Canoe tattoo to benefit storm victims

The relief effort for Philippine typhoon victims is getting a boost from tattoo artists around the world, and several Hawaii practitioners are joining in.

A special tattoo design depicting two people in a canoe is being offered by participating tattoo artists, with the proceeds going to Red Cross relief agencies. Typhoon Haiyan, known as Typhoon Yolanda in the Philippines, struck in early November, killing nearly 6,000 people and displacing 4 million.

The tattoo is available for $30, a substantial discount for a tattoo, which usually costs a minimum of $100, "even for the smallest one," said Vinnette Hainrick of Soul Signature Tattoo, one of the local shops offering the design.

Soul Signature has a direct connection to the tattoo. Its designer Elieser Festin, a tattoo artist based in Stanton, Calif., was mentored by Soul Signature’s owner, Aisea Toetu’u.

"He was actually an anthropologist who wanted to learn about tattooing…" Toetu’u said of Festin. "A lot of people don’t know about Filipino tattooing. Filipino tattooing is very rich."

Toetu’u, who is part Filipino, said Filipino tattooing was used as a form of identification in the multitribal culture. While much has been forgotten about those tattoos, "young people are trying to revive and reconnect themselves to the old culture with tattoos,"he said.

The fundraising tattoo design, rendered in petroglyph style, was inspired by a decoration on the Manunggul Jar, an artifact discovered in Manunggul cave on the western island of Palawan. The cave was an ancient burial site and contained the remains of the earliest known human settlement in the Philippines, dating from the eighth century B.C.

"It symbolizes a person in the canoe taking a person across to the other side," Toetu’u said. "A canoe has always been a symbol as a vessel of life, especially in Philippine, Polynesian, Micronesian culture. The canoe was always that network that connects everybody. It brings you in birth and it takes you in death."

Soul Signature is one of six tattoo parlors in Hawaii — four on Oahu and one each on Maui and Kauai — participating in the program, more than any other state except California. So far, more than 140 artists in 28 countries have signed up to offer the tattoos, according to a Facebook page created to document the effort.