Tatauing the Post-Colonial Body
Originally published in Span 42-43 (April-October 1996): 15-29
This paper is bitsy and disjointed, but I hope there is a 'logic' to its
bitsiness. Besides, do we have to have logical connections? Do we
have to have unity, design, order and development in a paper? Do all the
ideas, asides, strands, plots, subplots, and subtexts have to tie up?
Where has the Principle of Uncertainty which governs reality gone to?
When I first saw the circular advertising this conference, I was quite
taken by its title: 'The Post-Colonial Body.' (Body seems to be a
theoretical buzz word at the moment!) I was amused by its 'originality,'
'cleverness,' 'weightiness,' 'trendiness,' but because I'd decided I wasn't
attending the conference I didn't let the title linger in the well of my
thoughts. As Head of Deparment my daily challenge is to survive the
workload and stress that goes with that. I have little or no time for my
own writing, let alone writing conference papers.
Much later I got a friendly letter form Ken Arvidson, a close friend,
asking me, as a close friend, to give a paper at this friendly
conference. I found I couldn't say no. However, after 'yes' to Ken I
panicked and wrote and told him I didn't know what to talk about. He
didn't reply. So I noted the dates of the conference in my diary
and tried to forget I had to write a paper for it. As time closed in on
me, though, worry about writing a paper added to my cross of stress.
Nakedness
Behold, one dark night, the conference title and its possibilities kept me
awake. I kept visualising the Post-Colonial Body as an actual human
body, a naked body which needed 'clothing.' Then the inspiration
einsteined into the centre of my head. I had to clothe that naked
body. Why? More because it was a blank outline than being
naked. (As a writer, I spend hours doodling on blank paper and computer
screens.) That lead me to contemplating - this is really getting
philosophical and heavy! - the Samoan concept of nakedness. In Samoan,
the term is telenoa, if you are talking in aristocratic or polite company, or
telefua if you are talking to your equals or your inferiors! (Telenoa -
without 'sacredness;' telefua - without measure, or with many eggs!)
Being clothed (lavalava) had little to do with clothes or laei. In
pre-Papalagi times, to wear nothing above the navel was not considered
'nakedness.' To 'clothe' one's arse and genitals was enough. In
many Pacific cultures, body decoration and adornment is considered
clothing. We have to be careful about those terms though because much of
what has been considered 'decoration' or 'adornment' by outsiders is to
do with identity (individual/aigra/group), status, age, religious beliefs,
relationships to other art forms and the community, and not to do with
prettying yourself.
For instance, during the First South Pacific Arts Festival, held in Suva,
Fiji, in 1971, the Nambas of the New Hebrides (now Vanuatu) performed with
only penis sheaths and elaborate body decoration and considered themselves
fully clothed, while the majority of the missionary-converted Pacific Islands
audience 'laughed' at them for being 'naked savages.' Even the elders of
our Samoan performing group said that to me. I reminded them that before
the missionaries and the other Victorians made us ashamed of our lack of
clothing we wore little clothing (in Papalagi terms) but we believed ourselves
'clothed.' I reminded them that the tatau for men and the malu for women
- in our dance team at least five of the male dancers had tatau and two women
had malu - were considered 'clothing,' the most desired and
highest-status clothing anyone could wear. When warriors went into
battle with their penis sheaths and tatau they were 'clothed,' fully clothed,
fully armoured. The malu was essential wear for women before they
married. Clothed not to cover your nakedness but to show that you are
ready for life, for adulthood and service to your community, that you have
triumphed over physical pain and are now ready to face the demands of life,
and ultimately to master the most demanding of activities - language/oratory.
My unimaginative imagination immediately started tatauing a tatau on the
Post-Colonial Body. Every time the needle punctured the skin, genuine
red blood oozed out of the Body, and while one of the au ta tufuga swabbed it
away, the title of this paper was born: Tatauing the Post-Colonial Body.
What's that got to do with post-colonial literature? You may well
ask. It doesn't have to have anything to do with that. I'm just
interested in talking about and exploring the art of tatauing. However,
we can also see tatauing and its history and development as an analogue of
post-colonial literature. The art of tatauing - or more correctly, the
way-of-life that is tatauing - had to survive the onslaught of missionary
condemnation and colonialism. The act of tatauing a tatau (a full male
body body tattoo) or a malu (a full female body tattoo) on the Post-Colonial
Body gives it shape, form, identity, symmetry, puts it through the pain to be
endured to prepare for life; and recognises its growing maturity and ability
to serve the community.
