MAORI TATTOOING

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 102, 1 May 1937, Page 13

MAORI TATTOOING

(Special to the "Evening Post.") WANGANUI, April 30.

The Carnegie- exchange case at the Alexander Museum, Wanganui, is now exhibiting the Napier Museum display. The display consists of 23 drawings depicting different styles of moko (facetattooing) as by the Maori. The drawings were excuted in the early days of the colony by a young British officer,' and are excellently preserved. All but a few show the more elaborate moko used on' the faces of men. According to Tregear, tattooing was not a tribal mark or even a mark of distinction, but its presence, always showed a certain position in the wearer. It might be considered a mark of manhood and of ability to play a warrior's part, for the process was painful and •took.years to complete. . The principal regular tattoo of women was confined to the lips and chin Red lips were j looked- on with disfavour. .An old] song says "Yield thyself to be tattooed, lest in thy going to the Hali of Courtship, it be said of thee, 'Whither goeth this woman of the naked mouth?'" Tregear also says that, in his opinion, Maori tattooing is a debased system of letters—not the more modern scrolls and curves, but the old moko-kuri, and other Polynesian systems of lines and dots. The Napier display is the third in the series of exchange cases. The previous one shown at Wanganui was from Auckland, "The.Uses of Shellfish by Primitive: Peoples," which has been sent on to Nelson.