum of the American Indian (Smithsonian Institution) where he worked as a Repatriation Research Specialist (between 1999–2002) facilitating the return of sacred and ceremonial objects and human remains to indigenous peoples throughout North America and Mexico. Between 1998 and 2003 he also worked for the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe as a Democratization Analyst and Applied Anthropologist in several countries of the former Yugoslavia monitoring electoral reforms.

Since 2002, Krutak served as an Anthropological Consultant for three National Geographic Channel productions and was a co-recipient of the 2003 American Book Award in Literature for Akuzilleput Igaqullghet, Our Words Put to Paper Sourcebook in St. Lawrence Island Yupik Heritage and History. His PhD studies at Arizona State University (2005–2009) focused on the socioeconomic impacts of tourism on the Rarámuri (Tarahumara) people of Mexico's Copper Canyon region.

Krutak appeared as a studio guest for the History Channel's Ancient Aliens: Mysterious Rituals episode (2011) where he spoke about shamanism. In 2018, Krutak was the resident tattoo historian for the Facebook Watch series "Ink Expedition" produced by INSIDER. Later that year he was a studio guest for Netflix's "Explained" series episode on tattoo which was produced by VOX.

Lars Krutak is married to Heidi Rauch, the founder of apparel company Belabumbum and has one daughter, Neena.

Work

Published in 2007, Krutak's The Tattooing Arts of Tribal Women ( ISBN 9781898948759) was the first book to focus on the tattooing artistry of indigenous women worldwide. It is based on one decade of field and archival research.

In August 2010, Krutak released a new coffee table book with Edition Reuss on the ancient art of Kalinga tattooing in the Philippines that is entitled Kalinga Tattoo: Ancient and Modern Expressions of the Tribal ( ISBN 9783934020863). With an introduction provided by tattooed Kalinga elder Ms. Natividad Sugguiyao, this book is the first volume to focus on the indelible arts of these Cordilleran people and is based on field research conducted in 2007 and 2008.

In his continued effort to understand how tattoos and other forms of body modification "make" the people who wear them, Krutak has acquired many traditional tattoos including hand-tapped work from the Iban of Borneo, Kalinga of the Philippines, Mentawai of Indonesia; hand-poked art from Theravada Buddhist monks in Thailand; and hand-pricked designs from the Kayabi of the Brazilian Amazon. He also wears approximately one thousand razor and knife-cut scars across his body received from other groups like the Kaningara of Papua New Guinea, Bétamaribé of Benin, the Hamar of Ethiopia, and the Makonde of Mozambique.

Krutak's tattoo research is regularly published internationally in magazines TätowierMagazin (Germany), Total Tattoo (UK) and Skin & Ink Magazine (USA). In September 2012, Lars' new book Magical Tattoos and Scarification: Spiritual Skin. Wisdom. Healing. Shamanic Power. Protection ( ISBN 9783943105117) was released by Edition Reuss. This photographic masterwork explores the secret world of magical tattooing and scarification across the tribal world. Based on one decade of Dr. Krutak's field research among animistic and shamanic societies of Asia, Africa, the Americas, and Melanesia, Magical Tattoos and Scarification journeys into highly sacred territory to reveal how people utilize ritual body modification to enhance their access to the supernatural.

In 2013, Krutak’s new work on Native American tattooing (i.e., Great Plains and Eastern Woodlands regions) was published by the University of Texas Press in the book Drawing With Great Needles: Ancient Tattoo Traditions of Eastern North America (Aaron Deter-Wolf and Carol Diaz-Granados, eds). Also that year, Krutak's research on ancient and contemporary practices of medicinal tattooing (including evidence on mummies) was published in the book Tattoos and Body Modification in Antiquity (Zurich Studies in Archaeology 9), edited by Philippe Della Casa and Constanze Witt.

Krutak's research on the history of Native North American tattoo, including contemporary revitalization movements, was published in the 2014 book Tattoo Traditions of Native North America: Ancient and Contemporary Expressions of Identity distributed by the University of Washington Press.

