Part 5.

SG: Do you find that speaking Tahitian helped in gaining access to the tattoo communities?

TA: Yes, it helped quite a bit. They're usually astounded that there's a white woman, blond and blue eyed, speaking some Tahitian. The problem is now that I'm home more than I'm in Tahiti, I've lost a lot of it.

SG: How do the tattooists there feel about westerners copying their designs?

TA: Often times, offended. In many cases the Islanders feel that their art should be reserved for them and not shared with the public. This is perhaps most common today among the Maori and is, in part, due to the fact that their tattoos are ancestral. Their attitude is more understandable when we realize that the Maori facial moko was as distinct as an individuals signature. In fact, when it came time to sign treatise and documents, the Maori would often draw their moko, as Maori was not a written language. These attitudes are less common elsewhere in the Pacific where tattoos did not have ancestral associations, but in many cases the islanders believe that outsiders should not be wearing their art unless the person has made commitment or shown proper respect to that culture. This touches on issues of cultural copyright, but that's beyond the scope of what issues we can address here.

In Tahiti and the Marquesas, many tattooists and many of those who are involved with various aspects of the culture feel it's ok for outsiders to wear their old designs if they change them, make some modifications, and make them their own. Their general rule of the thumb - many of the tattooists - they won't put an old design, from one of the old illustrations, on someone that's not of the blood, or even someone that's of the blood, unless there's a real good reason for doing it. Say if that person is heavily involved with language or culture, or with the arts organization, or one of those fighting to get language taught in the schools. They have a real commitment to the old culture and the old traditions. But most of them feel that we are modern people and we should be wearing more modern designs. They are often offended by some of the photos that appear in tattoo magazines that are direct lifts of the old Marquesan patterns. Many feel strongly that those who don't even know where the Marquesas are, for example, shouldn't be wearing a Marquesan tattoo.

SG: How long have you been travelling to the islands?

TA: I started on Rapa Nui in 1991, and since then I have made seven trips to Tahiti, five to the Marquesas, three to Rapa Nui and one to Samoa.

SG: Tell me about your academic research into authentic ancient Polynesian tattoo designs. What is the primary source material?

TA: What you really have to do is look at everything that was written by every explorer who visited Polynesia in the 18th and 19th centuries. And many of those aren't indexed. There is no table of contents. And so in most cases you have to read the whole book. And you might only find one sentence about tattooing. Most of these explorers had artists on board who were sketching their observations of plants and animals, and in many cases tattoos. But sometimes there are no illustrations, and only a sentence or two. But sometimes those are really critical key sentences. Sometimes they're not. The only way to find this stuff is to look through everything. All the ship's logs - all the published and unpublished journals of these early explorers.

SG: Did you do that?

TA: Yes. At least I've gotten through nearly all the material in collections in Hawai'i, at UCLA, and the Smithsonian. At least I'm off to a very good start. These journals were illustrated by artists or in some cases, someone else on board. Some of the captains enjoyed drawing. Some of the drawings are pretty accurate and others aren't. The other thing that happens is that these drawings get borrowed and copied by armchair anthropologists. So you might see a very similar drawing that was lifted and see it published 50 years later, which can really throw you off. Sometimes early publishers even took one drawing from one source and another drawing from another source and combined the two. In some cases the artist might have made the drawing from memory five years after the fact when they went back home, rather than drawing it on the spot.

SG: How long did you spend on this project of researching the original sources?

TA: I spent about three years researching for my master's thesis, going through these old ship's logs and books and various sources trying to locate all of these early illustrations and early references to tattooing.

SG: How many did you find?

TA: A lot. I found over two thousand illustrations that predate 1900. If they could be photocopied - if they are not rare books that could be damaged by putting them on a xerox machine - I made xerox copies. In the case of rare books they won't let you use a flash or photocopy, so you have to bring in a tripod or some sort of stand and shoot it fairly slowly with a cable release.

SG: I've heard something recently about tattoo conventions happening in Polynesia. Can you tell me more about these events?
TA: Yes. In October/November of 1999 there were tattoo conventions in both Samoa and Aotearoa (New Zealand). The Samoan event was held in Apia, on Upolu, the main island of Western Samoa, and was attended by just under a hundred people. I know a little less about the event that took place in Aotearoa, although, unfortunately shortly after the festival ended Paulo Suluape (perhaps the best technical Samoan tattooist ever) was brutally murdered.

In April of 2000 there was a big event being held on Raiatea, one of the outer Society Islands (not quite 300 miles from Tahiti) that I was somewhat involved in. It took place at an ancient marae (ancient outdoor Polynesian temple platform) called Taputapuatea. It wasn't a competition, but rather a festival, and featured tattooists from Samoa, the Marquesas, Rapanui (Easter Island), Aotearoa (New Zealand), the Society Islands (Tahiti and her Isles), as well as the U.S., Canada, and Europe. Tentative plans are to hold the festival every two years. I hope it happens again!

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