Today in class the teacher talked
to us about the Maori, which is the native people of New Zealand, and that they
originally came from Polynesia.
One characteristic feature of
Maori culture is the Ta moko which
is the tattoos on Maori people´s faces and body, clearly face tattoos are most
notorious than those in the body. Ta moko is sacred and its meaning depends of
the person who wears them, usually it is bare on the face and it represents the
history of the family (whakapapa) of the person that wear the mark; it is a
ritual of passage from childhood to manhood. Also in the past it was considered
as a symbol of prominence so very important Maori people wore them.
Maori woman also can have moko in
their faces, but usually they are located in places such as the chin or in the
forehead. Obviously get a tattoo is a
painful experience even with the new tools we have nowadays, so it had to be
really extremely painful in the past when they used pieces of bone and they didn’t
had the technology and medicines as we have today.
As many other cultural features Maori
tattoos are very popular nowadays an example of this is mike Tyson face tattoo.
Would you get a face tattoo, not like Mike Tyson, as Maori do it, on all your
face? What other trait of this culture called your attention?
A tattoo in my face?!?!? No way!! hahaha. In our culture, have a tattoo in the face is really difficult, because people judge a lot, people stereotypes and think that maybe you are a bad person. And not necessarily if you have a tattoo in the face, if people see a tattoo in your body they always will judge. Not everybody, of course, but the people who dislike tattoos, maybe will have a bad impression of yourselfe, and that is not fair :(
ReplyDeleteWow, I absolutely didn't know this fact about Maori people.
ReplyDeleteHonestly, I can't really realte to this custom of them. I guess that's because i'm used to live an "occidental" life, where these kind of rituals and traditions don't exist. Nevertheless I can comprehend the meaning and importance of this tatoos for them, because, as you said, it is basically a sign of "growing up" for the man, to pass from being a child to being a man. I think about, and immediately think how brave these people were! They let themself do injuries and feel pain, just because of their culture. Clearly they didn't see this as "braveness", but just as a part of their culture. It's impressive, right?
I definately would not tatto my face, I think that it would be really painful. I was absent the first class of the "Maori" culture, so its pretty interesting to know more things about tattos. In my opinion I think that tattooing your body it's something REALLY important, kind of sacred, and nowadays people just tatto their body for fashion. It's really nice to know that some cultures as this one take tattos as something more spiritual. Thanks for sharing your information with us :)
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