Dusun tatoos?

I believe no one would ever associate tatoos with Dusuns nowadays. I, for one, has never seen any Dusun with a Dusun made tatoo since my late paternal grandfather who tattoed his name on his arm. (He died at 102 in 1993). I never thought much of his tatoo then because unlike our Iban neighbours in Sarawak, his looked too simple. Just a spelling of his name, no patterns whatsoever.

It came as a surprise when somebody emailed me this picture:


Apparently in the 1900s, tatooing was quite a common practice among the Dusuns. And this particular one is of a man in Kundasang/Bundu Tuhan area, my hometown. How exciting!