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My name
is Danny Yerna "Wakantanka". I was born in Belgium, but I have been
living in Mexico City since 1985. I´ve been completely involved with
body piercing since 1994 Bored with the climate in Belgium, I left to Spain to "change my life". Not to much after that, because of destiny I guess, I arrived in Mexico City. A lot of things changed in my life. Suddenly I was the co-manager of one of the coolest bars in the city, Tutti Frutti, which was soon called the "Temple of Underground", because of the location, the music we played and of course, because of a lot of local bands like Caifanes, Maldita Vecindad, Los Gatos Defes, Cafe Tacuba, Masacre 68 and Atoxxxico among others played their, aswell as bands like the Ultra 5 from N.Y., Bayou Pigs from Texas, the Tommyknockers from L.A., The Monomen from Washington and the Hellbilly´s from Sn. Francisco. As you can see, the bar was completely influenced by the best garage music. . In 1991 we recorded one of the Ultra 5 shows and made a live record, a collecter item with 500 in black and 500 in coloured viny. It recieved great reviews in U.S, Canada, Italy, Greece, Spain, Rusia and over here in Mexico. After almost six years we had to close down the place because of some personal problems, I still do some work as d.j. In different bars. In that period I started to get more involved with piercing. I had, since 1980, ( I was 16 years old) some small tattoos done in the famous "Schipperstraat" in the port of Antwerp, 2 piercings in my nose and a few in my ear, by the time I came to Mexico I had 3 in my nose, 15 in one side of my ear, 2 in the other and a tragus, basiclly all done by myself, which was still rare in those days and even more so in Mexico. So, people saw me and wanted piercings too and they wanted me to do it. I only had experience by piercing my own ears so that´s not too much, but people insisted so I told them always to go and buy a thick needle in the store and bring me the earing they wanted to put in their ears or nose. In that period a friend af mine, a doctor, pierced my nipple, another pierced my labret and I pierced my navel, of course with the wrong jewelry and techniques so the navel piercing grew out real soon. In 1993
the piercing boom started over here, but I saw so many bad piercings,
basically done with a gun, that I felt bad because I like the way a
good piercing looks. So I started to investigate and found a gauntlet
publicity. I went to the I´m quite busy trying to inform the people about piercing, the pro´s and con´s. I also make a lot of noise against the piercing gun, because like everywhere, the gun is so much cheaper and the lack of information makes people go there.
I´ve been lucky to have the opportunity to be on some national talkshows on tv, radio and some universities. I also have participated in expositions in different places in Mexico City and have even had a big expostion in the Mexico City subway. I also did some interviews for magazines (local and foreign) and newspapers. These things are great for us because, as you know, if you give the right information in these medias people start to get more conscious about piercing.
I have to say that the persons that influenced me the most ( I´m sure they don´t know) in this modification business and helped me a lot with their articles and stuff are Keith Alexander, Eric Dakota, Jim Ward, Michaela Grey, Mr. Sebastian , The Fakir, Nick Wolak and Bethra Szumski.
In these years I have pierced all kinds of people, from street people to high class business men, passing through house wives and even recent born babies that drop by with their parents. It´s always great when people leave the studio and they confess to me that it hurt less than they thought. It´s also great when someone invites you, plane and hotel, to another state just to get pierced, or when a man from about 60 years old comes in, asks me some questions about certain piercings and gets the guiche piercing then a few weeks later he and his wife come by and tell me that they are really happy and that I saved their marriage... I can proudly say that I have pierced people from all around the world, persons from all over Mexico, the U.S., more than 15 european countries, and I also have clients from Australia, South Africa, Israel, Japan, Indonesia, Argentina, Chile, Peru, Panama, Cuba, Belice, Colombia, Canada ... Also in 1994, I started to participate in the organization of The Tattoo Expo's Conventions over here in Mexico City. Things have been growing; we've had among our special guests : Needles from New York, Kelly Miller & Rafa from Reno Nevada, the crew from "Tinta Rebelde" from L.A., Cap & Bethra Szumski from Atlanta, Max from Germany, Crazy Ace´s Way Cool team from Canada; Natham from "Bad Boyz" Texas, Tomas from Austria and Masato & Toshi from Japan, Paul Booth, Jack Rudy, Brian Everret, Tony Olivas, Kate Hellenbrand, Clancy Warner, Joe Vegas and the crew from Lady Luck tattoo from Washington, Hanky Panky, Billy Eason, Jesse Tuesday, Andrea, Sean Vasquez and Matthew Wojcishowski . Together with Karem Martinez -my wife- i published the book: "Perforaciones Corporales, ritos, tradicion, moda y dolor". To write this book we (me and my wife) had some interesting interviews with dermatologists and ccupunturist. I also spent a lot of hours in the anthropology museum and in the embassies of India, Indonesia, New Zealand, Canada, and Senegal among others. ( Brasil embassy employees told me that in their culture they never used piercings, imagine ??) The book will contain around 100 pages and more than 70 photos. Lately
we have been really busy promoting body art, we had exposition in the
largest museum in Mexico City, the Subway in which we showed basic information
on body modifications, we organized the following expositions: We were also guests orators in the Chamber of Deputy to the conference “Preventive healthcare”, with the subject: “Why legislate tattoos and piercing?”, all this to obtain at least a minimum requirement to open a store, to work together with health care and to support the artists that are really interested in safe tattooing and piercing. We also collaborate in the magazine “Tatuajes y Perforaciones”, we were the editors of that magazine, we put together since number 2 till 4, we published interviews with national and international artists, articles about ancient cultures, news, we talked about the conventions and in every magazine we had a special article on tattoos and another one on piercing, the project was great. After this "strange experience" we had the oportunity to launch our own magazine "tatuARTE en la piel", with a new concept, fresh and objective as of magazines on this sector in Mexico. We have interviews with people, famous, and prefessionals; Articles that fit to the regular reader and those not so involved on it, and we also make available to the public information and writings about ancient cultures, news, chronicles, expos reviews, and obviously a large amount of pictures on tattoos and piercings. We also have been informing people about the materials, equipment, dangers, techniques, etc, in conferences in different schools and fairs. As you can see we have a lot of work over here and there is still so much to do to inform the people and even health care because untill now they haven´t wanted to get involved in piercing and tattoo legislation. There are no laws on this matter so we know it´s not ilegal but it´s not legal either. Here in Mexico City alone, we have around 300 tattooists and piercers. From those 300, maybe 30 have a clean studio, and maybe 15 have an autoclave. The rest works on the street or in their kitchen, but as in all parts of the world, I guess it´s hard to make people see things the right way or at least the safe and hygienic way. But like everywhere , the client has the last word, the only thing we can do is show them the right way...
Many people ask me about the name "Wakantanka". To start I would like to express my admiration and respect for the american indian and his culture. The name has a great strength and respect for them. Wakantanka, in my opinion, is everything, our creator, and using this name is to remind us of our roots and finally to show that piercing is only an heritage of our ancestors According to the "Dictionary of Native American Mythology", Wakantanka means, "The Great Mystery". It also means all spiritual things in the "Oglala" world. Recently the term is been used as "Creator" or " Great Spirit". The journey after death is also " Wakantanka". This name has been chosen with all the respect that it deserves and without trying to cause any discomfort Each man is good in his sight "Sitting Bull" 1876
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