Tattooing in the Marshall IslandsIntroduction |
Rarely has an artform found so diverse evaluations as tattooing. The ancient Greeks, who considered everyone non-Greek as barbaric, observed and condemned tattooing among the "barbaric"
In the opinion of the public of modern westernized societies tattooing still has an infamous reputation: more often than not the mental image of tattooing is connected with what are perceived to be societal fringe populations, such as sailors, motor cycle gangs, circus artists, prostitutes and "jailbirds". Most of this stigma stems from historic roots: [2] the bible forbids tattooing as such;[3] and tattooing to mark and number convicts, used as early as Roman times, was wide-spread practice in 19th century British and American penal systems and attained more recent infamy during the Nazi period where Jews delivered to concentration camps were thus marked.[4]
Yet, on the other hand, almost all early European visitors to the South Seas, beginning with Cook's visit to Tahiti, found tattooing most intriguing. The English word "tattoo" is in fact a loanword from the Polynesian word
Following such enthusiastic reports from the South Seas, tattooing became for a short while rather fashionable in the age of romanticism, both in England and continental Europe, and a number of illustrious high-ranking people obatined tattoos. In the late 19th and early 20th century tattooes then became wide spread in some trades and professions. [8]
For Pacific Islanders of the pre-contact period tattooing was a simple -- though painful -- fact of life, for both sexes a major step towards becoming a fully accepted member of society. In contrast to Europeans, where dress and body are seen as separate entities and where the tattooes consist of mainly isolated pictures rather than whole body compositions, Oceanic tattooes are intrisically linked to the body they decorate and the dress which covers that body.
In traditional Oceanic cultures tattooing is closely connected to the social and spiritual custom of a population. [9]
The motif complex utilised by prehistoric and historic populations in the Pacific covered several art forms, ranging from bark cloth, rock art, pottery (where extant) and wood carving/painting to body ornamentation. In all cases the ornament set was seen as a group identifier, classifying the bearer as distinct from strangers and regional neighbours; [10] it was an visual expression of being
Body ornamentation comes in three forms: body painting, i.e. the application of paint or mud; pigment tattooing, i.e. the application of pigment under the epidermis; and scar tattooing, i.e. the piercing, slicing or burning of the skin to cause a scar, thus creating a three-dimensional ornament. While body painting is a reversable ornament, the latter two are permanent. All three methods of body ornamentation are common in
The Figure 1.Location of the Not counting the five islands, The atolls of the The atolls support narrow sand cays set on the more or less ring-like reef platform. Only few of the islands on the atolls have a land area greater than one square kilometre and on most of them the distance between the lagoon and the ocean side is less than 300 metres. Figure 2. Map of the Marshall Islands The environment the Marshallese lived and still live in is dominated by the sea. Land is scarce, and the sea and its inhabitants are omnipresent. Thus it is hardly surprising to learn that the Marshallese were avid navigators who ventured far beyond the As will be shown further below, the sea and marine life also plays a very important role in Marshallese tattoo designs.
Because traditional tattooing in the Where known, the Marshallese terms for the motifs and ornament fields, as well as for tattooing utensils are given. The spelling of these words uses the modern phonetic spelling proposed in the Marshallese dictionary adopted by the Marshallese Language Commission. [13] However, as most words are no longer in useage, and are thus not included in the dictionary, the words recorded and transcribed by the German ethnographers were transcribed into the modern phonetic system. For reference, the original renderings are given in footnotes. A complete list of words can be found in the glossary at the end of the volume. On the following pages we will investigate Marshallese tattooing from a number of angles. First we will lay a foundation for the study, by having close look at the sources available for the enquiry. We will discuss their validity and reliability. Thereafter we will focus on the traditional Marshallese dress and its relationship to the body ornaments, both permanent and temporary. This leads to a discussion of the Marshallese tattoo motifs, their meaning, as well as their origin, as far as this can be elucidated. A discourse shows the close ties to mat weaving motifs. On this foundation, then, we will look at the mens's and the women's tattooes in their entirety and how the individual motifs and ornament zones relate to each other. We will also look at the tattooing utensils used to create the ornaments. In the third part we will concentrate on the social context of tattooing by discussing the traditional Marshallese society, the tattooing ceremony and the spiritual and social importance of being tattooed. We will show that tattooing was an integral visual part of the social system. A look on the differences between Marshallese tattooes and those of their immediate geographical neighbours concludes this section. The final part of the volume will look at the frequency of tattooing over time and will investigate the reasons for its demise. With the spread and acceptance of Christian belief structures by the Marshallese, tattooing became rapidly associated with the old culture, and thus untenable. It died out as a viable practice long before the Japanese outlawed it during the period of their mandate. A short section on the potential future of tattooing in a modern Marshallese society concludes the volume. Although tattooing has become more common among the young male populaton in the urban centres of the
The Marshallese environment
Nomenclature
[Next Page] [Back to Table of Contents]
Bibliographic citation for this document
Spennemann, Dirk H.R. (1998). Tattooing in the Marshall Islands Second edition.
Albury:
URL: http://marshall.csu.edu.au/Marshalls/html/tattoo/t-intro-test.html
CONTACT:
Dirk H.R. Spennemann,
Institute of Land, Water and Society,
Charles Sturt University, P.O.Box 789,
Albury NSW 2640, Australia.
e-mail: dspennemann@csu.edu.au
select from the following...