ART. 30 DESIGN AREAS IN OCEANIA KRIEGER 17 



Tattooing is an expensive operation for the one tattooed, though 

 lor the operator the rewards for his skill are satisfactory. Food is 

 free to him during the three or four months consumed by the opera- 

 tion. Then, too, the payments in hne mats, in tapa cloths, and other 

 considerations reached a respectable amount. If dissatisfied with 

 the payment offered as the work progressed, the professional tattooer 

 simply delayed his work, as an unfinished tattoo was considered a 

 disgrace. Friends always came to the rescue in such an emergency. 



Headdresses. — It is impossible to refer to ceremonial garments and 

 decorative wearing apparel without making some slight mention of 

 the ceremony or artistic performance calling for artistic decorative 

 display. Dancing is one of the major methods of expression of Poly- 

 nesian artistic abilities. Dancing exhibitions are there conducted with 

 the aid of song and the music of instruments. Such performances are 

 designed merely for the entertainment of visitors. The object of the 

 dance is to display native charm and agility. Formerly the Polyne- 

 sian dance, no doubt, had a symbolical meaning, hinted at by the 

 survival of the punctiliously ceremonial manner in which the simple 

 dance movements are still carried out. The village taupo, or official 

 village mistress of entertainment, is the central figure in the cere- 

 monial dance and is the leader of the concerted movements of the 

 dancers. The dancing group consists of girls working as a ballet. 

 The taupo has undergone a long period of training, and her attend- 

 ants are rehearsed by her. The excellence of the taupo's dancing 

 and of the ballet is one of the village boasts, and songs and verses of 

 praise are written about it. 



The Polynesian dance is very formal. Sometimes three or four 

 hours are required for the toilet of the taupo. Her dress differs 

 from that of her other attendants in one important particular — she 

 wears the tuinga, or Samoan headdress. This headdress is a com- 

 posite affair of human hair, nautilus shells, plumage, and a scaffold 

 of sticks. It is assembled piece by piece on the wearer's head, and 

 is a source of constant pain to her because of its weight and the tiglit- 

 ness with which it is bound onto the head. The foundation is a 

 strip of cloth wound around the^head at the roots of the hair. The 

 strip serves to draw the hair into a bunch at the crown and causes 

 it to stand up its full length. Upon the base of real hair is tied a 

 wig of human hair set in a frame of cloth or fiber netting. Then 

 the scaffolding of three sticks and a crossj^iece is tied in front and 

 made fast to the cloth covering above the forehead. This frame- 

 work usually supports a decoration of small mirror disks. Green 

 and red feathers of the tiny parrakeet are attached to the framework, 

 and the tuinga is completed by tying across the forehead a band 

 of several rows of the partition plates of the nautilus. With this 



