polynesian tattoo, tattoo designs, meanings and their origin
Tattoopatterns
Religion
Origin of these patterns and ornaments of Marquesan tattooart is the god
Tiki respectively idols of Tiki. There was a process in which these
sculptures were formed into linear sturctures, so that a lot of new possible
motives were generated. If we look at a linear stylized tikifigure, we’ll
immediately notice some relations to Marquesian tattoopatterns.
Matahoata,
Papua and
Kake are easy to find in this stylized tikifigure or
at least we can understand their relations. But this is just on small part
of possible tikivariations.
Below these variations will be called Etua, what means god or divine. This
nomenclature was chosen because all depictions of ancestors and not only the
ones of the god Tiki are divine so it can be used synonymously.
Etuavariations
can be classified into two types: Standing manikins and sitting manikins.
The standing ones have got horizontal thighs and their buttom is in the same
height like their knees, so that there is a gap between their legs.
Sitting manikins don’t raise their torso. The bottum touches the ground and
their thighs pulled up, so that their knees are lifted up. In a lot of
illustrations the joints are bent extremly sometimes even into the opposite
direction.
The variations reach from easy reconstructable motives, like these ones you
can see here to stickmen, one can hardly identify as manikins. And these
little stickmen can form several new variations themselves.
One example for a row of standing etuavariations is the pattern called
enata (translation: man). This pattern shows a close connection to the
chesspatterns from handcraft, discussed earlier. So you can see that a
distinction isn’t easy in all cases.
Another row is called kena. Kena is the name of a Marquesian hero in several
sagas. Except of the first stickman, the others can be hardly identified as
manikins. The figure was reduced to a depiction of torso, cervix and head,
which is just implied.
The vatiations of sitting manikins create several patterns, which we can
also find in the interactive schema of Maruesian tattoos. In the middle
there is a pattern called kea and next to it there is
another modification called pohu. One step further a
variation of pohu becomes aniata.
You can see that there are a lot of possible variations with divine origin.
This is moreover the explanation for the huge diversity of Marquesian
tattooart. The most important patterns you can find in my interactive schema,
too.
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