From Tatau to Tattoo, and Back Again

From Tatau to Tattoo, and Back Again

Photo credit gotham book 5.5/9pt

words by don acuaman photos by olivier koning

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Photo credit gotham book 5.5/9pt

‘Tattoo’ has been under the skin of the English language since Captain Cook first inked the word “tattaw” into his journal in 1769. Like so much of indigenous culture after Cook, this Polynesian ritual has suffered centuries of misuse and mutilation in the understanding and practice of Westerners, so that the word tattoo as it is commonly used today refers to a faded, almost unrecognizable imitation art, a “tramp stamp” that barely penetrates the superficies of a deeply sacred and indelible tradition.

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top: handcrafted moli, tattoo needles, made from bone.

Bottom: keone nunes, an expert in traditional hawaiian tattooing, taps the ink into the skin. opposite page: a samoan man displays his elaborate tatau, a mark of high social status and a cultural rite of passage.

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“It’s out of convenience that we call it tattoo,” points out native Hawaiian cultural practitioner Keone Nunes. “For lack of a better word, we call it tattooing, but the reality is different. When you go into a modern tattoo shop, they’re not going to ask about your genealogy. They’re not going to ask you to purify your body, cleanse your soul, or ho‘oponopono with your family. They’re not going to wake up early in the morning and go to the ocean and pray that the mana will be there and do good work, or wake up the tools and give them prayers to make sure they do the appropriate work.”

In observance of Hawaiian traditions as old as civilization, Nunes closely follows these protocols. He is the foremost practitioner of traditional Hawaiian kakau—the Hawaiian cognate of the word tatau that Cook heard in the Marquesas—which can be interpreted as a compound of ka, to strike, and kau, to place, meaning “to place something upon the skin and strike it.” Though Nunes has been called a kahuna (venerated expert) of kakau, and acknowledges that he probably knows more about the subject than anybody else, he says, “I have such a high regard for the title, I don’t feel as if I deserve it.”

Such a combination of sincere humility and profound respect for the wisdom of his predecessors, inextricable from Nunes’ practice, cannot help but permeate those who will bear his handiwork. “I take it very seriously. The designs that I put on you will last beyond death.”

The uhi, or markings, he selects and applies to his physically and spiritually cleansed patrons reflect their genealogical background. “What I give them is not only for them, it’s for their family,” remarks Nunes. “It’s an acknowledgement of their family; it gives mana to the entire lineage, not just to the family that carries it. It serves as a foundation point for their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren. It’s a connection, a reconnection and a perpetuation of the Hawaiian culture.”

The power of that connection, which begins with ritual prayer long before the first uhi is made, is most palpably mediat-

ed by the tapping of Nunes’ hand-crafted moli, needle tools skillfully sharpened from bone. They inject a dye traditionally concocted from kukui nut soot and sugar cane juice. “The brilliance of the people who did these tattoos shows a level of expertise in artistry, creating the designs, and in performing prayers, but they had to be chemists, too, because in essence they used the sugar cane juice and fermented it a bit so that it became a sort of alcohol, a fixative. They knew enough to realize they needed something to fix it and adhere it to the skin—with soot and plain [unfermented] sugar cane juice, it would come out very light. So there’s a certain formula.”

But a formula can take one only so far.

“More importantly, there’s prayers with it. Kukui soot has a lot of oil in it, so it doesn’t readily adhere to any liquid. That’s where the prayers come in.” To illustrate his point, Nunes shares an anecdote from a hands-on lesson he gave in the preparation of the dye. “Some of these people were trying to mix in the ink, mixing for upwards of an hour, and it didn’t adhere, and they were getting frustrated. So I grabbed the bowl, started doing prayers, and in 15 minutes it was done.”

In one of his few departures from custom—in addition to modern sterilization procedures and the substitution of hippopotamus bone for the traditional but hard-to-procure albatross in the moli— Nunes augments his dye with modern, commercial, carbon-based ink. Without that addition, “it doesn’t have a long shelf life and has a tendency of healing a lot harder.”

