New Zealand Listener - October 13, 2018

50 LISTENER OCTOBER 13 2018

BOOKS&CULTURE

by OSCAR KIGHTLEY

T

he play began with a group of

Samoan men, bare chested and

wearing yellow lavalava, walking

to the centre of the stage, laying

down some mats and sitting

down for a ritual that’s been practised

continuously for thousands of years – tra-

ditional Samoan tatau.

The recipient in this case was youth-

and social-work activist Vic Tamati, from

Christchurch, who would be getting a

pe’a: the male version of the traditional

Samoan tattoo, which covers from the

midriff to just below the knees. The

female version, which

is only on the legs

but just as striking,

is called a malu. It’s

an agonising process

that in ancient Samoa

was a rite of passage

from adolescence into

adulthood.

Not every Samoan

has seen this, let alone an audience about

to witness this painful process in the

first 15 minutes of the play, Tatau: Rites

of Passage, by theatre companies Pacific

Underground, from Christchurch, and

Zeal Theatre, from Newcastle, Australia.

Patrons sat transfixed as master artist

and tufuga tā tatau, Su’a Sulu’ape Paulo

II, used a heavy wooden stick as a mallet

to strike a variety of serrated-bone combs

attached to sticks, or au, placed on

Tamati’s skin.

The steady tapping into the skin left a

puddle of ink and blood that in a moment

there for life. There

was real pain and

real blood being

spilt in this most solemn ritual that, when

the play was unveiled in modern-day New

Zealand, was normally hidden away in

South Auckland garages.

Tamati’s tatau began on opening night

and would be completed on the final

night of the season, which ran through-

out March 1996 at the Herald Theatre in

Auckland. It remains the most real and

intense thing I’ve seen in a theatre in New

Zealand.

But it’s only now, thanks to the book

Tatau: A Cultural History of Samoan Tattooing,

that I fully appreciate what a significant and

special moment it was to see this unfold.

The book is exactly what the name sug-

gests, a history of Samoan tattooing, but

that’s an understatement in terms of the

story it contains.

And in our part of the Pacific, Aotearoa,

with its significant Samoan population,

it’s an art form we get exposed to just by

walking around towns and cities.

As this fine work by Sean Mallon and

Sébastien Galliot explains, the Samoan

islands are virtually unique in that tattoo-

ing has been continuously practised with

indigenous techniques.

As a scholarly work, it’s extraordinary.

It traces Samoan tattooing – from what is

known about its beginnings, the earliest-

recorded observations by Europeans in the

1700s and the way it evolved as a ritual in

Lasting

impression

An extraordinary book

traces a painful rite of

passage and art form

that has endured for

3000 years.

Authors Sean Mallon and Sébastien Galliot.