Olden Hawaiian Tattoos

The earliest information shows Native American tattoos have many functions, like communication and identification. The tattoo’s extent indicated the individual’s social class and military achievement. From the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, some ethnological studies declare a alteration toward impermanent face painting to end the symbolic role formerly indirected by tattoos. “During this time the formerly tattooed Yuchi, Creek, and Chickasaw used face painting to communicate membership in towns and societies.” However, after the mid-twentieth century, most traditional tattoo decoration and theirs meaning had been lost. Until the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, especially the cultural movements of the 1960s and 1970s, people restart to search their lost tradition, including

First, Many people choose to get a tattoo to commemorate a loved one who has passed or celebrate a special event in their lives. "Tattoos are a wonderful way to keep the memory alive of that special person". When getting a tattoo, people should take the reason into consideration and decide whether it is something they want for a lifetime. Tattoos are very personal and should be treated as such.

People, a lot of times get tattoos to express themselves. Tattoos may also be very important to someone, meaning it may represent the loss of a loved one or their religion. “If a woman in New Guinea has a swirl design on her face it indicates her family’s ancestors. Dark scrawls on a Cambodian monk’s chest reflect his religious beliefs. A gang member’s sprawling tattoos describe his street affiliation.”(Tucker) Tattoos show who you are and what you’ve experienced in life. People

In our world today, Tattoo is a form of art displayed on the skin. In many countries, tattoos symbolize different meanings, but in America, tattoo has lost its true meaning and is being performed on a daily basis. In our society today, tattoos are becoming more of a trend. For instance, people are getting flowers such as a rose being a popular one, tattooed on them. Currently nowadays, people are getting anything tattooed that interests them and it is losing its significance. Back in Samoa, a small little cultural country, traditional Samoan Tattoos are something that are considered sacred and have true meaning behind it. The artwork and designs go beyond being skin deep. In every Samoan tattoo, there are history and deep meanings behind each and every one. It takes a lot of hard work to earn in order in having the honors to receive the Samoan tattoo. Not only is the Samoan Tattoo a form of beautiful art, but it also resembles respect, loyalty, honor, community, and the growth of accomplishment in a person. It is not like in America where getting a tattoo done is easy and your own decision, the Samoan culture takes a lot of pride and courage into doing so.

My senior project was over the History of Tattooing, I chose this as my topic because Tattoos really interest me with all the different styles and meanings behind them. Some things I already knew about Tattooing is a lot of tribes used tattoos to symbolize things, but I didn’t know what.

Similar to that idea, not all Polynesian tattoos have the same flow and shape as others. Along with that, there are also different meanings for different designs. In the Maori culture, tattoos are not always based on the life a person is living but also on milestones that they’ve reached. “For the Maori these tattoos symbolize spiritual rituals related to specific events in a person's life. The Maori men were only allowed to receive their first tattoo upon reaching adolescence.” (Laura du Toit). There was also a process that went along with receiving a Maori tattoo that one would have to partake in order to receive a tribal tattoo. “Before receiving a Maori tattoo the person would have to fast. The entire lwi would be present at the ceremony itself and this would be celebrated with music and dancing.” (Laura du Toit). In Samoan cultures, tattoos were also very sacred due to the meaning it held. “It means that a soga’imiti (traditional Samoan male tattoo) has a higher social status in his community than others, and is given more opportunities to learn correct protocol, history, oratory skills and other intricacies of the Fa’asamoa.”

Tattoos have been around throughout our history, from Egyptian times to the present day. Many people may say they know the history of tattoos, and where they originate from, but do they really? Does one know that there were reasons that some people had tattoos? There may be people who know the actual history of tattoos and body art and why one would decide to get one; however there are people who do not. To be able to understand the idea of tattoos, one should educate themselves to the history of tattoos. Although tattoos have been considered taboo and a stereotype, history reveals that this particular form of body art has been used for self expression, status and

- Ainu people (western Asia) also used tattooing to show social status, for example a married women would have a specific tattoo. The Ainu people soon introduced tattoos to Japan who used them for religious rites

