ANCIENT stories tell of the tattooing tradition being carried out only among women in Fiji. It was a rite of passage for young girls when they entered puberty and was carried out in secrecy by the so-called “wise women” or priestesses. It was performed only for women and done mostly on the parts of the body that were covered by the grass skirt.
Drawings by early European explorers to Fiji of this aspect of society back thern are fascinating.
The drawings showed tattoo designs carried out on the women on the vulvic area and the buttocks. Some of the designs started typically at one wrist, and ran up the arm, to across the chest above the breasts to the upper shoulder. The designs were generally lines running parallel to each other with separate single lines pointing upwards and simple dots lining the body.
Some of the tattoos took the form of little stars on the cheeks and other parts of the body. According to records, certain tattoos signified rank to distinguish women of chiefly status. And it was recorded that even finger tattoos were also practised among high ranking women in Fiji.
It made fascinating art. However the thought of enduring the pain from a tattoo being done back then was unimaginable.
We were looking at some of the work which if it had not been recorded would have been lost to us.
“When the missionaries came in the 1800s the ritual was taken away from us but they left circumcision alone as it was biblical to them,” artist, Joana Monolagi said.
“My family and I created our own veiqia (tattoo) to reflect our heritage and our journey in this life. Because this is a living art.
“Many young people today pursue tattooing for the fun of it or just to experiment. But in ancient days, the art of tattooing was sacred. Our people held it close to them, so it was sad that it was made to die out after the missionaries arrived. However we would like to revive it.”
Joana is one of several artists from abroad who are in Fiji to be part of the Veiqia Project, a creative research project inspired by the practice of Fijian female tattooing. She was involved in creating Fijian arts for 20 years mostly in masi printing and teaching meke dances etc.
In 2015 she was “reawakened” as she puts it, after discovering the story about the ritual of tattoo making and the history behind it. She is one of five contemporary Fijian women artists who are in Fiji to showcase their work and exchange information on this art. The Veiqia Project is on display at the Fiji Museum for the next three months.
“I don’t want the knowledge of this art lost to us as it’s something that defines who we are,” the 59-year-old said. The Serua native said she has since passed on the knowledge to her two daughters who were keen to learn about it.
“The tattoo lines on my arm reflects my husband and my two daughters who are my strength. There is also a cross symbol signifying my Christian faith and the line of dots signify our life’s journey,” she said pointing towards the tattoo.
History
Early accounts of how the traditional Fijian tattoos came to be vary from province to province.
According to records, the tool used to make the tattoos “were made from a blade of turtle shell or of chicken or other bone, or some lemon thorns, fastened to a light stick. In addition to puncture tattooing of this sort, rows of ornamental cicatrices are often cut into the flesh of the breast, back and upper arms. Men are only exceptionally tattooed, and then not elaborately.”
American naval officer and explorer Charles Wilkes, who visited Fiji in the 1840s, said that to be tattood gave the women the right to enter the netherworld.
He wrote the tattoo was believed to prevent the wearer from being persecuted by their own sex when they reached the world of the dead. Stories told to him described gods that would command female spirits to meet their newcomer, and if the newcomer was not tattooed, the spirits armed with sharp shells, would chase the newly dead continually through the lower regions of the netherworld.
“So strong is this superstition, that when girls have died before being tattooed, their friends have painted the semblance of it upon them, in order to deceive the priest, and thus escape the anger of the gods,” he wrote.
According to Adolph Brewster who wrote the classic Hill Tribes of Fiji detailing his time as commissioner in Fiji’s interior at that time said tattooing was customary in Fiji long before the arrival of Polynesians to Fiji. “It is an art not learnt in a day,” he wrote.
“Tattooing was performed in the secret recesses of the forest by the hereditary priestesses. Very little is known about it…the practice is a veritable keynote to early Fijian and Polynesian history.
“Some years before I left Fiji in 1910 I think that the practice had altogether died out. Old women still exist who perhaps could throw light on the subject if patiently cross examined.”
The writer of the article on circumcision in the Na Mata of May 1919 said the renaming of girls and their dedication to the tribal service took place in the remote spots in which they were tattooed.
“On no account were they publicly presented in the temple as the boys were,” Brewster further stated.
Brewster told interesting anecdotes of when iTaukei men who accompanied him while sailing along the rivers of certain interior areas where they would call upon “ladies with the black mouths” to give them wind. These men were calling upon the spirit god of the women in these regions who bore tattoos which circled their mouth and chins..
Such fascinating accounts reveal these ancient tattoos were symbolic. And there is more than what meets the eye.
Next week we’ll explore further the ancient stories of these tattoos and a look at the Veiqia Project started by a group of brave Fijian women who want to bring back this lost art. Make sure to join us and get your copy of The Sunday Times for the story and the pictures which will bring the account to life.
