Still Are Warriors

Traditional Maori Tattoos Change The Face Of Power

Human skulls with empty-socket glares and scored bones, red wood masks with chiselled leers, cobwebbed windows--they all seem better suited to a medieval apothecary shop than a tattoo studio. The few nods to modernity include a tray of needles, a box of medical gloves, and a long, cracked black padded table for clients to lie on or lean over, depending upon where the moko--Maori for tattoo--will be inked into the body.

At the tail end of my 10-day excursion to New Zealand, Gordon Toi Hatfield of Auckland has conceived a traditional but unique moko design for me that represents my family, genealogy being at the heart of Maori culture and tattooing. The centre of the design is a stylized hammerhead shark--mango pare--powerful and superior in its watery element. It signifies someone of great importance to me: my six-year-old son, Alexander. (The hammerhead shark also symbolizes Tumatauenga, the god of war.) Two fern fronds--koru--symbolizing my parents, sit like sentinels on either side of the mango pare. Although both are dead, their influence, according to Maori belief, is undiminished. They protect both Alex and me.

(When I peer at my moko in the Air New Zealand bathroom mirror a few hours later while jetting home, I will feel no surprise, just elation, helped, no doubt, by the pain-stimulated opiate body rush. It is as if the tattoo has always been there, like a shoot under soil, waiting for sunlight to coax it out.)

Hatfield, 40, is an imposing, curly haired, broad-shouldered moko artist, wood carver, and actor with a whirling scoop of muscle missing from his left calf, the result of a bullet. He answers cellphone calls from Maori friends with a booming "Heh, niggah!" His moko skills are world-renowned; his clientele includes American musician Ben Harper, whose elaborate back moko is pictured in Hatfield's magnificent publication Dedicated by Blood: Renaissance of Ta Moko, which is coedited by Patricia Steur.

"Moko allows you to express who you are, as well as being a dedication to your ancestors," says Hatfield, whose home is steeped in the black, red, and white colour scheme of the Maori sovereignty flag. "It is like a contract that you have with yourself, and your family is around as witnesses. If you fall, your family is there to remind you of your purpose and give you the strength to get up."

A new generation, full of angry Maori pride, has embraced traditional moko as a way to help them define and assert their place in modern New Zealand. It is part of a movement sweeping the globe that includes First Nations like British Columbia's Nisga'a and Haida vindicating themselves politically and culturally following a century of colonial oppression. As the visual expression of political activism and cultural reawakening, moko is energizing a Maori renaissance, Hatfield says. "Maori are expressing themselves not only with their mouths but through their skins."

The Maori still are warriors.

MAORI WERE ONCE great seafarers who crossed the Pacific Ocean from Polynesia in wooden double-hulled canoes called waka taua, arriving in New Zealand--Aotearoa--around AD 650. They were fearless combatants who cannibalized their enemies. Tattoos were the visible expression of Maori culture; the symbols, enshrined in genealogy and with a godly origin, were repeated in other art forms like woodcarving, architecture, and weaving. Moko also narrated tribal affiliations and social standing.

Warriors went into battle with spears and clubs, their only armour full-leg and -buttock moko and fiercely intimidating facial moko. Women wore moko on the chin once they had reached childbearing age and were given speaking rights within the tribe. Only highly skilled ta moko priests, using sharp-pronged chisels--smaller versions of wood-carving implements, made of bird bones or whalebone, tusk or shell--turned flesh into fa?ade.

Capt. James Cook claimed New Zealand for Great Britain in 1769. Eventually, like the societies of other First Nations colonized by pakeha--white-skinned Europeans--Maori traditions, oral history, family structure, and language began to crumble in the 19th and 20th centuries as alcoholism, drug abuse, tuberculosis, smallpox, and sexually transmitted diseases rent the social fabric. The 1994 movie, Once Were Warriors, a brutal and brutally honest look at domestic violence, alcoholism, and child abuse among Maori, was a severe reality check. It spurred the necessary dialogue and action to begin addressing the immense social problems, Hatfield says.

Moko also took on new meaning and significance. Frowned upon by missionaries and colonial governments, moko, among other practices, had been outlawed under the 1907 Tohunga Suppression Act and was illegal into the 1960s. Only prostitutes, bikers, and gang members wore moko. But with no skilled practitioners, the designs were amateurish and poorly wrought.

That was yesterday.

Today, a narrow door, squeezed between shops on a busy retail street in an Auckland suburb, opens onto a flight of stairs leading to the Mana Moko ta moko studio. (Ta moko refers to the practice of tattooing.) Hatfield moves behind the high counter to greet the three young owners with the traditional Maori hongi salutation: "Kia ora," clasped handshake, and noses pressed together, signifying sharing the breath of life.

