Pictographs of the North American Indians. A preliminary paper: Fourth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1882-83, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1886, pages 3-256Mallery, Garrick
History
Pictographs of the North American Indians. A preliminary paper: Fourth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1882-83, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1886, pages 3-256
Mallery, Garrick
Haida Indians; Picture-writing, Indian; Tattooing
The accompanying illustration, Figure 34, is taken from a bone obtained
from a mound in New Zealand, by Mr. I. C. Russell, of the United States
Geological Survey, several years ago. Mr. Russell says that the Maori
formerly tattooed the bones of enemies, though the custom now seems to
have been abandoned. The work consists of sharp, shallow lines, as if
made with a sharp-pointed steel instrument, into which some blackish
pigment has been rubbed, filling up some of the markings, while in
others scarcely a trace remains.
[Illustration: FIG. 34.--Tattoo designs on bone, New Zealand.]
In connection with the use of the tattoo marks as reproduced on
artificial objects see also, Figure 37, page 76, and Figure 116, page
200.
The following is extracted from Te Ika a Maui, or New Zealand and its
inhabitants, by Rev. Richard Taylor, London, 1870, p. 320, etc.
Before they went to fight, the youth were accustomed to mark their
countenance with charcoal in different lines, and their traditions
state that this was the beginning of the tattoo, for their wars
became so continuous, that to save the trouble of thus constantly
painting the face, they made the lines permanent by the moko; it is
however a question whether it did not arise from a different cause;
formerly the grand mass of men who went to fight were the black
slaves, and when they fought side by side with their lighter colored
masters, the latter on those occasions used charcoal to make it
appear they were all one.
Whilst the males had every part of the face tattooed, and the
thighs as well, the females had chiefly the chin and the lips,
although occasionally they also had their thighs and breasts,
with a few smaller marks on different parts of the body as well.
There were regular rules for tattooing, and the artist always
went systematically to work, beginning at one spot and gradually
proceeding to another, each particular part having its distinguishing
name. Thus,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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