Ta Moko

Ta Moko 

I'm going to look at Ta Moko which are permanent body and face markings by the Maori people because of looking at Rodarte you can see they were inspired by the Maori Tattoos. 

Here is a picture of someone carving one of the tattoos or tatau onto a persons skin. It is being carved by a instrument called a Uhi which is like a chisel, they are using this technique rather than puncturing because it leaves the skin with indents rather than a smooth finish. 

Men mainly have the tattoos on their face, buttocks and thighs. On the left is a typical design, it uses a number of  different shapes such as swirls, lines, triangular shapes etc. I have looked at lots of different photos and most of them are a lot bolder than this one on the left, the lines on this one are a lot thinner than normal, however does give you a good idea of the design they use. 

The womens tattoo are alot more subtle than the mens; it does not cover their whole face like the mens. The women usually wear the mojo on her lips and chin, as you can see from this photo here. From looking at lots of photographs it seems to be that most the women had all of their lips tattooed and then had detail and patterns around upper lips and on the chin. Both Males and females have these tattoos for a number of reasons; one to mark the milestone between childhood and adulthood and also to make the person more attractive to the opposite sex. I love this idea about making themselves more attractive to the opposite sex, thinking about it it is exactly the same as what we do in the modern day. We put makeup on, do our hair, style ourselves so we look nice to people and so they think we are attractive.