{
 "type": "method",
 "count": 5,
 "nodes": [
  {
   "schema": 1,
   "id": "cut",
   "type": "method",
   "names": {
    "name": "Cut",
    "th": "กรีด",
    "said": "An incision, and pigment rubbed into it"
   },
   "region": [
    "worldwide"
   ],
   "facets": {
    "family": "cut"
   },
   "text": {
    "what": "The skin is cut or chiselled and pigment is rubbed into the cut, so the mark has a texture as well as a colour.",
    "story": "Māori *tā moko* is the clearest case: the *uhi*, a hafted chisel of albatross bone, is struck with a mallet and the skin keeps a groove. A moko made this way catches light. A moko made with a needle does not, which is exactly what changed when steel arrived — and why some practitioners have taken the chisel up again.\n\nThe Ainu word *anchi-piri* names obsidian and a cut. Among the Lumad and Negrito peoples of the Philippines a hafted chisel incises the skin in short dashes, and the result is partly scarification.",
    "notes": "Cutting shades into scarification, which is a different practice with a different point. The test used here: if pigment is put into the wound to be seen afterwards, it is on this site."
   },
   "text_th": {
    "what": "กรีดหรือสกัดผิวหนังแล้วถูสีลงในรอย รอยที่ได้จึงมีทั้งสีและพื้นผิว"
   },
   "kin": [
    {
     "to": "ta-moko",
     "as": "The tradition built on it.",
     "rel": "tradition"
    },
    {
     "to": "uhi",
     "as": "The chisel.",
     "rel": "tool"
    }
   ],
   "sources": [
    "s:wp-t-moko",
    "s:wp-batok",
    "s:wp-scarification"
   ],
   "provenance": {
    "default": {
     "tier": "cited",
     "source": "s:wp-t-moko"
    },
    "fields": {
     "text_th": {
      "tier": "inference",
      "note": "written in Thai by this project, not machine-translated"
     }
    }
   },
   "confidence": "high",
   "updated": "2026-09-19",
   "kin_in": [
    {
     "from": "ainu-anchi-piri",
     "type": "tradition",
     "name": "Ainu anchi-piri",
     "as": "The method — a cut rubbed with pigment, not a puncture."
    },
    {
     "from": "ta-moko",
     "type": "tradition",
     "name": "Tā moko",
     "as": "The method."
    },
    {
     "from": "uhi",
     "type": "tool",
     "name": "Uhi",
     "as": "The method."
    },
    {
     "from": "what-counts",
     "type": "issue",
     "name": "What counts as hand-poked",
     "as": "Four."
    }
   ]
  },
  {
   "schema": 1,
   "id": "machine",
   "type": "method",
   "names": {
    "name": "Machine",
    "th": "เครื่องสัก",
    "said": "1891, and the reason every other method on this page needs a name"
   },
   "region": [
    "worldwide"
   ],
   "facets": {
    "family": "none"
   },
   "when": {
    "from": 1891,
    "to": 2026,
    "label": "Samuel O'Reilly's patent, and everything after it"
   },
   "text": {
    "what": "An electric motor drives the needle, at speeds between fifty and three thousand insertions a minute. It is here for contrast.",
    "story": "Until 1891 there was no need for the phrase *hand-poked*. Every tattoo in every tradition on this site was made by hand, and the differences that mattered were between a comb and a point, a chisel and a needle.\n\n*Inference —* the machine did not only speed the work up; it renamed everything else. \"Traditional\", \"hand\", \"by hand\" are all retroactive labels, applied after a machine existed to distinguish them from. That is worth holding on to when a tradition is described as having \"resisted\" the machine: most of them had no opinion about a device that did not exist when the practice was formed."
