Maori Tattoo Designs

Maori tattooing would usually start at adolescence, and was used to celebrate important events throughout life. The first tattoo marks the transition from childhood to adulthood and was done during a series of rites and rituals. Tattoo art was an important part of the Maori culture – in fact, people without tattoos were considered to be without status or worth.

Needless to say, tattooing by making incisions with a chisel was a painful process, but traditional Maori tattoos were meant to be more than decorative – they were a show of strength, courage and status. Both men and women were tattooed, though women substantially less (maybe because there was less of a need for them to show courage) and on other places (usually the lips and chin).

The process of Maori tattooing was a ritual, with music, chant and fasting – in fact, fasting was more or less a necessity, because the face would swell up from the wounds caused by the tattooing process!

The tattoo specialists in the Maori culture were usually men, although there are some women who also were tohunga ta moko (moko specialists).

Maori tattoos

Maori tattoos

Maori tattoos

How to Make A Tattoo

The technique with which the pigments are brought underneath the skin has not undergone any significant change during the course of history. There are, however, depending on the state of development and degree of inventiveness, great variations in the quality. And then there are the craft aspects: the application of the correct amount of pigment; correct penetration, not too deep, without leaving scars, damaging muscles, rupturing arteries or chipping the bones. Even primitive cultures whose practices involve the piercing of the cheeks - a technique used sometimes with Maori facial tattooing - have developed astonishing tattooing techniques.

tattoo designs

Tattoos Techniques
In the case of other techniques, the skin is divided up into areas by a series of preliminary cuts. These areas are then filled with figures such as lizards or simple forms such as diamonds, circles and stars. Another, less precise technique involves the drawing of lines and curves with a sharp stone. This technique, which permits complex tattoos with long rows of dots, spirals or other forms, was used by the peoples of Europe in ancient times and is still employed today by the North American Indians. The technique does not, however, employ black or shaded areas of a larger size. It is, of course, a very good technique the tattooing of writing, with which we are familiar all over Indochina. There people use the so-called chisel with one hand and hammers on its handle in quick succession with a type of mallet held in the other hand. The points are thereby driven through the skin, which is drawn tight by assistants.

Another sophisticated manual technique is the Japanese method. In the case of the so-called bokashi technique, twenty-seven needles are capable of creating the most beautiful shades of grey in the world, going from black to 9 colorless in one smooth transition. Since the invention of the electric tattooing machine, however, the Japanese manual technique is now used only by experienced prison tattoo artists.

tattoo designs

tattoo designs

tattoo designs

tattoo designs

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