You may ask, what shape or colour was the Post-Colonial Body I saw?
I didn't see any colour, just a human outline on blank white
paper. (All the meanings of Franz Fanon were conjured up by this.)
But by giving it a specifically Samoan tatau wasn't I turning it into a Samoan
soga'imiti? Yes, in one instance, but non-Samoan males have been tataued
and non-Samoan women have been malued. Fair skin has always been
considered ideal for tatau because of the black on white contrast.
Beach-combers, sailors, Peace-Corps volunteers, and so forth have been
tataued. In the novel I've been working on for the last fifteen years,
one of the main characters, the English beach-comber Barker, gets himself
tataued. Perhaps the most famous fair skin to be tataued in Aotearoa in
recent times was Tony Fomison's.
Meanings
Much has been written about Samoan tatauing but little about the actual
meanings of the terms tatau and malu. The word tatau has many meanings:
(1) ta - to strike, referring in this case to the
rapid tapping action when tatauing.
(2) tau - to reach the end, to anchor/moor a boat or
canoe, to fight. So, ta plus tau could mean
'let's fight, ' let's
go to war,' or 'striking' until we reach a conclusion.
(3) tatau also means appropriate, apt, right and
proper, balanced, fitting.
(4) tata - to strike repeatedly (Each tufuga ta tatau
has his own rhythm, each person being tataued
works out a rhythm to
combat/withstand the pain)
u - to bite, or is the sound
of supressed pain as you clench your teeth to try and withstand the pain.
(5) tatau - also means to wring the
wetness/moisture/juice out of something. (Apparently, this is what
happens when you're being
tataued - the blood and pain are being 'wrung' out of you. Also,after
long periods of pain you feel
totally 'wrung out'!)
The woman's tattoo is called a malu.
(1) malu - to be shaded, to be protected. (The malu is
also the motif which is unique to the malu.)
(2) malu - coolness
(3) malu - soft, to soften
The common name for tatau is pe'a, flying fox, my favourite winged
creature, combination of rat and furred bird the world/reality form and
up-side-down position (and usually at night using radar!). There are
many proverbs, myths, legends, and stories about the pe'a and its role in
society and the universe. For some Aiga and itumalo the pe'a was their
war atua.
The tatau is called a pe'a because of its charcoal dark colour, the colour
of the flying fox. It is also a reflexion of the couragous, cheeky
nature of the flying fox. Recently, John Pule tole me that the tatau
looks like a flying fox with its wings wrapped around its body as it hangs
up-side-down, its head withdrawn. However, I prefer my
observation: If you look at the tatau frontally, the male genitals, even
with a penis sheath, look like the pe'a's head, and the tatau spreading out
over the thighs and up towards the navel and outwards looks like its wings
outstretched. The expression is 'Faalele lau pe'a!' Let your flying fox
fly! Show how beautiful and courageous you've been in enduring the pain
of the tatau, parade it for all to see. The sexual connotations are also
very obvious.
First Aside
What I've just demonstrated by looking at the meanings of the two keywords is to say you have to be bi-lingual (Samoan and English) to better
understand post-colonial literature. You have to know the indigenous
language and culture of the writer producing that literature in English.
This is an obvious perception, yet it isn't one many anthropologists,
historians, critics, academics, and editors of anthologies practise!
Here ends this part of the sermon.
Va
Important to the Samoan view of reality is the concept of Va or Wa in
Maori and Japanese. Va is the space between, the betweenness, not empty
space, not space that separates but space that relates, that holds separate
entities and things together in the Unity-that-is-All, the space that is
context, giving meaning to things. The meanings change as the
relationships/the contexts change. (We knew a little about semiotics
before Saussure came along!) A well-kown Samoan expression is 'Ia
teu le va.' Cherish/nurse/care for the va, the relationships. This
is crucial in communal cultures that value group, unity, more than
individualism: who perceive the individual person/creature/thing in terms of
group, in terms of va, relationships.
