How did Inuit tattooing techniques use soot-coated thread?

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Body modifications and mutilations Peruvian elongated skulls, trephined male (left) and intact female (right), c. 1000 bc.

Inuit tattooing techniques, often referred to as skin stitching, involved a specific method of pigment application. Rather than simple pricking, practitioners would use a needle to make punctures in the skin, through which a thread coated in pigment—typically soot—was drawn underneath the surface. This process effectively embedded the soot into the skin to create permanent markings.1