The Kayans: Ontology of their tattoos and its meanings

Abstract

In Malaysia, the Kayans are just a minority group and have extensive traditional tattoos among the women folks. Anthropologists credited them as the pioneer of exquisite tattoos. The other tribes in Borneo got inspirations for their own body of art. This expansion of existing study attempts to make sense of the motifs and to address the intrinsic and extrinsic meanings of tattoo motifs and relate to their lives. Interviews among tattooed Kayan women folk provide the first-hand information about the implications of tattoos. The perspective of visual semiotics and semantics analysis ultimately shed light on the distant past.