Turumakina "Tu" Duleyz, 32, dreadlocks streaming from a fist-sized circle at the back of his otherwise shaven head, has a facial moko, lines and spirals along cheeks and skull, the beginning of a story that grows as the wearer ages and accomplishes more things. It is striking and, Duleyz says with a grin, "Women love it."

Moko and Maori culture is becoming cooler, with an increasing number of young Maori, including high-school students, obtaining facial mokos. Human-rights legislation has helped make it more acceptable. Now Maori cannot be fired from a job, overlooked for promotion, or kicked out of school for facial moko, Duleyz says.

Arapeta Kaiwai, 31, dressed in black T-shirt, also has the beginnings of a facial moko. His arms and legs are covered in tattoos and a blue, fang-shaped stone dangles from his left ear. Sixty percent of the studio's mainly 18- to 30-year-old clientele are Maori, Kaiwai says. Half opt for a traditional design, the other half for a modern moko that incorporates tradition and contemporary styles, including three-dimensional shading.

Upholding tradition, the Mana Moko artisans have bird-bone tattoo instruments modelled upon the ancient sharp-pronged designs and flat-edged knives. One in five Mana Moko clients opts for this method, which reportedly hurts less than a modern tattoo needle.

Kaiwai's skill at ta moko, he says, stems from four years spent carving wood. Hatfield also started out as a wood carver; his house and backyard are full of elaborate totems and masks. Traditional wood carving is taught in the northern New Zealand city of Rotorua. The New Zealand Maori Arts and Crafts Institute is "the Jedi school for Maori artists", Hatfield says.

Kaiwai will eventually have the full facial moko, when he has accomplished "a lot of the things I want to achieve". Foremost, he says, is "helping make Maori culture grow".

This necessitates a continued shakedown of Eurocentric institutions of church, state, and schools. "We were taught that Capt. James Cook discovered New Zealand. We were taught to be scared of our ancestors. No wonder we don't do well in school!" Duleyz exclaims.

Adding to this historical alienation is a not-so-subtle racism, Duleyz adds. "I wanted to be a graphic designer, and the teacher told me I wouldn't make it and told me to get a job at the meat works down the road. The teacher would have told a white kid to go for it," says Duleyz, who just finished a bachelor degree in Maori business development from Auckland University of Technology. Still: "Am I angry? Oh, hell, yes."

At the heart of relations between Maori and pakeha is the Treaty of Waitangi, which was drawn up by the British. Signed in 1840, it is commemorated as a national holiday known as Waitangi Day. On February 6, 165 years ago, hundreds of Maori chiefs signed the document with their unique moko signature. A key tenet gave Maori, individually and collectively, "exclusive and undisturbed possession of their lands and estates, forest, fisheries and other properties". However, the treaty wasn't honoured. A few years later, Maori began warring with the British, who had begun confiscating traditional lands. Maori resistance against colonial rule raged from 1845 to 1872 in what is referred to as the New Zealand Wars.

TODAY, RELATIONS between pakeha and Maori are referred to among some whites as "an uneasy truce between equals". Maori is one of the two official languages of New Zealand, which has a population of four million. About 600,000, or 15 percent, are Maori. The first Maori immersion school was created 25 years ago; some universities offer Maori studies. Ancient Maori artifacts and human remains are being gathered from private collectors for identification and preservation at New Zealand's famous Te Papa Tongarewa museum in the capital city of Wellington. A Maori political party was formed last July. "With our culture intact, we are becoming a powerful entity," Hatfield says. And despite an unemployment rate of up to 80 percent in some Maori communities, "Maoris will be the businesspeople of New Zealand," Hatfield predicts.

Like aboriginals around the world, Maori realize that real equality is achieved through economic empowerment, which includes land ownership and control over natural resources. (There are no reserves or reservations in New Zealand.) To this end, Maori are drawing inspiration not only from ancestors but Canadian First Nations like the Nisga'a, which negotiated a treaty in British Columbia that reclaimed traditional lands and gave them self-governance. B.C.'s Haida Nation is also fighting for claims that include the territorial seas around the islands they call Haida Gwaii. Awhina Tamarapa, the curator of Maori artifacts at Te Papa Tongarewa, says: "We are looking at talking to other indigenous cultures to help us reclaim the Maori world viewpoint."

It is an assertive viewpoint. Last year, 10,000 Maori marched through Wellington to protest the Labour government's Seabed and Foreshore Bill, putting New Zealand's coastal areas claimed by Maori as traditional lands into state ownership. Maori say this contravened guarantees in the Treaty of Waitangi. The bill, passed last November, confirmed Crown ownership and protected public access to the coastline. Maori complained to the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination and expect a ruling as early as next month.

Moko is tied to genealogy; genealogy is tied to the land and the sea. The Maori call this whakapapa: whaka meaning "to link", and "papa", earth. The Maori are gathering strength from their ancestors, embracing education and learning to work within pakeha society to effect change that recognizes their unique place in New Zealand society. It is modern warfare, with moko still the Maori armour.