Tribal Tattoos

The ancient Polynesian islands each had its own unique cultural tattoos, but now artists are blending traditional styles into a ‘Pan- Polynesian’ form of personal expression

Friday - July 29, 2005
By Lisa Asato
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Using traditional Polynesian tools, Keone Nunes
(right) applies a tattoo to Ikaika Kamaiopili with
the help of apprentice Vaughn Victor

“The Christians came to the islands and tried to ban tattooing as they did to every other Polynesian group, but they didn’t stop it. Somehow some Samoans still kept the art alive, somewhere maybe in the bush or the banana plantation they kept practicing it,” says Sua.

“Other Polynesian islands people want to bring back their art, their tattooing, but they lost the way, they lost the method. What I’m trying to do now is teach as many as possible, whoever wants to learn I’m willing to teach them how to make the tools and how to do the tapping properly. My ambition is to bring back the art traditionally the way they used to.”

Sua’s late brother Paulo taught the method to Nunes, the practitioner in Nanakuli. And Sua himself has two apprentices in Hawaii: Aisea Toetuu and Steve Looney of Primitive Black Tattoo in Waikiki. Both have been bestowed the Suluape name, which, Looney says, means “that you’re his family and he’s giving you permission to use the tools.”

With one foot in tradition and the other in modernity, Toetuu wears the traditional Samoan pea and sleek Versace glasses. Receiving the tattoo was painful, he says, but necessary: “To me I can never see a painless tattoo, I think it should be painful so it’s not easy for everybody to get it.”

Toetuu likes to mix it up, or as he says, “create the new age.” The shop specializes in custom Polynesian designs, and he gladly borrows elements from all Polynesian styles to create a meaningful image. “We take the new with the old and we go with it.”

It’s a style that anthropologist and tattooist Tricia Allen of Honolulu calls “Pan-Polynesian.” A practitioner for 14 years, Allen says the majority of her clientele want semi-traditional Hawaiian designs, but more and more “the distinctions between various Polynesian styles is getting blurred. Tattoos are combining Tahitian elements, Marquesan elements, Samoan elements, Hawaiian elements and creating that Pan-Polynesian style, whereas in ancient times the tattoo traditions of each of the island groups were really very distinct.”

Albert Faapoi, Seymour Kaniho, Suluape
Petelo and Suluape Steve display their
tattoos

Allen, who uses only machines, says people seek traditional tattoos to memorialize loved ones or mark a life experience. “Primarily it’s a mark of identity, cultural pride and self-definition,” says Allen, who will be releasing the first of four books on Polynesian tattoo through Mutual Publishing later this year. “In other cultures like American culture, perhaps Japanese culture, it’s a mark of rebellion, and for a Polynesian it’s exactly the opposite. It really is a mark of respect for one’s roots.”

Ikaika Kamaiopili of Hilo got a traditional tattoo from Nunes while on leave from Iraq. The spearhead designs represent protection and the Big Island, where he’s from. “I got it for protection,” he says, “and the accomplishment of going to Iraq and fighting for my country.”

The mark of a modern-day warrior.

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