In preparation for this class session, I did research on a national tradition of my choice: Inuit tattooing. I ended up reading seven different articles on the history of Inuit tattooing, and found it all to be very interesting. Lars Krutak’s work was an important resource, and something I might return to – if relevant – for my final research project. I loved how woman-focused a lot of the Inuit tattooing traditions were, as well as how intertwined they were with sewing. The idea of skin-stitching is not something I was familiar with before my research; I might try to find a video of it being done, because I am very curious about how far under the skin the needle and thread go. I was also interested by the reasoning behind a lot of Inuit tattooing, which is the belief that every person has multiple souls that live in specific joints throughout the body. I thought it was cool that both human and animal spirits have the power to possess people, hence the tradition of first-kill tattoos. I am happy that I took the time to research current iterations of Inuit tattooing; it showed me that the tradition is not dead, and that people are consciously trying to bring it back in a significant way. I was somewhat aware of this movement because of TikTok funnily enough – sometimes I am recommended videos from an Inuk woman named Shina Nova. She shows aspects of Inuit culture ranging from recipes with whale and caribou meat to traditional throat singing, and has semi-recently gotten some face tattoos. When I found Jana Angulalik’s article in Canadian Geographic, I was mesmerized by the photos of young women’s tattoos presented alongside their reasoning for getting them. Overall, this research process was really enjoyable for me.