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Day 1 in Seattle

Grey with the ads for the festival all around the hotel

The team all filtered into Seattle yesterday and today. Grey and I spent the morning getting to know each other, then we watched some World Cup (had to see if Argentina was going to make it to the round of 16) before heading out to do some errands.

Grey & Holly in their new ie lavalava

First we stopped by Avaava's Lavalavas to buy a few ie lavalava. They're the appropriate thing to wear when attending a traditional hand tap session. Tui and Catey run Avaava's out of their home, so they let us come by when we dropped Whitey's name and let us buy a few. They will have a booth at the Northwest Tatau Festival and showed us these cool kava bottles they will be selling. You shake the kava up in the bottle and pour the kava into the lid, which looks like a shell. They also have two super cute dogs, two cats, and a lovely daughter who were super nice.

The taco bus

Inside the taco bus

Grey and I picked up some tacos in a school bus on Meridian in Puyallup, where we're staying for the festival, then went to Target for some supplies we need (clip boards, latex gloves, etc.), before heading to Paka Polynesian Tattoo. Whitey invited us there to meet up and watch some hand tapping being done. It could not have been a cooler way to start our fieldwork. Su'a Petelo Sulu'ape and Su'a Paul Sulu'ape were giving malu and pe'a. Petelo Sulu'ape is literally a legend and is responsible for training almost everyone (if not literally everyone) who conducts hand tapped Samoan tattoos. Paul is one of his sons, who we met last year. So we sat and watched these master's at their craft from several hours, chatting with the families who were there to accompany the people being tattooed, and introduced ourselves to the tattooists and stretchers when we had a chance. I was honored that Paul remembered us from last year (the handlebar mustache helps!).

Holly had literally just gotten off the plane from Wilmington, so they kept tattooing, but we had to duck out, grab a bite, and have a short team meeting before everyone wilted. We transferred all the study materials that had been shipped ahead to Michaela's aunt (where she is staying) and loaded them into my rental car, brought them back to our hotel to my room, and labeled all of our saliva collection tubes.

Our gear

More data collection stuff

We are rolling!

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About This Project

Our team studies cultural impacts on health, specifically those of tattooing on the immune system. We expand on our previous study that suggests tattooing may "inoculate" the immune system. Our research takes place among Polynesian tattooists, who retain some of the oldest and most extensive tattooing practices in the world. We will collect saliva samples from over 100 people receiving tattoos at the Northwest Tatau Festival to examine multiple immunological factors.

Blast off!

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