Inside a small Waialua home, Natalia Roxas tattoos a man’s arm with traditional markings representing his family lineage in the Philippines.
Roxas is a Hawaiʻi-based cultural practitioner of the traditional art form called batok, which involves tapping ink made of charcoal soot using ancient tools like bones, thorns or bamboo sticks.
It’s a sacred ritual. But recent online images produced by artificial intelligence depicted something totally different: a woman using a mallet and a hair comb to tattoo what appears to be contemporary tribal markings.
“AI has no room in a cultural practice because the practice itself has to be experienced through human hands,” Roxas said.
The rise of AI-generated images has cultural practitioners in Hawaiʻi worried about the misappropriation of Indigenous tattoos and copying designs.
Cultural practitioners are prone to the same pitfalls from AI as other tattoo artists. AI can scrape data from the internet without permission to generate images. Some tattoo artists have had clients bring AI-generated images to have them tattooed.
“I feel like it’s just disrespectful,” Roxas said. “There’s a lot of practitioners with actual lineages with ike and manaʻo that’s so vast and wide. Why are you going to be consuming AI to tell you who you are or what you are? Especially when there’s a visual representation of it that is not accurate.”
The images Roxas is referring to were posted on Hawaiʻi Travelers' Instagram page. The post was titled “The real meaning behind the traditional tattoos in Hawaiian culture.”
HPR couldn't reach the content creator for comment.
Tattoo revival
Humans have been getting tattoos for more than 5,000 years. In the last 60 years, tattoos have seen a revival after being banned due to colonial and religious influences.
Native Hawaiian tattoo tapping, known as kākau, was revitalized in the early 1990s, according to Kalehua Krug, a Native Hawaiian practitioner who has been working on the art form for about 25 years.
Krug said he was disappointed to see inaccurate, AI-generated images of Native Hawaiian tattoos online.
In the online AI-generated image Krug is referring to, the tribal markings look similar to contemporary Polynesian designs, which fuses traditional symbols with modern flair. The symbols are usually from Samoan culture, where patterns flow in swirls; not so with traditional Native Hawaiian tattoos, which instead feature fish scales or triangle shapes placed vertically on the body.
“For this to be something represented globally, it really sends us backwards into the progression that we've been trying to fulfill this educational void that society has in regards to our culture and our cultural practices,” he said.
But it’s more than just getting inked. Cultural tattoos are rooted in history. Tattoo ceremonies involve prayers, oral histories and bridging a connection with their ancestors before they get tapped. Each marking has a symbolic meaning, depending on the person’s cultural roots.
The tools used for Native Hawaiian tattoos are albatross bones and other natural materials.
Krug said cultural tattoos are a spiritual rebirth.
“The roles in a vibrant, thriving Polynesian, Indigenous society, for us, we generated these ways that both genders, in that space, in that culture, could represent rebirth, so it's a really important concept for us as Native Hawaiians.”
A question of ethics
While AI might be here to stay, cultural practitioners want people to educate themselves on traditional tattoos. There are also conversations on where to draw the line in terms of ethics.
Museums have displays of traditional tattoo tools for visitors who want to learn, Roxas said.
But practitioners also worry that AI-generated content may be seeping into the realms of cultural education, too.
Michael Quintana, who is Roxas’ student, said he noticed AI has been used to explain cultural tattoos to tourists.
“In terms of using AI to create things that will explain a culture to these tourists, without any sort of input on the validity of what's being explained from members of that community, I would say that's a big no-no,” he said.
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