Drawing My Own Lines
By Bella Trigg
I am a storyteller and a Native woman; I tell Native stories. Sometimes they are my own, about my Iñupiaq and Yup’ik heritage. Often I share those of other Native people, through my writing and photography, alongside weaving, beading and other sacred ways of storytelling to which I’ve returned.
One of these sacred ways is tavluġun—traditional female chin tattoos. Given to girls when they come of age, tavluġun tells a woman’s story through the inked lines and markings stitched into her skin. I was not given a tavluġun, having been raised far from my People and our Land in Sitŋasuaq. Instead, I draw my own tavluġun on my face with charcoal, wearing my story on the most vulnerable part of my body.
My tavluġun is one of the ways I express my Indigeneity. Though only simple lines, they bring me a sense of pride and belonging when I wear them—especially when paired with long braids, walrus ivory earrings, and my aaka’s regalia.
Crushed charcoal
A mirror
I drag the charcoal straight down from my bottom lip to my chin.
I do it again, from the corner of my mouth this time. Then again, from the other corner.
One of these lines turns out crooked, so I rub it off, drawing it again with a steadier hand.
My chin now has three lines.
These are my tavluġun. Tavluġun belongs to the women of my Northern People and was made of
A needle, carved from bone or wood
Caribou or whale sinew
Ink, a mix of of soot and seal oil, water or urine
Traditionally, a female elder gives a woman her tavluġun. She dips the needle into the ink, and stitches it under the first layer of skin—dragging the sinew through her chin, leaving a perfect line.
A tavluġun is given to our girls when they come of age. This marks the start of their womanhood—the beginning of their own story.
As each year passes, a woman’s tavluġun sinks deeper into her skin. These fading lines are never alone, for as long as she lives, she gathers stories for her tavluġun. Her motherhood can be represented by the dots inked into her chin, or a good hunt marked by lines beside her eyes.
By the end of a woman’s life, her tavluġun becomes a collection of her stories. The oil and soot trapped beneath her skin—these markings that immortalized her.
My aaka told me that when she was a little girl in her village, she admired women with their tavluġun. When she was taken from the village, she was taught in school that tavluġun was uncivilized, sinful, and something she could never have.
As I drag charcoal down my chin, I try to remember where my aaka traced her finger and told me…
“This is where my tavluġun would have been.”
Looking into the mirror at my charcoal tavluġun, I don’t recognize the marked face staring back at me. These imperfect lines are a burning reminder of the tradition that had been taken from us and all of our lost stories.
This feeling of loss is a place I’ve been so many times. A place other Native kids know all too well as we try to connect to our People through the overwhelming grief, erasure, and uncertainty. It feels like we are holding a broken rope, where we tug on our own end only to realize it’s detached from the side of who our People were.
In this place of loss only memory can save me. It is why I began drawing my tavluġun.
I drew my first lines when I was sixteen. I saw a picture in a magazine of Quannah Chasinghorse with her Yidįįłtoo, the three lines from her People. Alone in my room, I took some drugstore eyeliner to my chin and mimicked her lines.
Three years later after moving to New York City, I saw an Inuk woman with her own lines. It was the first time I’d seen a tavluġun in person, and I noticed how intricate the patterns were up close—how the lines faded into her chin and how imperfect they were.
The following year, I was walking through Santa Fe Indian Market when I met two women from my village in Sitŋasuaq. Both of these women had their tavluġun, even the one who was my age. After talking with them, and seeing their tavluġun, I couldn’t help but wonder how things might have been different if I had been raised back Home.
It was this last summer that my cousin told me that, as a little girl, she too would draw lines on her chin. I thought about how all this time my cousin and I had been drawing our lines without knowing why.
Now, women tell new stories of reclamation and resilience through our tavluġun. This revived practice is more than a form of traditional storytelling—it is a form of healing. Some of us return Home to have our aunties and elders tattoo our skin with a needle and sinew. Others draw our own lines.
I drag the charcoal straight down from my bottom lip to my chin, thinking of the story this line holds.
One of my lines is crooked so I rub it off. I embrace the impermanence of charcoal rather than wishing for ink beneath my skin.
I realize the freedom that I have, to choose where all my lines will go.
I look at my tavluġun and see my own face.
I draw three lines down my chin as I tell my aaka …
“These belong to you.”