Healing is a major issue considering the size and severity of what is essentially an open wound enlarged with every tap of the moli. Writer/director Brett Wagner had an opportunity to witness the excruciating process up close and share it with audiences around the world. His Dana Hankins-produced film, Chief —a Sundance selection and winner of the Audience Award for Best Short Film at the Maui Film Festival—opens with a depiction of an actual Samoan tatau ritual.

The tatau purifies the soul and gives that man or woman a new perception of life.

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top: keonE nunes and one example of his skills as a tattoo master. Bottom: a closer look at the highly intricate designs which make up the ent tsamoan tatau.

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Academy Award-winning cinematographer Paul Atkins captured the application in great detail; according to Wagner, “we shot a lot of it very close up in extreme slow motion, so you see what’s really happening with the needle as it’s going in, I would guestimate, a quarter of an inch into the skin.”

“When you see that the tatau goes all the way into the belly button…” Wagner winces, searching for words. “I can barely touch my bellybutton. So you can almost feel it, just thinking about it.”

In contrast to the head-to-toe, relatively sparse style handed down in Hawai‘i and the Marquesas, Samoan tatau designs are traditionally confined to the area between the belly button and knees and packed with dense designs featuring very little negative, untattooed space. Nunes notes that this latter style is also prevalent in Tonga, New Zealand, Tahiti, and elsewhere in Polynesia, extending as far as the Philippines and Burma.

Among Polynesian audiences at the Festival of Pacific Arts in Pago Pago, American Samoa, the tatau scene in Chief met with excitement and appreciation for its authenticity, a feat Wagner credits to the expertise of the actor playing his title character, Chief Sielu.

A real-life Samoan Chief, his full title is Malietoa Tauasa Folo Sielu Avea. He earned the honor with knowledge of his culture, leadership in his community and the strength to survive the tatau ritual. “It’s gotten easier now,” points out Wagner. “The ink they used on him was entirely charcoal-based, and so carcinogenic, which inflames the skin, and there was a lot more blood than the way they do it now. There was no antibiotics, no Neosporin; the only antibiotic effort to fight infection was to cleanse the tattoos in the ocean, which you can imagine is excruciating.”

In an era when infection from the tatau ritual could be fatal, Chief Sielu’s feat of endurance was also a transformative rite of passage. “It changed me. I used to be shy,” says the charismatic entertainer who has since performed for millions as

a World Champion Fire Knife Dancer, comedian, singer, and Ambassador of Polynesia. “I can make better decisions.

It doesn’t matter what the decision is. The tatau purifies the soul and gives that man or woman a new perception of life. It has a power that aids a person in making the correct decisions. It aids a chief in fulfilling his role as a leader. It helps him to find the truth in any situation. The tatau allows you to make the right decision even during the hardest of times.”

Perhaps that is because nothing can compare to the hard times that challenge a man trying to survive the ceremony and its aftermath. “The skin is completely raw and will begin to scab, and you have to squeeze out the pus and the impurities constantly. Simple tasks like walking, sitting and kneeling are impossible to do alone. Even a year later, it may look healed, but then someone touches your leg and…” Chief Sielu reacts as if stung by a hot poker.

At any point during the seven-day ceremony, did he want to stop? “The first time the needle hit me,” laughs Chief Sielu. “But there are supporters who are there for comfort—they’ve been through it. They sing to you, tell you how proud you will be. And they hold you down so the tufuga can work. You have eight men holding you down when they do the belly button.”

But every painful stroke contributes to a tatau imbued with meaning, and serves a purpose no contemporary tattoo can match. “The tatau will help him to understand the mana brought to him. The tatau is all about the truth that lies within,” says Chief Sielu.

“It is not just an ornament. Modern tattoos, they don’t have very much meaning,” opines Chief Sielu. But the traditional tatau is a cherished cultural record, one that cannot be forgotten or erased. “They tried to write it on the sand, but the waves wash it away. They tried to write it on the wood, but wood crumbles; even with a big statue, it’s only there for so long. But this…” he says, slapping his thighs. Chief Sielu doesn’t have to finish his sentence.

His tatau speaks for him.