Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 23, Number 8, 1 August 2006 — MARK OF THE ANCESTORS [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

MARK OF THE ANCESTORS

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By Derek Ferrar Public lnformation Specialist I I T I I ") French art" 1 n n I 3; who spent three weeks in Hawai'i aboard the ship Uranie in August 1819, wrote that during his stay, none other than Queen Ka'ahunianu asked him to tattoo her with a figure of Kamehameha on her shoulder and

a hunter's horn on her posterior - then I a highly popular I design among I Hawaiian women. "The designs I whieh ornament- ■ ed her volumi1 nous breast were 1 traced with a 1 perfect taste," J Arago wrote.

"She was tattooed on the tongue, the name of Tamehameha [and] the date of his death could be read on her arms; the sole of her feet and the pahn of her hands, so delicate, carried figures..." The encounter between the artist and the queen is just one of many fascinating facts revealed in the new book by tattooist-scholar Tricia Allen, Tattoo Traditions of Hawai'i (Mutual Publishing, $17.95), whieh Allen says is the first in a series to eome about tattooing customs in different areas of the Pacific. Allen says her purpose in writing the book was to bring to light new infonnation about tradition-

al Hawaiian tattooing practices, whieh were not as well documented by early visitors and historians as the elaborate customs of such places as the Marquesas, or Sāmoa, the only island group where traditional tattooing has been practiced continuously. "A lot of the infonnation is so obscure," she says. "I've been researching this for twenty years, and until recently I didn't know that they had so many early original illustrations by Arago at the Honolulu Academy of Arts." That's a key point, Allen says, because often the best-known representations of traditional Hawaiian tattooing eome from

engravings included in the published memoirs of early Western visitors to the islands. However, she says, those engravings, often re-created in Europe by artists working for the printing company, were often "drastically different" from the originals drawn by the artists who were actually on the expeditions. A number of those originals are now housed at the Academy of Arts, including many by Arago. Starting later this month, Allen will be guest-curating an exhibition of the original Arago drawings that include tattoo at the Academy's lohn Dominis and Patches Damon Holt Gallery. The exhibition will run from Aug. 23 - Nov. 5. Drawing from the original artwork along with early written

accounts, the writings of native historians and other sources, Allen recounts in Tattoo Traditions little-known information about Hawaiian tattoo motifs and plaeement, as well as the tools used by Hawaiian tatooists and the markings worn by prominent ali'i. Many of the key original drawings are reproduced in Allen's book, along with the engraving versions for comparison. When Allen first began researching Pacific Island tattooing traditions as the focus of her graduate studies in anthropology at the University of Hawai'i, she had no elue that she would one day heeome a tattooist herself - let alone apply more than 7,000 tat-

NĀ PUKE • BŪŪKS

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" [The women] make drawings of necklaces and garfers on the skin in ū manner really wonderful; their other devices consist of hunting-horns, helmets, muskets, rings, but more particularly fans and goats. Those of the men are muskets, eannon, goats and dominoes; together with the name of īammeamah [Kamehameha] and the day of his death." - Jacques Arago, 1819. 0riginal illustration by Jacques Arago, courtesy of Honolulu Academy ofArts.

toos (so far), mostly to Hawaiians and other Polynesians seeking to reconnect with their culture. But as she prepared to travel to the far corners of Oeeania to document the contemporary tattoo revival in the Pacific and help to teach traditional tattooists about modern heahh precautions, she began to get requests for traditional-style tattoos from people in places like Rapa Nui (Easter Island), where the art was not being practiced. Fortuitously, Allen had become friends with the famed tattoo artist Don Ed Hardy, and she began to learn the craft from him - beginning with tattooing her own ankle. "When Ed shares his knowledge, he has one stipulation," she says. "You have to learn on yourself." Although based in Hawai'i, Allen now spends mueh of her time tattooing members of the Polynesian community living on the continent. As a non-Hawaiian practicing in a highly sensitive cultural field, Allen says she considers it an "obligation to give back to the Hawaiian conununity by making hard-to-find information more accessible, whieh I'm able to do because of my background. A lot of my work involves returning documentation from places like the British Museum to native people, since even finding out where these things are is difficult, let alone getting access to them." Summarizing what is known about early Hawaiian tattooing, Allen writes that, in general, the practice seems to have been less uniform than the heavily ritualized customs found in some other island groups: "In many aspects of Hawaiian tattoo, we find incongruities .... Thus, we find numerous approaches to the practice of tattoo; there was not a single 'Hawaiian' convention that all tattooists or subjects recognized."

The second portion of Allen's book is devoted to personal reflections by people who bear contemporary Hawaiian-style tattoos, as well as some of the tattooists who create them. Maui cultural practitioner Clifford Nae'ole writes: "The tātau to be put on one's body is mueh more than a visual and artistic pieee. It should represent spirituality, reverence, pride and a deep reason for its mana'o (thought) since it will pass with you through time and into the next realm." Tongan-Hawaiian tattooist Aisea Toetu'u writes: "When I was a young teenager I wanted American and gang-style tattoos, like a lot of the young Tongans and Samoans were

wearing. Then one day I was looking through a book about Polynesia and saw the drawing of a Tongan man's tattoo, and then I knew I wanted to wear the traditional tattoo .... It was like part of our culture was dead and I had a ehanee of reviving it." Allen herself says that while giving as well as receiving tattoos ean be a grueling physical experience, "it's the personal eonneehon that I appreciate most about the process. What motivates someone to mark themselves for life? Going through that decision and process with someone is incredible. Basically, giving tattoos is an opportunity to make friends for life." S

NĀ PUKE • B00KS

"The tottooing is done with o birdbone ending in tbree sharp points ond fixed to o bondle four or five inches long tbut is tupped ligbtly witb u tbin wooden rod two feet long. A bluck liquid extracted from burnt kukui nut and mixed witb sugarcane juice, making tbe imprint indelible, is inserted into tbe punctures. On Mowi, we saw a woman being tūttooed, and tbe ope ration did not seem to be atūll painful." — Capt. Louis de Freycinet, August, 1819 - 0riginal illustration by kcgues Arago, courtesyofHonoluluAcademyofArts.