Other terms:
- manava = mana/va = stomach (mana = power, va = space)
- manava = breathe
- vasa = ocean (va - space; sa - forbidden/sacred)
- vanimonimo = space that-appears-and-disappears
So tatauing is part of everything else that is the people, the aiga, the
village, the community, the environment, the atua, the cosmos. It is a
way of life that relates the tufuga ta tatau to the person being tataued and
their community and history and beliefs to do with service, courage,
masculinity, femininity, gender, identity, sexuality, beauty, symmetry,
balance, aptness, and other art forms and the future because a tatau or a malu
is for the rest of your life and when you die your children will inherit its
reputation and stories, your stories, stories about you and your
relationships. The tatau and the malu are not just beautiful decoration,
they are scripts/texts/testimonies to do with relationships, order, form and
so on. And when they were threatened with extinction by colonialism,
Samoa was one of the few places where tatauing refused to die. Tatau
became defiant texts/scripts of nationalism and identity. Much of the
indigenous was never colonised, tamed or erased. And much that we now
consider indigenous and post-colonial are colonial constructs (eg the Church).
Origins
The tatau as script/text has a long history. According to some of
that history, the Samoan tatau began in Fiji and with a chant that went
wrong. The cycle of legends centre on two female atua, Taema and
Tilafaiga, originally Siamese twins, who went to Fiji and learned the
art of tatauing. They left Fiji with an atoau, a basket of tatauing
implements, and the belief /practice that the tatau was for women, not
men. However, as they were swimming past Falealupo at the westernmost
tip of Savaii, they sighted a giant clam in the ocean bed. They dived
for it, and when they surfaced, their song changed to, 'Faimai e tata o tane,
ae le tata o fafine.'
As I've said, there is a rich storehouse of oral traditions to do with
tatauing. Here is a well-known song which I learned many, many
moons ago. (It's still popular today, and sung even by our national
rugby team, the Manu Samoa.)
Pese o le Tatau
O le mafauaga lenei ua
iloa
This is the origin we know
O le taaga o le tatau i
Samoa
Of the tattooing of the tatau in Samoa
O le malaga a teine
to'alua
A journey by two women
Na feausi mai Fiti le vasa
loloa
Who swam from Fiji across the ocean
Na la aumai ai o le
atoau
They brought the tattooing kit
ma sia la pese e
tutumau
And their unchanging song
Fai mai e tata o
fafine
That said women were to be tattooed
Ae le tata o
tane
And not men
A o le ala ua tata ai
tane
But the reason why men are tattooed
Ina ua sese sia la
pese
Is because their song went wrong
Taunuu i gatai o
Falealupo
Reaching outside Falealupo
Ua vaaia loa o se faisua ua
tele
They saw a giant clam
Totofu loa lava o
fafine
The women dived
Ma ua sui ai sia la
pese
And changed their song
Fai mai e tata o
tane
To say men were to be tattooed
Ae le tata o
fafine
And not women
Talofa i si tama ua
taatia
Pity the youth now lying
O le tufuga lea ua
amatalia
While the tufuga starts
Talofa ua tagi
aueue
Alas he is crying loudly
Ua oti'otisolo le au
tapulutele
As the tattooing tool cuts all over
Sole Sole, ai loto
tele
Sole, sole, be brave
O le taaloga a tama
tane
This is the sport of male heirs
E ui lava ina tiga
tele
Despite the enormous pain
Ae mulimuli ana ua a
fefete
Afterwards you will swell with pride
O atu motu uma o le
Pasefika
Of all the countries in the Pacific
Ua sili Samoa le
ta'taua
Samoa is the most famous
O le soga'imiti ua savalivali
mai
The sogaimiti walking towards you
Ua fepulafi mai ana
faaila
With his fa'aila glistening
Aso faaifo,
faamulialiao
Curved lines, motifs like ali
Faaatualoa, selu
faalaufao
Like centipedes, combs like wild bananas
O le sigano faapea
faaulutao
Like sigano and spearheads
Ua ova i le
vasalaolao
The greatest in the whole world!
