464 
POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
pattern to be tataued, was portrayed upon the skin with 
a piece of charcoal, though at times the operation was 
guided only by the eye. 
A number of idolatrous ceremonies attended its com¬ 
mencement 5 and when these were finished, the performer, 
immersing the points of the sharp bone instrument in 
the colouring matter, which was a beautiful jet black, 
applied it to the surface of the skin, and, striking it 
smartly with the elastic stick which he held in his right 
hand, punctured the skin, and injected the dye at the 
same time, with as much facility as an adder would bite, 
and deposit his poison. 
So long as the person could endure the pain, the 
operator continued his work, but it was seldom that a 
whole figure was completed at once. Hence it proved a 
tedious process, especially with those who had a variety 
of patterns, or stained the greater part of their bodies. 
They usually began to impress these unfading marks 
upon their persons at an early age, frequently before 
they had reached the seventh or eighth year. Both sexes 
were tataued, but the men more than the women. 
The tatauing of the Sandwich and Paliser Islanders, 
though sometimes abundant, is the rudest I have seen; 
that of the New Zealanders and the Marquesians is very 
ingenious, though different in its kind. The former 
consists principally in narrow, circular, or curved lines, 
on different parts of the face ; the lines in the latter were 
broad and straight, interspersed with animals, and some¬ 
times covered the body so as almost to conceal the 
original colour of the skin. 
The Tahitian tatauing is more simple, and displays 
greater taste and elegance than either of the others. 
Though some of the figures are arbitrary, such as stars. 
