MALI.BRY.) TATTOOING IN GUIANA AND SAMOA. 77 



Mr. Everard F. im Thurn, in his work previously cited, pa^es L95-'96 

 among tbe Indians of Guiana, says : 



Painting the body is the simplest mode of adornment. Tattooing or any other per- 

 manent interference with the surface of the skin by way of ornament is practiced 

 only to a very limited extent by the Indians ; is used, in fact, only to produce the small 

 distinctive tribal mark which many of them bear at the corners of their mouths or on 

 their arms. It is true that an adult Indian is hardly to be found on whose thighs and 

 arms, or on other parts of whose body, are not a greater or less number of indelibly in- 

 cised straight lines ; but these are scars originally made for surgical, not ornamental 

 purposes. 



The following extracts are taken from Samoa, by George Turner, 

 LL. D., London, 1884: 



Page 55. Taenia and Tilafainga, or Tila the sportive, were the goddesses of the 

 tattooers. They swam from Fiji to introduce the craft to Samoa, and on leaving 

 Fiji were commissioned to sing all the way, "Tattoo the women, but not the men." 

 They got muddled over it in the long journey, and arrived at Samoa singing, "Tattoo 

 the men and not the women." And hence the universal exercise of the blackening art 

 on the men rather than the women. 



Page 88. "Herodotus found among the Thracians that the barbarians could be ex- 

 ceedingly foppish after their fashion. The man who was not tattooed among them 

 was not respected." It was the same in Samoa. Until a young man was tattooed, he 

 was considered in his minority. He could not think of marriage, and he was con- 

 stantly exposed to taunts and ridicule, as being poor and of low birth, and as having 

 no right to speak in the society of men. But as soon as he was tattooed he passed 

 into his majority, and considered himself entitled to the respect and privileges of ma- 

 ture years. When a youth, therefore, reached the age of sixteen, he and his friends 

 were all anxiety that, he should be tattooed. He w as then on the outlook for the tat- 

 tooing of some young chief with whom he might unite. On these occasions, six or 

 a dozen young men would be tattooed at one time ; and for these there might be four 

 or five tattooers employed. 



Tattooing is still kept up to some extent, and is a regular profession, just, as house- 

 building, and well paid. The custom is traced to Taenia and Tilafainga; and they 

 were worshipped by the tattooers as the presiding deities of their craft. 



The instrument used in the operation is an oblong piece of human bone (os ilium), 

 about, an inch and a half broad and two inches long. A time of war and slaughter 

 was a harvest for the tattooers to get. a supply of instruments. The one eud is cut 

 like a small-toothed comb, and the other is fastened to a piece of cane, and looks 

 like a little serrated adze. They dip it into a mixture of candle-nut ashes and water, 

 and, tapping it with a little mallet, it sinks into the skin, and in this way they 

 puncture the whole surface over which the tattooing extends. The greater part of 

 the body, from the waist down to the knee is covered with it, variegated here and 

 there with neat regular stripes of the untattooed skin, which when they are well 

 oiled, make them appear in the distance as if they had on black silk knee-breeches. 

 Behrens, in describing these natives in his narrative of Eoggewein's voyage of 1772, 

 says: "They were clothed from the waist downwards with fringes and a kind of 

 silkeu stuff artificially wrought." A nearer inspection would have shown that the 

 fringes were a bunch of red ti leaves (Draecena terminalis) glistening with cocoa nut 

 oil, and the "kind of silkeu stuff," the tattooing just described. As it extends over 

 such a large surface the operation is a tedious and painful affair. After smarting and 

 bleediug for awhile under the hands of the tattooers, the patience of the youth is 

 exhausted. They then let him rest and heal for a time, and, before returning to him 

 again, do a little piece on each of the party. In two or three months the whole is 

 completed. The friends of the young men are all the while in attendance with food. 

 They also bring quantities of fine mats and native cloth, as the hire of the tattooers; 

 connected with them, too, are many waiting on for a share in the food and property. 



