Tatu

Blake Sea - Mizzen (215.534,131.076,26.2787)

When the first European explorers came into the Pacific, they were stunned by the patterning they saw on the faces and bodies of the island peoples, from Rapanui in the east, to Hawaii in the north, the westward islands of Samoa and Tonga and in the temperate south of Aotearoa - the Maori word for New Zealand.

Their languages, myths, values were similar. Tatu, or tatau, was the word used for the adornment of the skin by pricking or cutting and then applying colour. The 18th Century mariners carried the word and the tattoo itself to the northern hemisphere. Many pirates and sailors recieved tattoos for its fierce apperance and oddity.