The Polynesian culture is very interesting in its art form of tattoos, as there is no actual writing in this culture. Tattoos represented not only personal beautification but also your rank, status, maturity, and genealogy. In ancient Polynesia mostly everyone had a tattoo, until the arrival of missionaries in 1779 that banned the tattoo practice. Tattooing in Polynesia has revived in the 1980’s and the Polynesians once again to charge of their art of tattooing, but the traditional tattooing tools of bone and wood was banned in place of modern equipment.
Traditional tattooing tools are made of a wooden comb with needles carved from bone or shell. Then the needles are dipped into the ink made of candle nut, water, and oil. The needles are then placed onto the person’s skin and tapped with the wooden comb which causes the needle to puncture the skin and insert the ink (similar to how the modern needle works in today’s tattooing)
Tattooing is done when you reach adolescence to represent the transfer from childhood to adulthood. The more tattoos a man have the more power he is seen to have. Tattoos also represented the wealth of the male and the strength he has. Men without any tattoos were looked down upon and men with a body filled with tattoos were greatly admired. Tattooing on women was a little different, when a girl turns twelve she gets a tattoo on her right hand to gain her access to cook the meals and participate in rubbing dead bodies with coconut oil. Women tattoos were not as extensive as the men tattoo, they were usually limited to hand, arms, feet, ears, and lips. Higher ranked women could get tattoos on their leg.
Modern Polynesian tattooing has been continued in French Polynesia. The popular tattoo designs to receive are the tiki, the turtle, the gecko, the ray, the shark, the dolphin, and many different abstract symbols.
Chapter 12 -Brenton Briscoe
The tattooing practices n the Polynesian islands are very interesting. Does the fact that there is no written language in the islands mean that there is no written history from the people and that there is a lot of lost history? The fact that your rank, age, class and everything about you are displayed on your body fascinates me and I could not imagine the original way of tattooing and going through it. There had to be a lot of transfer of disease and infection rates would have been high. Did the people have a choice in getting a tattoo? From what I gathered from the blog is that once you hit puberty you had to tattoo yourself. Tho I like the idea that I would never have to cook and provide food if I refuse to get a tattoo. I imagine tho that woman would not be worth anything in her community.
ReplyDeleteA very interesting article indeed.
Brittany Fuller