Handy — Tattooing in the Marquesas 23 



back bone with fine line insets and a girdle. These are called peka tua, 

 back cross, by an informant of Nuku Hiva and may be an outgrowth of 

 the cross on the back described by Langsdorff (10, p. 123), though the 

 present mode bears no resemblance to a cross, being rather another 

 example of band construction. 



With the band construction of the present day, then, are associated 

 exact technique, perfect symmetry, an evident understanding of anatomy 

 and fitting of design to the body, and motives which are akin in name 

 and formation to those carved on bowls, paddles, canoes, and similar 

 objects. The distinguishing features accompanying the oblique patch type 

 are irregularity, no sense of the design as a whole, no fitting of the 

 motives to the body, naturalistic units, fussy, elaborate, non-aesthetic, fine- 

 line insets. 



A survey of these two types of body decoration leads naturally to the 

 suggestion that there was a fundamental difference of concept between the 

 two groups regarding the reason for its use. Plainly, there was an 

 emphasis upon endurance and fortitude in the mind of the northwesterner 

 when he braved the pain of a completely perforated skin ; while the south- 

 easterner looked upon the art as more purely decorative. Dordillon gives 

 the word iie'onc'o as meaning "what inspires horror (in speaking of a 

 wound)," and "to cry a long time;" and this word with the addition of 

 the phrase. "/ tc tiki" means "completely covered with tattooing." It is 

 the pain of which the people of the Marquesas speak today when dis- 

 playing their decorations, and it must be admitted that this is as true in 

 the one group as in the other. 



The only practical reason for tattooing that was suggested by living 

 informants came from a man of Nuku Hiva, who, in describing an old 

 mode of the northwestern group of tattooing half of the entire body solid 

 black, accounts for this style by saying that such a one turned his black 

 side towards the enemy during a battle, so that he could not be dis- 

 tinguished or recognized. 



Inquiry into the naming of motives may throw some light upon their 

 significance in the native mind. Appreciation of the anatomy of the 

 body is often of such paramount importance as to give the name of the 

 body part to the motive which is fitted to it, the fatina (joint) or knee 

 jointure pattern (PI. xxxiv, f) being a case in point. The same sense of 

 body form is approached from a slightly different angle, as in the naming 

 of the buttock patlern, tifa (cover) (PI. xxxv, c), the convex of the 

 body part resembling the cover of a calabash. Motives are sometimes 

 referred to in purely technical terms of form: such as paka (PI. xxxv, h) 

 a splinter; kopito (PI. xxiii, A, d. left and right) zigzag; or in terms of 



