Atolls of the Sun

by Frederick O'Brien

There were others who, too poor to pay even the itinerant wall-painters, let the students wreak their worst upon them, merely to be tattooed, good or bad, and many of these, like our millionaire picture buyers, were luckily denied any appreciation of art and did not know the imperfections of the skin pictures put upon them.

“Tattooing in these islands,” said Nataro, “was usually begun upon those able to pay for it at the age of puberty; but there were many exceptions of tattooing commenced upon boys soon after their infancy or deferred until mature manhood. Illness, poverty, or other obstacle might prevent, and the desire of parents might cause early tattooing. The father or other relative or protector of the youth or girl paid the tuhuka but at the festivals even the very poor orphans were given opportunities to be tattooed by a general contribution, or the chief of the valley paid the fee. Years were occupied at intervals in the covering of the entire body of men, which was the aim; but many had to be content with having a part pictured, and often elaborate designs were never finished. You see many bare places, meant to be covered when the tuhuka began his work. Queen Vaekehu was converted to Christianity with but one leg done and forewent further beautification to serve her new God. Though begun in boyhood, the full adornment of a man could hardly be terminated before his thirtieth year. During his lifetime of sixty years he might have it renewed twice, and as each pore could not be duplicated exactly the third coat would make him a solid mass of color, the goal of manly beauty.

“Though men usually sought to look terrible so that when they faced their enemies they would inspire fear, with women the sex motif was dominant,” said Nataro. “Girls with beautiful bodies and legs are much more attractive when tattooed, and we selected the best formed for the most elaborate designs. These were drawn so that, as the girls danced naked, the whole patterns were obvious, and those who were the most symmetrical won high honors in the great public exhibitions. If in the wide circle that chanted a utanui, while the old folks watched, a woman by exposing her beauty in a dance caused the voices of the young men to falter, or some one of them to become so entranced as to leap into the ring and seize her, she won a prize of acclamation for her parents which no other equaled. The dance stopped and all united in cheering the dancer. These beauties danced with their legs close together, so as to keep the design intact, lifting the heels backward and showing the shapeliness of figure and the fineness of tattooing.”

To analyze thoroughly the meanings of the different designs upon the bodies of the Maoris, or upon the canoes, paddles, and bowls, was impossible now. It might be compared to the study of heraldry. Tattooing in the South Seas was a combination of art and heraldry, racial and individual pride’s sole written or graven record.

In the Marquesas, the art reached its zenith. It was the Marquesans’ national expression, their art, their proof of Spartan courage, the badge of the warrior, and the glory of sex. In the man it marked ambition to meet the enemy and to win the most beautiful women. In the weaker vessel it was a coquetry, highly developed among daughters of chiefs and women of personal force; and it afforded those who had submitted to the efforts of the best craftsmen opportunities to display their charms in public to the most striking advantage.

Nataro said that when the law against tattooing was enforced here a few years ago a number went to prison rather than obey it, but that when it was abrogated the art was already dead. It is kept alive now, except in a few cases, only by the placing of names upon the arms of the girls. Many tuhukas were still living, but there was little call for their work.

“They were our highest class, next to the chiefs,” said Nataro. “We looked up to them as you do to your great. They were fêted and made much of, and their schools were our art centers, teaching besides tattooing, the carving of wood, bowls, canoes, clubs, and paddles. Now we buy tin cans and china plates. Von den Steinen, the German philologist, connected with the Berlin museum, who was here ten years ago, copied every tattoo pattern he saw, and in many he found a relation to Indian or Asiatic and perhaps other hieroglyphics and figures of thousands of years ago.”

With the ridiculing of it by the missionaries, who associated it with heathenry, and the making of it a crime by the missionary-directed chiefs of Tahiti, tattooing vanished there almost a hundred years ago, but here the law against it was very recent. The law written by the English Protestant missionaries in Tahiti was as follows:

No person shall mark with tatau, it shall be entirely discontinued. It belongs to ancient evil customs. The man or woman that shall mark with tatau, if it be clearly proved, shall be tried and punished. The punishment shall be this—he shall make a piece of road ten fathoms long for the first marking, twenty for the second; or stone work four fathoms long and two wide; if not this, he shall do some work for the king. This shall be the woman’s punishment—she shall make two large mats, one for the king and one for the governor; or four small mats, for the king two, and for the governor two. If not this, native cloth twenty fathoms long and two wide; ten fathoms for the king and ten for the governor. The man and woman that persist in tatauing themselves successively four or five times, the figures marked shall be destroyed by blacking them over, and the individuals shall be punished as above written.

To achieve a fairly complete picture upon one’s body meant many months of intense suffering, the expenditure of wealth, and a decade of years of very gradual progress toward the goal after manhood was attained; but for a man in the former days to lack the Stripes of Terror upon his face, to have a bare countenance, or one not yet marked by the initial strokes of the hammer of the tattooer was to be a poltroon and despised of his tribe.