EFFECTS OF ART — TATTOOING. 353 



chiefly among tribes in a more or less rude state. The flat- 

 tening of the forehead, the dyeing and filing of the teeth, 

 have been ah-eady noticed : see Chapter IV. Sect. II. 



The operation of tattooing, or puncturing and staining 

 the skin, has prevailed in various degrees in most parts of 

 the world ; but it has been adopted most extensively and 

 ^generally in the South-Sea Islands, where it is considered 

 as highly ornamental. The art is carried to its greatest 

 perfection in the Washington or New-Marquesas Islands ; 

 where wealthy and powerful individuals are often covered 

 with various designs from head to foot*. The elegance and 

 symmetry of the tattooed figures are as much admired by 

 them, as those of dress are by us. We may pardon their 

 simplicity in attaching so much value to the multiplicity 

 and arrangement of these punctures, when we consider that 

 those satisfactory tests of personal merit, the stars, ribbons, 

 and orders, of which more civilized men are so justly proud, 

 are not yet known to them. " For performing the opera- 

 tion, the artist uses the wing-bone of a tropic-bird (phaeton 

 etherus,) which is rendered jagged and pointed at the 

 end like a comb, sometimes in the form of a crescent, 

 sometimes in a straight line, and larger or smaller accord- 

 ing to the figures he designs to make. This instrument is 

 fixed into a bamboo handle about as thick as the finger, 

 with which the puncturer, by means of another cane, 

 strikes so gently and dexterously, that it scarcely pierces 

 through the skin. The principal strokes of the figures to 

 be tattooed are first sketched u-on the body with the same 

 dye that is afterwards rubbed into the punctures, to serve 

 as guides in the use of the instrument. The punctures 

 being made so that the blood and lymph ooze through the 

 orifice, a thick dye, .composed of ashes from the kernel of 

 the burning nut (aleurites triloba) mixed with water, is rub- 

 bed in. This occasions at first a slight degree of smarting 



* Langsdorff's Voyages and Travels, &c. v. i. chap. 5. The dfsi«-ns, 

 which are symmetrically arranged, and shew no inconsiderable taste, are 

 exhibited in two plates, at pp. 119 and 122. See also Haukesworth's 

 Collection, v. iii. pi. 13. for the tattooed head of a New Zealander. 



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