Krutak's new book, the co-edited volume Ancient Ink: The Archaeology of Tattooing with Aaron Deter-Wolf, assembles the research of international scholars and tattoo artists. Published by the University of Washington Press in November 2017, Ancient Ink is the first book to explore the archaeological history of tattooing through ancient tools, tattooed mummies, and tattooed objects of material culture.

Krutak's new research on Naga tattooing of Northeast India and its ongoing revival was published in the 2020 release Tattoo Histories: Transcultural Perspectives on the Narratives, Practices, and Representations of Tattooing by Routledge. In 2020, Krutak with Dr. Dario Piombino-Mascali co-authored a peer reviewed book chapter on global Indigenous therapeutic tattooing in relation to the Iceman in the tome Purposeful Pain: The Bioarchaeology of Intentional Suffering published by Springer.

Preserving Culture

Krutak has a special interest in preserving indigenous knowledge of tattooing, as this ancient culture has begun to vanish quickly around the globe. He has worked to reveal the cultural diversity of tattoos, the biographies they represent, and what they say about being human.

Numerous tattoo artists are knowledgeable in various styles other than customary tattoos, enabling clients to choose from a wide collection of choices, anyplace from innate to new age styles. Current tattoos are done utilizing an electric machine, in which the ink can be embedded into the machine or the needle tip can be plunged into ink for application. tattoo artists are praised for their nature of work, despite being somewhat expensive, and are profoundly looked for after.

Today, coastal Papuan tattoo is an abstract art form barely recognizable and largely forgotten. Yet despite this, each indelible symbol allows us to dimly discern those concepts and ideologies of a cultural code that once served to represent the complexity of life experience in the natural and spiritual worlds of the tribal headhunters of Papua New Guinea.

Therapeutic

His study on the medical aspects of tattooing have largely been underreported as well. The mummified remains of a Neolithic “Iceman, Otzi” discovered in Europe in 1991 are the oldest known human evidence of curative tattooing, overlapping with classical Chinese acupuncture. More than fifty bluish-black tattoos were found at major joint articulations, and radiographic analyses of Otzi’s corpse revealed considerable arthrosis in many of the same regions (lumbar spine, hip joints, knee joints, and ankle joints). The St. Lawrence Island Yupiit and Aleut of Alaska also practiced joint tattooing as a preventative against arthritic complaints and bodily pains. The therapeutic tradition of joint tattooing continues among the Kayan of Sarawak and closely resembles that of Otzi in placement and function.

The efficacy of tattooing as a medical technology was significantly well-used as the indigenous Ainu of Japan and the Yuki and Miwok of California also tattooed to relieve rheumatism and joint sprains.

Cultural Heritage: St. Lawrence Island

-Needle and thread ultimately a visual-language of communication that spoke about the different ways that St. Law islanders engaged with and understood their social, physical, and spiritual worlds, and also ultimately made them human.

-Many years before a woman received a full complement of tattoo designs that were related to her family and clan lineage, social exploits and accomplishments of family members.

-An important rite of passage, these ceremonies were believed to be ways to cure infertility problems for women and designed to repel the advances of malevolent spirits that were thought to be harbingers of disease.

Conservation and Restoration of Tattoos

Krutak has always been driven to record every story in some permanent form which can be typically shared with the community when his projects are over and then it will remain in the community. After his work in Alaska, on his Master’s thesis, he has made sure to put copies into local libraries and regional institutions. As well as provide certain families either in the villages he has visited or regional universities with copies in the hope that people will go back to these sources and the tattoo patterns. Recognizing the roots of tattooing can give people more of a voice to talk about why these tattooing traditions are important and what can be gained by preserving it and what can be lost.

Media exposure, notoriety, and the prestige of indigenous tattooing communities can create a huge impact and international destination for tourism and tattooing that can, in turn, aid disappearing cultures. After Krutak had written his first book on the tattooing of the Kalinga in the Philippines and hosted for the discovery channel, others are learning to tattoo because of the interest that is being shown.

His research gives a large impact as these practices can disappear in a matter of a few years. We are witnessing the passing of many of these extremely important traditions that speak volumes of what it means to be human.