Primitives: Tribal Body Art and the Left Hand Path. - book reviews

Whole Earth Review, Winter, 1992 by Lorry Fleming

Body modification and adornment have become surprisingly popular in the lost few years. In most large cities, it's no longer unusual to see a waiter sporting a nose ring or a cabbie with a tattoo creeping out of his or her shirt collar. Septum, labrette (chin), and tongue piercings are the newest of the show-and-tell variety.

The truly "undercover" manipulations, which you don't see on the streets - the very extreme - can be found in a handful of magazines and books documenting this movement toward primal expressions of sexuality and self. In Gatewood's beautiful, black-and-white Primitives (a signed and numbered collector's edition of 2,000) we find not only lush photos to ogle and ponder, but a kind of stream-of-consciousness commentary on the linking of body art with "magic, freedom and the development of untapped human potential." I'm not sure if a labia piercing would really enable me to reach my own highest level of human potential, but this oversized, hardbound, bedside (as opposed to coffee-table) book possesses a certain allure some will find difficult to resist.