Handy — Tattooing in the Marquesas ii 



or of a tapu bird on the small island of Fatu Uku, the leg bones having 

 been used (at least they are used for the instruments seen today), and 

 according to Langsdorfif, wing bones also. Marchand describes these ta as 

 sometimes of tortoise-shell; Berchon adds, of fish bone; and Melville men- 

 tions sharks' teeth: but no trace of combs other than of human or bird 

 bone remains today. The number of teeth varied from three to about 

 twenty — Melville saw some with a single fine point — according to the size 

 and use of the instrument. Melville says that some had points disposed 

 in small figures, so that the whole design was printed at a single blow. 



These bone combs were inserted into a slit in a piece of reed stalk, 

 bamboo (lo, p. ii8), or ironwood (ii, p. no; i, p. 109), six or seven 

 inches long, which acted as a horizontal handle (see, however, 12, p. 51, 

 note), held, while in use, in the left hand of the tuhuna. This was, as 

 far as could be ascertained today, straight, though Melville speaks of 

 curved ones. The baton, about three quarters of an inch thick and from 

 a foot to eighteen inches long, was of hibiscus wood. 



Although everything connected with the operation itself was extremely 

 tapu, tattooers in general, in Nuku Hiva at least, being under the auspices 

 of the god Hamatakee (2), Tahu being the god of the tuhuna and the 

 ka'ioi, Pupuke of the ou'a, yet there are no records of opening ceremonies. 

 The patient, clad only in a girdle, was simply laid upon the floor, arms and 

 legs held by four ou'a. When a design had been sketched in charcoal 

 upon the body, the tuhuna, or an assistant, held in his left hand the 

 toothed hammer and a piece of tapa, with which by a dextrous twist of 

 this hand he wiped away the blood as it flowed from the punctures made 

 in the skin by the gentle tapping on the top of the comb with the baton 

 held in the right hand. As he worked, he kept a sufficient supply of pig- 

 ment upon the teeth by dipping two fingers of his right hand into the 

 ink and rubbing them upon the comb. Garcia, Marchand, and Berchon 

 agree with this procedure ; but Langsdorff and Krusenstern declare that 

 the punctures were made in the skin until the blood oozed out and then 

 the dye was rubbed in. While the tapping went on, the operator chanted 

 in rhythm to his strokes the following words to allay the pain of the 

 open: 



Ua tuki-e, ua tuki-e. ua tuki-e, It is struck, it is struck, it is struck, 



Ua tuki-a, to tiki-e, It is struck, your design, 



Poparara' to tiki-e, Tap-tapping your design, 



O te tunane o te kui-a, The brother of the mother, 



O te tuehine o te kui-a, The sister of the mother, 



To'u tiki-e. My design. 



' Poparara is onomatopoetic, the sound of tapping. 



