Project relevance - Va, tattoo the site, tatto the building - text on the buildings etc..
See this text by Albert Wendt on Tattooing ' "Tatuaing the Post Colonial Body":
http://www.nzepc.auckland.ac.nz/authors/wendt/tatauing.asp
The tattoo or tatua = pe'a because of its charcoal dark colour, the colour of
the flying fox.
"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...
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...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."
"What is the Post-Colonial Body? It is a body 'becoming,' defining itself,
clearing a space for itself among and alongside other bodies...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...a blend in which influences from
outside...have been indigenised, absorbed in the image
of the local and national, and in turn have altered the national and local."
Tatua & Va
(from Albert Wendt's essay above)
Va = 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. 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 (women's tattoo)
are not just beautiful decoration, they are scripts/texts/testimonies to do with
relationships, order, form. When they were threatened with
extinction by colonialism, Samoa was one of the few places where tatauing
refused to die.
Thus, tatau became defiant texts/scripts of nationalism and
identity.
Samoan Material Culture (Te Rangi Hiroa (P. H. Buck)
http://nzetc.victoria.ac.nz/tm/scholarly/tei-BucSamo-t1-front1-tp1.html
By virtue of his occupation, the tattoo artist ranks with builders as the companion of kings (angai o tupu).
http://nzetc.victoria.ac.nz/tm/scholarly/tei-BucSamo-t1-body1-d15-d2-d3.html
Previously. custom, personal status, and the approbation of men and women were the incentives to undergoing tattoo.
In modern times, approbation is still sought. The fear of pain is overcome by the keen desire to bear the marks of manhood and to be able to hitch the kilts a little higher at the evening dances and so demonstrate superiority over the untattooed. As maturity follows and the young man succeeds to the position of matai (chief), he has the satisfaction of feeling that he is truly one of the elect for he can bare his knees with assurance as he sits cross legged before his wall post in the circle of the titled.
Tattooing did servie as a decorative purpose - areas that receive more attention are those more likely to meet the eye.
- of the thigh areas described, the upper and external parts are the least artistic while the lower front, inner, and back parts receive considerable attention in the use of various motifs.
- the darker upper area is covered by the kilt but that in sitting cross-legged in the kava circle and meetings with the kilts tucked up to free the knees, the lower anterior and inner surfaces of the thighs with the belt and bird's-head areas were well exposed. Good tattooing had thus an excellent chance of being displayed and admired.
- The Trochus (shell) triangles and the atingi vae were seen from the back and the common habit of wearing the kilt short at the back appears to originate from the natural vanity of displaying the decoration of those areas.
- Pubic area - 'punialo' The aso fa'aifo lines descend to terminate or form the boundaries of the back patterns when produced forward. They descend towards the pubis on either side. The middle part of the abdomen between the descending lines is the alo or belly. The tattooed triangle base upwards is put in to close (puni) the (alo) space and hence the name of puni alo. From its name, the punialo was probably at one time always filled in last of the important areas but later became used as a primary endurance test.
The tattooing was finished with a mark made over the navel (pute) which showed that the work was done. to the patient it was the symbol of endurance and manhood, for no youth gets the navel mark until his full tattooing is completed.
Women - The tattooing artists formed an influential guild in their day. The patron deities of the craft were Taenia and Tilafainga. In the myth recorded by Fraser, these deities were Siamese twins from Manua who went from Tutuila to Fiji. There they became friends with two tattooing artists named Tufou and Filelei from whom they obtained tattooing instruments as well, evidently, as a knowledge of the craft. These women returned to Falealupo in Savaii where Tilafainga became the war goddess Nafanua. Taema swam back to Tutuila where she settled down at Poloa and followed the occupation of tattooing. In the land of Tufou and Filelei, it was the custom to tattoo the women and not the men. Taema kept repeating this during her swim, but ended up by getting the order reversed. Hence her song on arrival at Tutuila was:
Tupu le tane, ta le tatau.
When a male grows up, tattoo him.
Tupu fafine, fanafanau.
When a woman grows up, let her bear children.
See also a review of Mark Adams exhibition of photographs
http://www.arts.auckland.ac.nz/webdav/site/arts/shared/Departments/asian-studies/gjaps/docs-vol4-n02/Skrine-Review-vol4-2.pdf
