The tattoo artists had the status of spiritual leaders, which entailed a responsibility that meant they rarely had family. The tattoo around Junes ankle has amongst others symbols for our familiy and our journeyīack then, it was usually the person with the most skilled tattoo artist who became chief. As they developed as people, tattoos were added with personal characteristics, others with their achievements, or tattoos to empower them, these were placed among the tattoos that have exact locations. Many symbols belong in very specific places on the body, for example the symbol Søren has got on the inside of the upper arm, is there because that is where it belongs on the body, other motives belong on either women or men, others are linked to life phases.īack in time (unknown when), the young people/children got their first small tattoo when they became sexually mature, a line and everyone got the same one. One day when we were at Daniel’s, another tattoo artist came by and saw our tattoos, and it was almost a little scary how much he could tell about us, just from our tattoos Based on these conversations, he has designed a tattoo for each of us. We have had ours designed and made by a very skilled tattoo artist at Nuku Hiva, Daniel, who cares about making the tattoos personal and with respect for the original traditions.ĭaniel started with a conversation with us, where we each talked about ourselves, important people and events in our lives and our values as people. The symbols under Sørens arm has that excact location because traditionally that is where they belong
Many tourists like ourselves get tattoos here Many of the signs are repeated, and some signs are reminiscent of signs that we also know from the Inuits in Greenland. Marquesian tattoos are called Patutiki, on Tahiti (1500 km away), which is part of the Society Islands, they are called Tatar, and on other islands in the Pacific they have completely different names. However, it is believed that he was a generation too late to be able to collect everything, so a lot of knowledge has been lost, nevertheless his work has contributed to 100 patutiki’s being listed on UNESCO’s intangible cultural heritage list. Fortunately, the German doctor and explorer Karl Von Den Stein, among others, has done a great job of collecting and writing down stories, traditions and, not least, the symbols. However, this meant that much knowledge about the symbols and their location on the body was lost. In the middle/end of the 19th century, the missionaries came from Europe and they forbid everything, and only in the 1980s, when the Marquesas began to seriously demand their right to their original culture back, was this ban lifted (not that they had much luck with the ban). tattoos, song, dance, sculptures and jewellery. Polynesia did not have a written language, so their culture and history is passed on in their art, e.g.
Carpe diem symbol skin#
Daniel created a sketch in hand and has drawn in hand on the skin before tattooing itĮach archipelago has its own ancient symbols.
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