Tattoos And Culture Essay

Tattoos and their Relationship to Polynesian Culture
Denise Lutz
Axia College of University of Phoenix

“They print signs on people’s body and call this tattow”- James Cook (Losch, 2003). What might his first thoughts have been upon anchoring at one of the Polynesian islands, seeing natives covered in markings? What did the markings and designs mean? Could he have wondered what the significance was, who did this to them, and what was used to place those markings on them. Although tattoos were ultimately banned, there was an impact on the Polynesian culture; one could determine ones rank, status, and origin based on the tattoos.
Tattoos have existed on the Polynesian islands for over 2000 years, Samoa being the oldest island in the Polynesian chain and Aotearoa-slash-Te Waipounamu being the youngest of the islands that practiced tattooing. Although the Spaniards were the first to discover tattoos in Polynesia in 1595, the first written descriptions regarding tattoos did not appear for almost two centuries (Tahiti Tatou, 2007). Though there were differences between the Polynesian islands that made each island unique there were also similarities that were shared between all the islands.
One of the primary differences between the tattoos on Polynesian islands was the traditional names that were used for tattooing. For
The following was noted, “Within the islands currently known as French Polynesia (the Society, Tuamotu, Austral, Gambier and Marquesas groups), the individual island groups or even individual islands had unique designs. Thus, it was possible to identify a person's origins based on their tattoos” (Losch, 2003). An example of the ability to identify natives based on their island of origin was the spiral motif used by the Maori natives of Aotearoa-slash-Te