But when the Empire of Japan annexed the islands of Okinawa in 1879, beginning a process of forced assimilation of the local population, the hajichi almost disappeared, associated in the minds of the Japanese with the tattoos with which criminals were marked.

“People who wore hajichi were fined and discriminated against,” says Ms. Heshiki, 30, who said these traditional tattoos were misunderstood.

Hajichi seemed destined to disappear, even though its ban was lifted after World War II.

Moeko Heshiki, whose father is from Okinawa, grew up on the main island of Japan, north of Tokyo.

It was while looking for ideas for tattoos reminiscent of her origins that she discovered the patterns of hajichi.

Moeko Heshiki, specializing in traditional "hajichi" tattooing, during an interview with AFP, August 24, 2022 in Nanjo, Okinawa Prefecture, Japan © Philip FONG / AFP

"I was dying to have them on me," she says.

After having her hands tattooed by an artist specializing in tribal body art, she says she felt "more connected" to her roots: "I felt that I was finally myself".

"Proud to be Okinawans"

Each of her fingers is adorned with long arrows, which once meant that a wife would be eternally faithful to her husband, and a series of dots, which were considered a sesame to heaven.

Moeko Heshiki works with a needle rather than the traditional bamboo rod and ink made from charcoal and awamori, the traditional Okinawan leaguer.

Photographer Hiroaki Yamashiro, a specialist in "hajichi", consults negatives from his archives, during an interview with AFP at his studio in Naha, on August 23, 2022 in Okinawa prefecture, Japan © Philip FONG / AFP

She says she takes the time to discuss with her clients, who come to her via the social network Instagram, the meaning of the patterns, found in books because of the lack of "living" examples.

One of the most famous hajichi specialists is the photographer Hiroaki Yamashiro, 73, who since the 1970s has immortalized around thirty women sporting these tattoos.

The Okinawan native says he came across hajichi almost by chance when he was a student looking for a subject to photograph, when he met a "very graceful-looking" old lady with her tattoos.

Negatives of photographer Hiroaki Yamashiro, specialist in "hajichi", in his studio in Naha, August 23, 2022 in Okinawa prefecture, Japan © Philip FONG / AFP

He remembers in particular the story told to him by a 107-year-old Okinawan woman of her tattoo session.

“She told me how painful it was to get hajichi done,” he says.

So much so that "she had to plunge her hands into a bucket of soybean residue used to make tofu, to cool them".

Mr. Yamashiro took his last photograph of hajichi in 1990, but he believes the tradition is a key part of Ryukyu cultural heritage.

"I want Okinawan people to retain Okinawan culture, way of thinking and identity, to make young people even more proud to be Okinawans," he says.

Photographer Hiroaki Yamashiro, a specialist in "hajichi", consults negatives from his archives, during an interview with AFP at his studio in Naha, on August 23, 2022 in Okinawa prefecture, Japan © Philip FONG / AFP

He believes, however, that hajichi should not become a mere fashion tattoo, as "it is a culture only practiced by Ryukyu women, something completely different from tattooing".

© 2023 AFP