   },
   "text_th": {
    "what": "มอเตอร์ไฟฟ้าขับเข็ม เร็วตั้งแต่ห้าสิบถึงสามพันครั้งต่อนาที อยู่ที่นี่เพื่อเทียบ",
    "story": "ก่อนปี 1891 ไม่มีความจำเป็นต้องมีคำว่า *สักด้วยมือ* เพราะรอยสักทุกแบบในทุกธรรมเนียมบนเว็บนี้ทำด้วยมือทั้งหมด"
   },
   "kin": [
    {
     "to": "poke",
     "as": "What it replaced, and what it named.",
     "rel": "method"
    }
   ],
   "sources": [
    "s:wp-tattoo-machine",
    "s:wp-samuel-oreilly"
   ],
   "provenance": {
    "default": {
     "tier": "cited",
     "source": "s:wp-tattoo-machine"
    },
    "fields": {
     "text_th": {
      "tier": "inference",
      "note": "written in Thai by this project, not machine-translated"
     }
    }
   },
   "confidence": "high",
   "updated": "2026-09-19",
   "kin_in": [
    {
     "from": "stick-and-poke",
     "type": "tradition",
     "name": "Stick and poke",
     "as": "What it is defined against."
    },
    {
     "from": "timeline",
     "type": "story",
     "name": "Five thousand years",
     "as": "The newest thing that changed everything."
    }
   ]
  },
  {
   "schema": 1,
   "id": "poke",
   "type": "method",
   "names": {
    "name": "Poke",
    "th": "แทง",
    "said": "One point, pushed in by the hand that holds it"
   },
   "region": [
    "worldwide"
   ],
   "facets": {
    "family": "poke"
   },
   "text": {
    "what": "A point held in the hand and pushed into the skin, once per mark, with the pigment carried on or into the hole.",
    "story": "The hand does the work: it provides the force, the depth and the rhythm. A poked line is a row of punctures close enough to read as continuous — Shway Yoe's description of the Burmese method is exactly that, \"a series of punctures close together, forming what afterwards fades into a rough line.\"\n\nThe tool can be a thorn, a fish bone, a sewing needle, a sharpened bamboo splint or a two-foot weighted brass rod. What makes it poking is that nothing strikes the tool and nothing drives it but the hand.",
    "how": "Depth is the whole skill. Too shallow and the mark leaves with the skin; too deep and the pigment spreads under it and the line thickens with age."
   },
   "text_th": {
    "what": "ปลายแหลมในมือ แทงลงผิวหนังทีละครั้ง โดยมีสีติดไปกับรูที่แทง",
    "story": "มือเป็นผู้ให้แรง ความลึก และจังหวะ เส้นที่ได้คือรอยแทงถี่ๆ ที่ชิดกันจนอ่านเป็นเส้นเดียว ตรงตามที่เชวโยบรรยายวิธีของพม่าไว้"
   },
   "kin": [
    {
     "to": "tap",
     "as": "The one it gets confused with, and the one that does the striking for you.",
     "rel": "method"
    },
    {
     "to": "what-counts",
     "as": "Where the line between them stops being clear.",
     "rel": "issue"
    }
   ],
   "sources": [
    "s:shway-yoe",
    "s:wp-stick-and-poke"
   ],
   "provenance": {
    "default": {
     "tier": "cited",
     "source": "s:shway-yoe"
    },
    "fields": {
     "text_th": {
      "tier": "inference",
      "note": "written in Thai by this project, not machine-translated"
     }
    }
   },
   "confidence": "high",
   "tags": [
    "start-here"
   ],
   "updated": "2026-09-19",
   "kin_in": [
    {
     "from": "machine",
     "type": "method",
     "name": "Machine",
     "as": "What it replaced, and what it named."
    },
    {
     "from": "tap",
     "type": "method",
     "name": "Tap",
     "as": "The sibling method, and the one this site is named for."
    },
    {
     "from": "what-counts",
     "type": "issue",
     "name": "What counts as hand-poked",
     "as": "One."
    }
   ]
  },
  {
   "schema": 1,
   "id": "stitch",
   "type": "method",
   "names": {
    "name": "Stitch",
    "th": "ร้อยด้าย",
    "said": "A threaded needle drawn under the skin, leaving the pigment behind"
   },
   "region": [
    "worldwide"
   ],
   "facets": {
    "family": "stitch"
   },
   "text": {
    "what": "A needle carrying a thread blackened with soot, drawn through the skin so the line of pigment stays where the thread passed.",
    "story": "Skin stitching is the Arctic method, and it belongs to the same set of hands and the same needle case as the sewing that made the clothing people survived in. Nothing is punctured repeatedly; the line goes in once.\n\nIt is the rarest method on this site — two traditions out of the whole map — and the one that most clearly cannot be done by machine."