Tattoos have been around since 450 BC, it was used to mark the criminals and those fallen from social grace. But since then or since the Europeans discovered the “New World” and the tattooed tribes, its concepts has changed many times. You could classify the different changes in six eras in the tattoo history; the colonist or pioneer Era, the circus or carnival Era, the working-class era, the rebel era, the new age era and presently the supermarket era. The colonist or pioneer era was between the 1760s and 1870s is when the Europeans discovered tattoos amongst Native American tribes such as Hawaiians and Borneans whose tattoos had spiritual meaning, it was a way to protect themselves from physical harm and snakebite. But after their introduction with the Europeans

The skin stories we learned about in class in Polynesian culture was very interesting. In their culture tattoos have a deeper meaning then some American tattoos. The origin of where they come from is a lot different, not to say that U.S tattoos are not important. Because there are plenty of passionate talented artists out there, that do a solid job at making special tattoos for people every day. But the story of Polynesian tattoos came to be is very different since it has been around for centuries. Polynesian people are carrying their family’s origins on their skin. They are representing heritage and lineage on their skin.

In this specific culture, there are rules saying what men and women can and cannot ink onto their bodies. The Hawaiian culture have standards when it comes to a person’s body. The right side of the body is for the men, which is called Kū, the left side of the body is for the women, which is called Hina. They represent the masculinity and the femininity in ourselves to balance and/or even out our souls. The men wear tattoo designs on half of their face, inner and/or outer lining of the arm or leg, the backs of the hands, and the front of the body. Just like the men, the women wear tattoo designs on the inner and/or outer leg (specifically the upper thigh area), the wrists, and the back of the hands, the fingers, the arms, the neck, the ankles, and the chest. The priest is the only abled body to actually practice these tattoos, rituals which consist of ceremonies and chants. But present day techniques are usually done by expert

For as long as there have been people, there have been methods of distinction amongst them. Throughout the years we have discovered ways in which to express our beliefs, our ideals, and our passions. Tattooing has been one of forefront methods in expressing our humanity, or in certain cases, our lack there of. For so many, they have taken on many different representations, each with an equal level of significance. The importance found in the symbolism of tattoos and their cultural relevance has consistently been a trend found throughout history, religion, and art.

Tattoos do not have a fixed or determined origin, as many cultures have incorporated the practice into their society. The etymology of the English word displays how the practice was adopted from its Eurasian and Pacific origins and incorporated into Western culture. The word “tattoo” most likely comes from the Tahitian word “tatau,” which means “to mark something” (Scheinfeld, 2007), but it also has links to the Polynesian word “ta,” which means “striking something” (Taliaferro & Odden, 2012). The word “tattoo” was brought into the English language by explorer James Cook in 1769, after returning home from his voyage to Tahiti.

The Samoans are an ethnic group that reside in Oceania, on the islands of Samoa, in an area of Polynesia. Samoa has been occupied by these indigenous people for about 3000 years, when they came from the west, occupying the islands of Fiji and Tonga around the same time (Barnes and Hunt 2005, 243). They carry many traditions with their culture, however, I will be discussing their tradition of tattooing. Tattooing is the process of inserting ink pigment into someone’s skin to create a permanent design on them. For Samoans, tattoos are much more significant than just a pretty piece of artwork, they are, according to Ryman (2004), a right of passage. I will be reviewing the importance of cultural tattoos, the process of being tattooed, and the varying origin stories of how tattooing first came to Samoa. Samoan tattooing matters because it is a cultural tradition that has been practiced in Samoa for over 3000 years (Ellis 2006, 698).

There is a long list of cultures that utilised tattoos as a form of decoration and communication (Swami, 2011). That said, within some western societies, that historical connection to the tattoo is not that strong. However the art of tattooing has seen a steady growth of its popularity and acceptance, and since the early 1990s, that growth has accelerated dramatically (Caplan, 2000; Cash, 2011; DeMello, 2000; Swami, 2011). The current estimated incidence of tattooing amongst the populations of North America and Europe is approximately 25 percent (Laumann & Derick, 2006; Swami, 2011), with one researcher suggesting those rates could continue to increase to as much as 40 percent of the population (Anderson, 2006).