Moeko Heshiki is no ordinary tattoo artist: she is one of the few people keeping the once-banned tradition of hajichi body art alive for the Indigenous Ryukyu people of Japan's Okinawa region. The traditionally hand-poked markings were once common on women of the Ryukyu, who lived throughout the southern islands of what is now Japan. The monochrome patterns, ranging from delicate arrow-like symbols to arrays of large dots, marked important moments in a woman's life and, in some cases, were believed to ensure passage to heaven. When Japan annexed the Okinawa island chain in 1879, however, a process of forced assimilation set the hajichi tradition on the path to extinction. IMAGES AND SOUNDBITES ARRANGED IN SEQUENCES