“Native tradition has it that their first settlers used to mark their faces for battle with charcoal, and that the lines on the face thus made were the beginnings of the tattoo.  To save the trouble of this constantly painting their warlike decorations on the face, the lines were made permanent.  Hence arose the practice of carving the face and the body with dyed incisions.  The Rev. Mr. Taylor ... assumes that the chiefs being of a lighter race, and having to fight side by side with slaves of darker hues, darkened their faces in order to appear of the same race.”

TATTOOING ON PACIFIC ISLANDS

When Captain Cook visited New Zealand (1769) he was much interested in the tattooing of the Maoris, and noted that each tribe seemed to have a different custom in regard to it; thus calling attention to one of its main functions as a means to distinguish the tribes from each other.  He described the different patterns on divers parts of the body used by various tribes, and made the further important observation that “by adding to the tattooing they grow old and honorable at the same time.”  The old French navigator d’Urville found in the Maori tattooing an analogy to European heraldry, with this difference:  that whereas the coat-of-arms attests the merits of ancestors, the Maori moko illustrates the merits of the persons decorated with it.  It makes them, as Robley wittily says, “men of mark.”  One chief explained that a certain mark just over his nose was his name; it served the purposes of a seal in signing documents.  It has been suggested that the body of a warrior may have been tattooed for the sake of identification in case the head was separated from it; for the Maoris carried on a regular trade in heads.  Rutherford, who was held for a long time as a captive, said that only the great ones of the tribe were allowed to decorate the forehead, upper lip, and chin.  Naturally such marks were “a source of pride” (a sign of rank), and “the chiefs were very pleased to show the tattooing on their bodies.”  To have an untattooed face was to be “a poor nobody.”  Ellis (P.R., III., 263) puts the matter graphically by saying the New Zealander’s tattooing answers the purpose of the particular stripe or color of the Highlander’s plaid, marking the clan or tribe to which they belong, and is also said to be employed as “a means of enabling them to distinguish their enemies in battle.”

In his great work on Borneo (II., 83), Roth cites Brooke Low, who said that tattooing was a custom of recent introduction:  “I have seen a few women with small patterns on their breasts, but they were the exception to the rule and were not regarded with favor.”  Burns says that the Kayan men do not tattoo, but