Marquesan tattoo
Image by Brittanie Shey
The word "tattoo" is Polynesian. (To be exact, tatu comes from the Marquesan language. The Marquesas are a heavily Spanish-influence archipelago that is now part of French Polynesia).
The word means "to tap" and is derived from the ancient method of tattooing, in which a fine comb made of shark’s tooth or boar bone was tied to a long stick. The comb was dipped in ink and placed over the skin, while the long stick was tapped with a shorter stick to drive the comb into the skin. (You can see a video here.)
Women and men both had tattoos. Often a tattoo was a symbol of one’s profession. While I was in Polynesia I saw many elderly women with tattoos like lace covering their hands. I was told this meant they were midwives. Many men traditionally had tattoos that covered their entire bodies.
Once I knew I was going to the Marquesas, I knew wanted to get a tattoo to commemorate the trip, a trip of a lifetime. A year before, I had gotten married and moved to Korea with my new husband. Not long after our move, a week before we were scheduled to fly to Greece for our honeymoon, my husband was in a bad motorcycle accident that left him in the hospital for almost three months. Our honeymoon had to be canceled and the weeks that followed were very difficult for me.
The trip to Polynesia the following year — three weeks traveling through three archipelagos, would be both our honeymoon and our one-year anniversary celebration. The tattoo was his gift to me. The trip ended up being one of the most amazing things I’ve ever done in my life and is a constant source of happy memories for me and my hubs.
I wasn’t sure what I wanted, and I decided to wait until the last day of the trip to get the tattoo, to allow myself time to gather ideas. I also asked around a lot for recommendations of a good artist. One person was recommended over and over — Simeon Huuti. By that point, I’d only decided two things: I wanted it to be round, and I wanted it on the top of my foot. Simeon didn’t speak English, so with my limited French we talked about ideas, our trip, and my personal history. I told him to go crazy — do whatever he wanted. And this is what he came up with (hover over the picture for notes). Most amazingly, he did the whole thing freehand and with a single needle, sketching a very basic idea on my foot with a red Sharpie before setting to work.
I didn’t find out until we returned home, but Simeon Huuti and his brother have both won numerous awards at pan-Polynesian traditional arts competitions for their work. I am flattered to have his work on me.
See more pictures from our trip to French Polynesia.
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