   },
   "text_th": {
    "what": "เข็มร้อยด้ายชุบเขม่าลอดใต้ผิวหนัง ทิ้งเส้นสีไว้ตามทางที่ด้ายผ่าน"
   },
   "kin": [
    {
     "to": "kakiniit",
     "as": "The tradition that carries it.",
     "rel": "tradition"
    }
   ],
   "sources": [
    "s:wp-kakiniit"
   ],
   "provenance": {
    "default": {
     "tier": "cited",
     "source": "s:wp-kakiniit"
    },
    "fields": {
     "text_th": {
      "tier": "inference",
      "note": "written in Thai by this project, not machine-translated"
     }
    }
   },
   "confidence": "high",
   "updated": "2026-09-19",
   "kin_in": [
    {
     "from": "kakiniit",
     "type": "tradition",
     "name": "Kakiniit",
     "as": "The method, and the only one on this site that uses thread."
    },
    {
     "from": "needle-and-sinew",
     "type": "tool",
     "name": "Needle and sinew",
     "as": "The method."
    },
    {
     "from": "what-counts",
     "type": "issue",
     "name": "What counts as hand-poked",
     "as": "Three."
    }
   ]
  },
  {
   "schema": 1,
   "id": "tap",
   "type": "method",
   "names": {
    "name": "Tap",
    "th": "ตอก",
    "said": "A comb set crosswise on a handle, struck by a second stick"
   },
   "region": [
    "worldwide"
   ],
   "facets": {
    "family": "tap"
   },
   "text": {
    "what": "A needle or a comb of needles fixed at a right angle to a handle, and a second piece of wood striking the handle to drive it in.",
    "story": "This is the Austronesian method, and it runs from Taiwan through the Philippines and Borneo across the whole Pacific: Samoa, Tonga, Fiji, the Marquesas, Hawaii. The rate is about 90 to 120 taps a minute, which is a drum tempo, and the sound is what a tattooing session sounds like in half the traditions on this site.\n\n*Inference —* the hand that holds the comb does not push. It positions and holds the angle; the striking hand supplies the force. That division of labour is what lets a wide comb lay down a band of solid black at a speed no single point can match, and it is why the Pacific traditions cover so much more skin than the poking ones.",
    "notes": "This site keeps tapping separate from poking rather than folding both into \"hand-poked\". They are different tools, different rates and different results, and the traditions that use them know the difference."
   },
   "text_th": {
    "what": "เข็มหรือหวีเข็มติดตั้งฉากกับด้าม แล้วใช้ไม้อีกอันตอกด้ามให้เข็มลงผิว",
    "story": "นี่คือวิธีของตระกูลออสโตรนีเซียน ตั้งแต่ไต้หวัน ฟิลิปปินส์ บอร์เนียว ไปจนทั่วแปซิฟิก อัตราราว 90–120 ครั้งต่อนาที"
   },
   "kin": [
    {
     "to": "poke",
     "as": "The sibling method, and the one this site is named for.",
     "rel": "method"
    },
    {
     "to": "batok",
     "as": "Where it is still being done daily.",
     "rel": "tradition"
    }
   ],
   "sources": [
    "s:wp-batok",
    "s:wp-pe-a"
   ],
   "provenance": {
    "default": {
     "tier": "cited",
     "source": "s:wp-batok"
    },
    "fields": {
     "text_th": {
      "tier": "inference",
      "note": "written in Thai by this project, not machine-translated"
     }
    }
   },
   "confidence": "high",
   "tags": [
    "start-here"
   ],
   "updated": "2026-09-19",
   "kin_in": [
    {
     "from": "batok",
     "type": "tradition",
     "name": "Batok",
     "as": "The method, and why this site does not call it hand-poke."
    },
    {
     "from": "iban-borneo",
     "type": "tradition",
     "name": "Iban tattooing",
     "as": "The method."
    },
    {
     "from": "poke",
     "type": "method",
     "name": "Poke",
     "as": "The one it gets confused with, and the one that does the striking for you."
    },
    {
     "from": "au",
     "type": "tool",
     "name": "Au",
     "as": "The method."
    },
    {
     "from": "arku-cave",
     "type": "find",
     "name": "The Arku Cave tools",
     "as": "The method."
    },
    {
     "from": "what-counts",
     "type": "issue",
     "name": "What counts as hand-poked",
     "as": "Two."
    }
   ]
  }
 ]
}