Stopped, and started again — Hand Poke Several traditions here stopped and came back. Where both ends are datable, this site subtracts them and prints the gap. nanobotco.github.io/hand-poke/story/revival/ · 19-Sep-2026 · 52K
Mandalay — Hand Poke Upper Burma's capital until 1885, and the centre of the country whose men were, in Shway Yoe's account, all tattooed. nanobotco.github.io/hand-poke/place/mandalay/ · 19-Sep-2026 · 51K
The framed animal — Hand Poke A tiger, a cat, a monkey, an elephant, a *nat* or a *bilu*, each sitting inside an oval frame of letters. nanobotco.github.io/hand-poke/motif/framed-animal/ · 19-Sep-2026 · 51K
Iban tattooing — Hand Poke Borneo: tapped designs carved on a block and printed onto the skin, with hand marks reserved for a man who had taken a head. nanobotco.github.io/hand-poke/tradition/iban-borneo/ · 19-Sep-2026 · 53K
The open questions — Hand Poke Questions this site cannot settle: whose designs, whose hands, whose photographs, and what counts as hand-poked at all. nanobotco.github.io/hand-poke/questions/ · 19-Sep-2026 · 51K
How the word got in — Hand Poke English had no single word for the practice until Cook's crew brought one back from Polynesia. nanobotco.github.io/hand-poke/story/cook-1769/ · 19-Sep-2026 · 51K
Bearing it — Hand Poke In tradition after tradition the pain is not a side effect of the mark. It is the thing being demonstrated. nanobotco.github.io/hand-poke/rite/the-pain/ · 19-Sep-2026 · 52K
Stitch — Hand Poke A needle carrying a thread blackened with soot, drawn through the skin so the line of pigment stays where the thread passed. nanobotco.github.io/hand-poke/method/stitch/ · 19-Sep-2026 · 51K
The Sulu'ape line — Hand Poke The Samoan master-tattooist titles, held in two families, and carried into the present by name. nanobotco.github.io/hand-poke/person/sulu-ape/ · 19-Sep-2026 · 50K
ตำแหน่งโดยประมาณจากเครือข่าย (Columbus) · your network's rough position