MAORILAND MAKE-UP

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 153, 25 March 1937, Page 6

MAORILAND MAKE-UP

Twcnliclli Century While Women Go Baek To Savage Ari

TATTOO COMES INTO FASHION

r pHE Maori woman has abandoned a barbarous custom only to see her long-civilised white sisters revive it in the latest fashion fad. One out of every ten persons in the United States of America is tattooed in whole or in part, and some sixty established artists, plying their trade in all sections of society, use a sanitary electric needle to jab ink under the skin. They charge anything from 25 cents for a small broken heart to 100 dollars for a flamboyant eight-colour reproduction of Leonardo s Last Supper. And Coronation excitement has taken the fad across the Atlantic to England, where women are having tiny coronets and Royal symbols tattooed upon their shoulders.

So fashion, always seeking something new, swings back to one of the oldest arts of the savage.

IMPORTED from the Orient and the South Seas in the early nineteenth century, tattooing soon boasted such Royal converts as the late George A . sailor King of England, and Tsar Nicholas 11, who was also something of a sailor. A tattooing craze swept New York society in the 1890‘s, setting precedent for the adoption of the decoration among Englishwomen this year. But. how different is the painless tattooing of modern times from the brutal methods of Maori art. A sanitary electric needle jabs ink under the

skin 3000 times a minute and is no more painful than a mosquito bite.

TN country towns and villages _ one still sees sometimes old Maori women with chins and lips tattooed in neat and intricate patterns of bluegreen lines. But one meets them less and less with the advance of the rears. The old, painful custom _ has died out. There seems little likelihood of the Maori women ever wanting to take up the mosquito-biting needle of the English while knowledge of the old art survives. Tattooing, called by the natives tamoko, is the grandest effort of the Maori to adorn bis person. And it required the courage of a stoic. The tattooing instrument, or uhi, resembles an adze in form, a small blade about a quarter of an inch thick being secured to a short wooden handle. Some uhis have a serrated edge, but others are plain and were used far finer work. Occasionally the blade was of human bone, but the bone of the toroa or albatross was usually favoured. Women were but little marked in comparison with men, however. According to authorities, the brave sex not only had the whole face tattooed, but often portions of their bodies and legs as well. Whether the Maori women believed tattooing actually made her more beautiful is not known, but it was certainly regarded as a decoration and a means of obscuring the advance of years. The Maori woman had not heard of face-lifting or monkey glands. . . They too, involve painful processes, but the Maori woman had no anaesthetic for her operation. According to Elsden Best, she was I not, however, tattooed until maturity was reached and her skin was comI paratively hard. Young women were I often tattooed before marriage, but not in all cases. Tattooing thus became an I indication that a young woman had I emerged from girlhood and was prepared to assume the serious duties of

life. Ah operation of this kind would be enough to make anybody seriousminded .'

A TEMPORARY but on rhe village outskirts was chosen for the proceedings, which were strictly tapu. Elsden Best tells bow the person operated upon lay down and the artist sat down Io work. A design, settled on by the preference of the tattooed one or sketched bv the artist, would be marked on the"face with a black pigment such as charcoal and water. Then came the puncturing process, which left the lines deeply engraved on the subject.

The operator prepared his pigment from kauri, the resinous heart of white pine, and sometimes the dried body of the vegetable caterpillar. These substances he burned, carefully collecting the soot. The pigment, was contained in a shell beside him, and into this he would dip hi s uhi. place it on the line to be marked, and smartly rap the back of the wooden handle near its outer end with a small stick or fernstalk. With the first blow be would recite a charm. The effect was to cut right through the skin into the flesh, and at once blood commenced to flow freely. This the operator wiped awa<j with flax tow. It was this shedding of the blood that made the operation tapu. Hence both operator and subject were under many restrictions during the performance of the task. As work proceeded the relatives of the sufferer assembled and sang soothing songs to help her bear the pain with equanimity. With women the task was usually a brief one, because as a rule only the lips and chin were marked. but for the men it often extended over years. Serious inflammation had

to subside before the work could be continued. At the completion of the task a tohuuga would lift , the tapu from the proceedings and persons. Part ot tins ritual consisted of kindling a sacred fire, termed alii parapara, and cooking food for a ceremonial feast. It was not unusual for the principal dish of the ritual feast to be that of a slain person, it added eclat,to the tattooing ceremony, especially if it was that of a young woman of rank, when the ceremony was viewed with much importance. To-day women pay great prices have themselves adorned or beautified, and the Maori tattooing artist was paid for his services, too. He received presents such as finely-woven garments and prized ornaments. It. needs but the wave of a wand to transform the beauty parlour to a raupo wbare on the outskirts ot a Maori village. The tattooing artist is there already with his implements. But there is one great difference—We do not need the fortitude of the Maori woman. She had her face, engraved.