16 PEOCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM vol. 79 



In Polynesia a boy is ineligible for marriage until he becomes 

 tattooed. This, of course, before the introduction of western ideas. 

 When application is made for the services of a professional tattooer, 

 a present of a fine mat is made, the acceptance of which is sufficient 

 to make the contract binding. A house is set apart for the scene of 

 the operation. A number of young men are tattooed at the same time 

 and a number of tattooers are employed. Instruments used are 

 shaped from human bone, the serrated edges of which resemble a 

 fine-toothed comb. The instruments are usually five in number and 

 vary from one-eighth of an inch to an inch in length of operating 

 edge. They are securely bound to reed handles 6 inches in length. 

 Tattooing instruments in the National Museum are mostly from 

 Fiji. The American Indians, by way of contrast, used tattooing 

 needles of sharp flint points or of cactus spines ; latterly, steel needles 

 secured firmly in a leather binding. 



The points of the tattooing instrument are dipped into candlenut 

 ashes and water, and the instrument is then used to puncture the skin 

 by tapping with a mallet. The rapidity with which the tattooer 

 works in following the pattern marks his skill. Patterns vary from 

 island to island only in minor details which might be called coats 

 of arms to distinguish their people, and each generation had some 

 trifling variation. 



Tattooing extends from the waist down to the knee and covers the 

 greater part of the body, but is variegated here and there with neat 

 regular stripes of the untattooed skin. The designs when well 

 oiled appear as silken breeches and caused Behrens of Koggewein's 

 expedition of 1772 to say : " They were clothed from the waist down- 

 wards with fringes and a kind of silken stuff artistically wrought." 

 A close inspection would have shown the narrator that the fringes 

 were bimches of ti leaves {Do^acaena terminalis) glistening with coco- 

 nut oil, and the silken stuff was the tattooing just described. 



When all was ready for the operation the young man would throw 

 himself on the ground. A young woman, generally some relative of 

 the youth being operated upon, sits cross-legged and holds the young 

 man's head in her lap. Three or four girls would hold his legs and 

 sing to drown his groans as he writhed under the lacerations of the 

 instruments. Attendants were present to wii)e away the blood as it 

 oozed from the skin. \Vhen about as much as one's hand was done, 

 upward of an hour's work, the lad would rise and another would take 

 his place. Each one would have a turn about once a week, depending 

 upon the number in the partj^ 



Payment was made to the tattooers with property consisting of 

 fine mats and native cloth, the value of which depended upon the 

 rank of the young chief being tattooed. 