Aiga and Motifs
(See appendices I and II)
Most of the arts of Samoa developed into Aiga of tufuga - families/guilds of
artists and craftspeople. For instance, tatauing developed into two Aiga
to which all the tufuga-ta-tatau belonged or which produced and trained
them. These were le Aiga Sa Su'a (Upolu) and Le Aiga Sa Tulou'ena
(Savaii). Within these Aiga the tufuga ta tatau were connected/related
by blood and genealogy to various matai titles which they were entitled to
hold. Within those Aiga the tufuga ta tatau handed their skills, through
an apprenticeship system, to their descendants and other talented
youths. Their children and other relatives grew up watching and helping
the tufuga ta tatau. For instance in the Aiga Sa Sua, which is centred
in Lefaga and Leulumoega, in Aana, the villages of my aiga, there is a direct
line over generations of Sua and Suluape title holders who were famous tufuga
ta tatau. Until today the most respected tufuga ta tatau in Auckland is
Suluape Paulo II who tataued Tony Fomison, Fuimaono Norman Tuiasau, and Elsie
Bach.
Over its long history the basic motifs of the tatau and malu developed out
of representations of atua or out of nature - plants, objects, creatures.
For example, the tuli was the bird of the supreme Atua, Tagaloaalagi.
Out of the tuli's footprint came the faavaetuli - like a tuli's footprint.
Out of the atualoa (centipede), the long god, came the faaatualoa
Out of the pandanus leaf came the faalaupaogo
Out of the pepe (butterfly), representative of the aiga atua, Taumanupepe
came the faapepe
Out of the gogo (tern), an aiga atua, came the faagogo
This motif may face any direction
The single line is called aso, that is the name of the ribs
of the roof of a fale. Ivi asoaso are also your ribs.
Two single lines are also moelua, two lines sleeping
together.
Out of the upega (fishing net) came the faaupega
Out of the anufe (caterpillar) came the faaunafe
Out of the male pandanus flower (sigano) came the faasigano
Many of the motifs also have symbloic meanings. According to Suluape
Paulo:
(1) the va'a (canoe), which is the black strip about 20 cm wide
across the back with faaulutau at both ends going towards the front
under the armpits, represents the Aiga which the wearer of the tatau must
protect (with spears).
(2) Pula laiti are also known as tama'i pe'a, the young of the
flying fox which she carries under her wings. The wearer of the tatau
must protect and nourish his immediate family.
(3) Pula tele. The same principle of caring but for the
whole extended family. The proverb is: Ia pupula ou mata, ia malama ou
ala, aua nei e soli aiga, ina nei vaipaaina oe! Be aware, may your paths
be clear, don't commit incest, or you'll have no heirs.
(4) Aso laiti - small lines/ribs. The first row are your
genealogical lines on your paternal side which conclude at the tafani
tapulu. The second row of aso laiti are the genealogical lines on
your maternal side. Concluding at the tafani tau. Mothers and
sisters are your feagaiga, they must always be respected and given first
preference. Some aso laiti rows are those of adventure and
accomplishment.
(5) Aso taliitu are lines propping up your sides - your relationships and
accomplishments as a child.
(6) Aso fa'aifo - curved lines, signifying rank and your commitment to your
mother's and father's aiga.
(7) Fa'aila tatau - symbols of your readiness to serve your extended family,
should anyone need food, mats etc (Wedde 77-78)
Malu were once common, then their popularity waned, now they're very
popular again. The style is lighter and sparser on the body. It
also has many different motifs. Some motifs are papalagi introduced; eg
toluse +, the cross. There is also a malu nunu. (Nunu = arthritis,
painful joints). That was used to try and cure arthritis. A form
of acupuncture? (McGrevy 62)
Those of you who know the work of contemporary Samoan artists such as Fatu
Feu'u, Michel Tuffery, Johnny Penisula, Lyle Penisula, and others will
recognise tatau and malu motifs in their work.
Your Choice
On the Post-Colonial Body, we can tatau either a tatau or a
malu. The choice is yours.
The missionaries, especially the London Missionary Society, condemned
tattooing as the 'mark of the savage.' They succeeded in making their
converts ashamed of it, and tried to outlaw the practice further by not
allowing anyone with tatau or a malu to become a deacon or a pastor.
