Handy — Tattooing in the Marquesas 7 



men, from fifteen to twenty. Within these Hmits fall the more or less 

 definite statements of such early writers as Garcia, Desgraz, and Ber- 

 chon. Porter interpreting the time as "when they are able to bear the 

 pain." All imply — and Krusenstern (8, p. 155) definitely states — that 

 the beginning of the operation was connected with the period of adoles- 

 cence. Berchon (i, p. 113) tells us that pregnancy would hinder the 

 success of the work and that it was never undertaken for a woman when 

 she was in that condition, from which we may again infer that the coming 

 of puberty was the time for starting the bodily decoration. There seems 

 at the present time to be no definite connection in the mind of the Mar- 

 quesan between the two, and the fact that tattooing was practiced during 

 the growing or maturing season of the land just before harvest-time 

 seems also to have no significance at present. However, the celebrations 

 associated with the harvest and with the completion of the tattooing of the 

 adolescent youth of the land were united in a great ko'ina or feast. It 

 may be remarked, too, that there is at present no indication that important 

 times in the life of the individual, other than adolescence, were the oc- 

 casions for tattooing, although Langsdorff, in a description of the enata 

 design, says that it was put on when an enemy had been killed or eaten 

 (10, p. XV). 



As has been stated, preparations for the tattooing of an opoit- began 

 with the raising of pigs and planting of tite for gifts and payment for 

 tuhuna and ka'ioi. Several days before the beginning of the operation, 

 the father announced that the oho'au tiki, or special house for the occasion, 

 was to be built. About one o'clock on the morning on which the erection 

 of this structure was to take place, two great drums (pahu) and two small 

 ones (hutu) were beaten on the public festival place, to declare the be- 

 ginning of the tapic and to summon the ka'ioi. These, usually from 

 forty to eighty in number, immediately gathered at the festival place and 

 together proceeded, under direction of the tuhuna, to raid the place of 

 the opou's father. They demolished his houses and those of his relatives, 

 with the exception of the sleeping houses ; they seized not only material 

 for the building of the oho'au, but that for making tapa, or the tapa 

 itself in the event of its already having been made. Enough pigs and 

 other food, sufficient to last for the entire period of the operation, its 

 length depending upon the sickness of the opou, were taken for the feed- 

 ing of the ka'ioi, tuhuna, and all those who were to stay in the oho'au. 

 Not only was the father of the opou the victim of this fao or seizure of 

 food, but also his father's sisters and even other relatives of the father and 

 mother, if the duration of the operation was extended ; and it was these 

 relatives who cooked the food durino- the entire time. 



