TAT 



100 



TAT 



In in..d.-iii rimes the custom ni' tattooing has been found 

 in must nl the inland* of tin- l':u-itir I It-can, anil among 

 many of tin- aboriginal tribes ol' Afrii-n and Anu-rit-a, as. \\cll 

 at, on a limited wale, an before stated, in the Ka.st. Much 

 curious information on the various kind, of tattooing i col- 



,1 in tin- volume on the ' New /eaJamli r-. previously 

 filed. From this work we condense the following account 

 of the process of tattooing, as ]>erl'tirmed in New /< 

 upon an KiiglUh sailor, named John Rutherford. who v\a- 



:reil b} the native* in 1810, and resided among them 



i arly ten years, and upon Mime companions who were 

 taken with him : The natives having seated themselves 

 on the irromul in a ring, the Englishmen were placed in 

 the middle, stripped of their clothes, laid down on their 



El, and held by five or six men each, while two others 

 commenced the operation of tattooing. Having taken a 

 piece of charcoal, and nibbed it upon it stone with a little 

 water, so as to produce a thick liquid, they dipped into it 

 an instrument made of bone, with a sharp edge like a 

 chisel, ami shaped in the fashion of a garden-hoe. They 

 then applied the instrument to the skin, and struck it twice 

 or thrice with a piece of wood, thereby making it cut into 

 the flesh as a knife would have done, and causing a great 

 deal of blood to flow, which they kept wiping ott' with the 

 side of the hand, in order to bee whether the impression 

 was made sufficiently clear. If not, they applied the 

 cutting-instrument again to the same place. Various 

 instruments were however employed in the course of the 

 operation, one sort being made of a shark's tooth, and 

 another having a serrated edge ; and they were used of 

 different sizes, to suit the different parts of the work. 

 Rutherford states that the pain was most acute, and that, 

 although the operators were very quick and dexterous, he 

 was four hours under their hands; and he was completely 

 blinded for a time by the operation. In three days the 

 swelling occasioned by it had greatly subsided, and he 

 began to recover his sight ; but six weeks elapsed before 

 he was completely well. Rutherford's account agrees 

 .\ith those of other observers, excepting in the circum- 

 stance of the whole operation being performed at once, 

 while both Captain Cruise and Mr. Marsden state that it 

 icquired several months, and sometimes several years, to 

 complete the tattooing of a chief, owing to the necessity 

 of allowing one part of the face or body to heal before 

 commencing the decoration of another part ; but, besides 

 the probability that this might apply only to the more 

 intricate patterns, or to cases in which the tattooing ex- 

 tended over a larger portion of the person than in the case 

 of Rutherford, it is possible that the natives may have 

 '.'(signed to put his powers of endurance to a severer test 

 than would he required of a native. Captain Cruise states 

 that the New /ealander* occasionally renew theirtattooing, 

 v faint by lapse of time ; and from various 

 accounts- it would appear that the tincture introduced into 

 the wound on the edge of the cutting-instrument U some- 

 times obtained from the juice of a tree ; and that, before 

 the cutting is commenced, the intended figure is traced 

 upon the skin with a burnt stick, or a piece of red earth. 

 The age for performing the operation appears to van, from 

 i-ight or ten jeaiu up to about twenty: and the females 

 are not required to submit to anything beyond a slight 

 tattooing of the face. Those among whom Rutherford 

 lived had the inside of their lips tattooed,* as well as 



g marks on the chin, forehead, and sides of the nose 

 and mouth ; while the men were commonly tattooed on 

 the face, hips, and body, and some as low as the knee. 

 The most complicated patterns are found upon cln 

 the highest order; and their pi -culiai de\n es, or. n> they 



:illcd. amocos, form distinctions which, in Home case*, 

 take the- place of the sign-manual of the individuals to 

 whom they belong. An instance is related in the Mis- 

 sionary Register' for 1810. in which a chief in the Hay of 

 Islands, mi making a grant or conveyance of a piece of 

 land to some missionaries, had a drawing of the tattooing 

 of his face affixed in lieu ofasignatnre : while an attesting 

 witness added, in like manner, a copy of the pattern on 

 one of his cheeks. Of the character of these patterns a 

 better idea will be conveyed by the annexed 1, 

 Shungie, copied from an engraving in the ' Missionary 



Aoeonltai to ll,, ii.rr.Hteoflh.oyii nf H.M.8. Blonde In lli .nJ. Irh 



llUod., the lldinnf II.WMilllirO.I,)!,. ,:, 



t ..l.r frmcllr. of uuooin, th. lipi uf ihelr tousle., la memory of lli,-ir ,!-,,., usl 



Register' for 1810, than by the most lengthened description. 

 After it is inserted a copy of a drawing, executed hyTnpni 

 Cup*, * New Zealand duel, without the aid of a g!:i- 

 his own arnoco, or tattooed pattern. Tin- g in- 



dividual also drew from memory, while in Knghmd. the 

 amocos of his brother and of his eldest ton ; and 

 the force of association in his mind. that, on finishing the 

 latter, he held it up, gazed at it with a murmur of atl'cc- 

 tionate delight, kissed it repeatedly, and finally burst into 

 tears. 



Hm(l of Sii;iu<:u-, from a carving by . 



on Ihe face of Ttljiai Curi, f " )T " "> dr.iviim; li> Mm* If. 



Tin- process of tattooing as practised, or rather a^ it 

 nncrly practised, in other islands ot the South Sea, 

 was less painful than that followed in New /calami : for, 

 according to the account of Captain Cook, in some 

 the punctures could hardly be said to draw blood. The in- 

 struments used were edged \\ith small teeth, somewhat 

 resembling those of a fine comb ; and. as in the case of 

 New Zealand, the colouring tincture was introduced at 

 the same operation as that by which the skin was punc- 

 tured : the substance employed in some places )>cnig a 

 kind Of bop-black. On the brown skins of the nui 

 the marks made with this substance appear black ; but on 

 the skin of a European they are of a fine blue colour.* 

 Lafitan speaks of powdered charcoal a.s the colouring- 

 matter commonly used by the American Indians; and 

 stales that it was introduced by a process subsequent to 

 that of cutting or puncturing tlie skin. This insertion of 

 the colour appears to have been the most painful part of 

 the operation of tattooing as practised among them. 



Ruthrrronl lnlc thai 111. UtlonlnR on the inMe of Uic lips of New 

 women a|>|M'uri of a IMW roloiir. 



