Tattooing in the Marshall IslandsPreface |
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, reflecting their membership, and their position within that society. T
oday, some 150 years after the introduction of the
Thus, a study of traditional Marshallese tattooing is actually a post mortem investigation. This booklet is destined to document Marshallese tattooing, as an art form with its rich ornaments and elaborate execution, and also the traditional social context in which tattooing needs to be seen. In keeping with the nature of a post mortem enquiry, then, this booklet will also examine the demise of the tattooing and attempt to highlight what caused it.
Information on 19th century Marshallese tattooing can be found scattered in a number of contemporary accounts. In addition, a few ethnographic treatises touch on the subject, most of them in
Because this volume is the first compilation on Marshallese tattooing, it was necesssary to ex tensively annotate and reference the study; since this scholarly apparatus is rather tiring for the general readership the book primarily wants to address, the commentary and footnotes have been relegated to the rear of the volume.
This study has been written with the assistance of a number of people, the help of whom is gratefully acknowledged.
I am grateful to
I am grateful to the
I am also very much in debt with
Above all, however, I am grateful to my wife,
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... | ||||||
|
||||||
Digital Micronesia-An
Electronic
Library & Archive
is provided free of charge
as an advertising-free
information service
for the world community. It is being maintained by Dirk
HR Spennemann, Associate
Professor in Cultural
Heritage Management,Institute of Land, Water and Society and
School
of Environmental & Information Sciences, Charles
Sturt University,
Albury, Australia. The server
space and technical support are provided by Charles
Sturt University as part of its commitment
to regional engagement. Environmental
SciencesInformation
Sciences
|
||||||