The Samoan tattooing instruments I acquired in Apia are almost identical to the same tools I've studied at the Suva Museum in Fiji, which lends credence to the legend of the women bringing the art across the ocean to Samoa. I say almost, because the Fijians preferred to use human bone for the construction of the teeth on the striker; the Samoans usually used boar tusk. The ancient Fijians did love their human flesh as is evidenced by the specialty forks and platters reserved for the human feast and the human bones stuck in the forks of trees after dinner.

The Samoan tattoo is called a pea’a on the men and a malu on the women. The pea’as encompassed the entire area from above the waist to below the knee, and were usually done in one go, taking perhaps a week or two. The teeth of the hoe-like striking instrument were carved longitudinally from the incisors of the wild boar, which in turn was affixed to a piece of turtle shell. The teeth were sharpened with a piece of coral, and if not kept sharp will cause a lot of tissue damage. I have witnessed a fair amount of scarring in Samoan tattoos but some of the areas they tattoo! Behind the knee! Inside the crack of the ass cheeks! No wonder! Before the advent of antibiotics in the 1940’s there was an alarming rate of infection, some actually leading to the death of the tattooed, fortunately that is no longer a problem.

Like much of South Seas tattooing, Samoans used Candle nut as the basis for their pigment, burning it under half a coconut shell, then scrapping the soot off and mixing it with sugar water. My friend Lars Krutak from the Smithsonian Institute insists that it has healing properties. Personally, I think it simply made the darkest, densest soot. A tattooist friend in Apia showed me a bottle of bluing used in washing that they actually added sometimes. I would presume that it lent the pigment a bluish hue as opposed to a reddish hue that some ferric oxide and carbon based pigments will exhibit. The late Doc Webb from San Diego taught me a similar trick when tattooing very dark skinned clients, a touch of blue mixed in with the black really does make the outline bolder. 

Tattooing on these islands is one of the only uninterrupted instances of this art form to still continue unabated. I truly hope it manages to transcend the present onslaught of western commercialization. 

Thomas Lockhart
Vancouver, March 2002

A brief history of Iban head-hunting. From conversations with most Westerners you'd think the tribes of Borneo hacked heads of left and right willy-nilly.

Nothing could be further from the truth. The Iban believe that the world is divided into the conscious world we see and the spirit world. Both worlds are intertwined and connected and it is crucial to navigate both with caution and care.

According to the beliefs of the Iban, the soul of a person resides in their head. By taking someone else's head you capture their soul, and concurrently their status, strength, skill and power. In effect you have added it to your own. And once you have taken a head, it must be respected and venerated. Very seldom would the Iban take just any head, unless they were actively at war. Preferably they wanted the head of someone who's status and rank surpassed their own. The heads that Thomas and I were shown were displayed in a position of high honor. Offerings were made to the heads on a regular basis, charms hung below them, and smoke wafted over them to keep them warm.

As the Iban go through life they get tattoos to document the significant events in their lives. At night, these are what fuel the conversations, their tattoos and their journeys. I ask several young men, one 19, if he intends to get tattoos. He doesn't really want tattoos. They aren't modern.

The older men laugh. How can you be a man with out tattoos? I ask the women what they think of the men's tattoos. They laugh as well. The older women say, who would want a man without tattoos? He isn't a real Iban man. David, related to many of these men, and without a single tattoo, laughs as loudly as the rest. But David is different they say. He is from the city. Many of the older Iban admit they try to cover their tattoos when the go to town. This is one reason why the neck tattoo, traditionally the first tattoo an Iban would get has fallen out of favour. A neck tattoo is difficult to cover up.

I ask the younger women if they like men with tattoos, the teenage girls especially. They shrug their shoulders. It makes no difference to them. Not a great incentive for the next generation of young Iban men to get tattoos!