Maori Tattoos

Ever wonder about Maori tattoos? Well, then let me give you a little background on these great designs. Maori tattoos have their own unique identity compared to their Polynesian counterparts. Their spirals and curved shapes form a very intricate pattern that very distinctive to the Maori tribes. Legend said that a young warrior learned the art of the Maori tribal tattoos from the lord of the underworld, after winning back the heart of the lord’s daughter. For the Maori tribe, the tattoos are part of special rituals celebrating a particular or special event in one tribesman’s life. A tribesman would receive his or her first tattoo as a rite of passage from childhood to adolescent and would be added whenever there are significant events in his or her life that would need to be celebrated. A tribesman that would be awarded with a tattoo would go into fasting before he or she was given a tattoo. During the ceremony itself, there would be music and chanting as it is a celebration not only for that particular tribesman but for the whole tribe itself. Both men and women of the tribe can be awarded with a tattoo as a show of courage, strength and would be given a specific status in the tribe.

Most people already know that maori tattoos originally came out of New Zealand. From the original people of that part of the world in fact. Today, a lot of tattoos are made up by artists to look like maori tattoos which are not the real thing. They are designed to look good but most often lose their meaning entirely when this happens. The original maori tattoos all stood for something very specific. Where people came from. What tribe they belonged to. What type of warrior they were or were not. If they were single or not. And all sorts of other things.
These type of tattoos had real, and very literal, every day meanings and were very much a way of communicating for the tribal peoples of New Zealand a very, very long time ago. When members of two different tribes met they would immediately know many things about teach other by reading their tattoos. And some of this is still the way things go there to this very day. But for the rest of world, the Maori tattoos have become nothing more than a neat looking piece of art that people put on themselves because they like it and for no other reason.