Despite over a century of trying to erase it, tatauing has endured and is very
alive even in Los Angeles and Auckland, where, since the Second World War,
Samoan communities have established themselves. The basic motifs and
patterns and shape have also remained largely unchanged. (Though within
that framework, individual tufuga ta tatau have always evolved their own
individual styles and tatau.) The Mau of Pule of 1908 and the Mau of
the 1920s and the independence movement - because they were nationalist
movements to drive out foreign rule - led to a resurgence. Since
1962 and political independence, there's been another resurgence.
Fair Skins
As I said earlier, many non-Samoans have been tataued. It is
incorrect to think that you cannot be tataued unless you are Samoan or
connected by blood and title to Samoan aiga. For instance, the two
non-Samoan people I knew well who got tataued, Tony Fomison, and malued,
Elsie Bach - one a New Zealand artist, the other a Peace Corps
Volunteer - had no such connections. However, Tony Fomison became a
close friend of Norman Tuiasau and his family, and more importantly, a friend
of Suluape Paulo II, the tufaga ta tatau. It was through this friendship
connection that he was tataued. He was tataued with Fuimaono Norman
Tuisau by Suluape Paulo.
Elsie Bach was in her 70s when she came from the USA to Samoa as a Peace
Corps volunteer. I helped train her as a volunteer in Hawaii, before she
came to Samoa. The Peace Corps staff wanted to de-select her because
they thought that because of her age she wouldn't be able to cope with
Samoa. I argued against it - in Samoa we have enormous respect for
age. She became one of the most successful volunteers ever in
Samoa. She taught at Teachers' College and lived with the Aiga Sa
Meleisea of Poutasi, Falealili. She was accepted by the Meleisea
family as a full member of their family. She also became a loyal and
dedicated member of the Aiga Sa Su'a of Lefaga. That Aiga conferred the
title Suluape on her, and it was the young Suluape Paulo who tattooed her
malu. She now lives back in America and wonders how the funeral
directors are going to view her malu when they prepare her body for burial one
day!
I think that for both Tony and Elsie, the tatau/malu was the blood letting
to be connected to Samoa, to Aiga, to a culture they admired. I never
saw Tony misbehave in a Samoan function, even when he was drunk; he loved
opening his shirt and hitching up his trousers so that people could see that
he was a soga'imiti. Whenever he threatened, because of alcohol, to
misbehave, one of his Samoan relatives would remind him quietly that he was an
'elder' and should behave like one, and he would. (Tony was notorious
for his 'attacking and misbehaviour' at middle-class Pakeha
parties/functions!)
I'm sure that one of the reasons why we're fascinated with tattooing is
because it is to do with blood, human blood, with deliberately bleeding the
body, the flying fox is the bat is Dracula is Batman is vampirism is leeching
.... Let me speculate further.
In a deep psychological, mythological, symbolic way, tatauing is the act of
printing/scripting a genealogical/spiritual/philosophical text on the blood of
testing to see if it can bear the pain of being in a human, of storying it,
giving it human design, shape, form, identity, yet risking all of that if the
tatauing results in your bleeding to death or your contracting AIDS.
Our words for blood are toto, eleele, and palapala. (Toto can also
mean to plant.) Eleele and palapala are also our terms for
earth/soil/mud/earth. We are therefore made of earth/soil. Our
blood, which keeps us alive, is earth. So when you are tatauing the
blood, the self, you are re-connecting it to the earth, re-affirming that you
are earth, genetically and genealogically.
This may help explain why despite the enormous fear of AIDS, tattooing
never stopped. Undergoing the tatau is challenging death, risking
it. For a while the fear of AIDS slowed down the demand for tattooing,
but when the tufuga ta tatau adopted very strict standards of cleanliness,
including the meticulous sterilisation of their instruments, tattooing again
continued to enjoy unprecedented popularity. Suluape Paulo is a fulltime
tufuga ta tatau and travels all over New Zealand and to Los Angeles to
tatau living there.
Over the years, some have tried to bypass the pain by using painkillers and
electric needles. But that has not gained popularity because it defeats
one of the purposes of the art. And who wants to saddle his heirs with
the ridiculing story that their father's tatau came from Hollywood where
they're expert at pretence pain.
A Simple Cross
After putting you and the Post-Colonial Body through this painful session
of tatauing, you may well be asking yourself: Does the speaker have a
tatau? If not, does he have a tattoo anywhere on his flabby body?
If not, why doesn't he?
