Handy — Tattooing in the Marquesas 9 



kava, and Melville speaks of the small portions of food that were pushed 

 under the curtain by unseen hands to the taptd patients within the apart- 

 ments, the restriction in food being intended to reduce the blood and so 

 diminish inflammation ; Langsdorff reports that the patient must drink very 

 little for fear of inflammation, and must not eat early in the morning. 



The work was performed by tuhuna patu tiki (patu, to mark or strike ; 

 tiki, designs), artists, evidently trained in the school of experience, some of 

 them coming to enjoy great vogue on more than one island. Although 

 Garcia states that the office was hereditary, each great family having its 

 family of tattooers trained from generation to generation for its use, 

 nothing of the sort can be traced today. According to modern informants, 

 skill alone was qualification for practice and requisite for patronage. 

 Langsdorfif tells of novices who, for practice, operated upon poor people 

 at very small charge, and Melville reports even the hiring of "vile fel- 

 lows" as models on whom they could practice. 



All present-day information denies Melville's statement that there were 

 orders of tattooing artists. It is more likely that there were itinerant 

 members of the profession, as he states. All seem to have practiced quite 

 independently, although there was probably the kind of bond between them 

 that followers of any profession feel. It is said in Ua Pou that there were 

 different tuhuna for men and women because of the rule of tapu which 

 ascribed to men greater sacredness than to women, but this was not true 

 during the latter days of the art. No woman tuhuna was ever heard of. 

 There were evidently contests between tuhuna, two or three working at 

 the same time in an oho'au, attempting to excel one another in rapidity of 

 execution and delicacy of designs. In the light of knowledge about the 

 ancient native training in other artistic lines, it is possible to hazard the 

 guess that to be accepted at all as a tuhuna, a thorough acquaintance with 

 all the conventional units of the art was requisite; for, although individual 

 tuhuna certainly varied and elaborated designs at will, yet they did not 

 stray from the basic units. 



A tuhuna was aided in his work by four or five assistants called ou'a 

 (or kou'a — translated by Dordillon, pupil, disciple — meaning also shrimp). 

 He was consulted as to the choice of designs, his decision apparently be- 

 ing usually accepted, although the opou was free to select his patterns. 

 He outlined the designs upon the body with a piece of charcoal. But it 

 was the ou'a who held the arms and legs of the patient, who stretched the 

 skin to make a smooth surface upon which to work, who fanned the 

 flies from the bleeding wounds, and who often, it is reported, filled in the 

 outlined designs. 



