164 



SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



MAORI TATTOOING. 

 By John T. Carrington. 



'"THERE are few better aids to the science of 

 -*■ ethnology, in unravelling the origin of early 

 civilization, than the study of tattooing. Though 

 essentially a barbaric custom, in the patterns and 

 manner of its production may sometimes be traced 

 little suspected alliances of long separated races of 

 mankind. The unfortunate part of the art as a 

 record is, that the examples which would have 

 aided most disappear with the decomposition of 

 the skin after death. It is only in comparatively 

 few cases that 

 specimens have 

 been preserved 

 so as to be at 

 present avail- 

 able for examin- 

 ation. 



Notwithstand- 

 ing a passing 

 fashion among 

 highly civilized 

 people, which 

 occasionally 

 crops up even 

 in such centres 

 as London or 

 Paris, where 

 the professional 

 tattooer thrives 

 more or less 

 successfully in 

 these days, with 

 the aid of elec- 

 trically - driven 

 needles and 

 other delicate 

 instruments.tat- 

 tooing may be 

 described as a 

 disappearing 



art, excepting in some Japanese and South Sea 

 Islands, where it still exists among the natives. It 

 is therefore the duty of those ethnologists who study 

 the progressive side of anthropology to secure and 

 place on record for the benefit of posterity as much 

 as can be gathered about tattooing. Not the 

 least of these records is the beautiful book which 

 Major-General H. Gordon Robley recently pub- 

 lished (i). In fact this contribution is one 

 of the most important which have yet been 

 published. The author's interest in the subject 



(') " Moko ; or, Maori Tattooing," by Major-General 

 Robley, 212 pp. 4(0, with 1S0 illustrations. (London : Chapman 

 and Hall, 1896.) £2 2s. 



Te Pehi Kupo 



was aroused so long ago as in the Maori war 

 in New Zealand, of 1S64-1S6C, when he served 

 against that highly intelligent, brave, but then 

 semi-civilized race. Since, he has steadily col- 

 lected all possible information on the art of 

 moko, or tattooing, as practised by the Maoris. 

 His collection includes not only voluminous notes 

 and many beautiful drawings made by himself, 

 but undoubtedly the finest series of dried heads in 

 existence General Robley has not ended there, for 



he has searched 

 through most 

 of the known 

 museums and 

 private collec- 

 tions for other 

 specimens ; and 

 consequently 

 not only thor- 

 oughly under- 

 stands his sub- 

 ject, but has a 

 record of nearly 

 every head that 

 has been saved. 

 The Maoris 

 may have 

 brought the art 

 oftattooingwith 

 them when they 

 occupied New 

 Zealand, but 

 though Tasman, 

 on his hurried 

 visit to the coun- 

 try in 1642, left 

 minute descrip- 

 tions of the na- 

 tives seen by 

 him, with some 

 drawings, he makes no mention of tattooing. It is 

 probable moko was practised among the Maoris at 

 that period, though Tasman has not noted the fact. 

 Captain Cook, the celebrated English navigator, 

 was the next who makes mention of the New 

 Zealanders, when he visited the islands one hun- 

 dred and twenty-eight years ago. At his visit, 

 moko seems to have been in full fashion among the 

 Maoris. Native tradition aids little towards the 

 discovery of the origin of the practice among 

 their ancestors. They believe, however, that it 

 arose out of the custom of the warriors darken- 

 ing their faces with charcoal by drawing patterns 

 upon them. This required time and attention, 