As it happens, I do have a small, modest tattoo, a cross in fact, right
here on the back of my hand, the result of a tattoo that was going to be
a star but attained only the form of a cross because the prisoner who was
tattooing it got called away before he could finish it. I returned home
to an angry father, and years later, to writing one of my first published
stories, A Cross of Soot, which is based on that incident.
Being a humble Samoan, I apologise humbly for not having a tatau. Why
don't I have one? I'm a coward physically!
As I've already said, once the first line goes across your lower back, you
must endure until the end. Otherwise you and your family and children
and their children will have to suffer the cross of your disgrace, being
branded a coward, for the rest of their lives. Best to remain a pula-u,
a rotten taro like most Samoan males, than be branded a pe'a-mutu, a flying
fox-that's-been-cut-short.
A Body Becoming
What is the Post-Colonial Body? It is a body 'becoming,' defining
itself, clearing a space for itself among and alongisde other bodies, in this
case alongside other literatures. By giving it a Samoan tatau, what am I
doing, saying? I'm saying it is a body coming out of the Pacific, not a body being imposed on the Pacific. It is a blend, a new
development, which I consider to be in heart, spirit and muscle, Pacific: a
blend in which influences from outside (even the English Language) have been
indigenised, absorbed in the image of the local and national, and in turn have
altered the national and local.
You'll notice I use the term blend or new development and avoid the term
'hybrid/hybridity,' a term which sprouts prolifically in a lot of papers and
student essays. Why? Because it is of that outmoded body of
colonial theories to do with race, wherein if you were not pure
Caucasian or 'full-blooded' Samoan or what-have-you, you were called
'half-caste,' 'quadroon,' 'mixed race,' 'coloured,' 'a clever
part-Maori,' and inferior to the pure product. When Picasso developed cubism from African art and other influences was cubism called a hybrid, or a
new development? Do we call the American Novel a hybrid, or the American
Novel? Do we call someone whose mother is Scandinavian and father
English a half-caste Scandinavian or part-English or a hybrid, or English if
he lives in England? 'Hybrid' no matter how theorists, like Homi Bhabha,
have tried to make it post-colonial still smacks of the racist colonial.
Second Aside
Tagaloaalagi, the Supreme Atua, when he created us out of maggots, put into
us poto = intelligence, loto = spirit/courage, agaga = soul, finagalo = will,
and masalo = doubt/imagination/thought.
Celebration
If the Post-Colonial Body sees it through - and I'm sure post conlonial
literature is now courageous and mature enough to do that - it will rise to
the acclaim of its Aiga and village community. After the
Lulu'uga-o-le-Tatau ceremony, during which the new tatau is sprinkled with
coconut water by the tufuga ta tatau, it will rise, arms upraised, face turned
to the Atua, whooping the warrior's challenge and triumph (over pain),
proclaiming its unique identity! It will then dance in celebration,
surrounded by its aiga, the tufuga ta tatau, and its friends and
supporters. It will be the sogai'miti, initiated to serve its community,
to prepare and serve the kava, food, and to master the word, eventually.
Where We're At
On Thursday 16 December 1995 at lunchtime, Reina and I and Roma Potiki, the
poet, were driving up Queen Street, Auckland, discussing this paper when we
saw a well-built Samoan (all Samoans are well-built) striding up the
street in blue sports shorts, blue T-shirt, short-cropped hair, Reeboks,
eating a hamburger and parading his tatau. The mix of Reeboks, sports
gear, hamburger, pride and tatau is where the Post Colonial Body is at;
it is where we're at in post-colonial literature. The young man didn't
give a stuff about what people were thinking of his attire, of his
tatau. He was letting his pe'a fly on the first real day of summer!
University of Auckland
Works Cited
Hirao, Te Rangi. Samoan Material Culture. Bulletin 75.
Honolulu: Bernice P Bishop Museum, 1930.
Marquardt, Carl. The Tattooing of Both Sexes in Samoa.
Trans. Sibyl Ferner. Berlin: Dietrich Reiner, 1899.
McGrevy, Noel L. O Le Ta Tatau, Traditional Samoan Tattooing.
Unpublished manuscript. Auckland: Culture Consultants International,
1989.
Wedde, Ian. Ed. Fomison: What Shall We Tell Them.
Wellington: City Gallery, 1994
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