Taia o Moko

Dr Ngahuia Te Awekotuku, author of Mau Moko: The World of Maori Tattoo and essayist and commentator on Maori and feminist issues in New Zealand, memorialized the Maori Queens’s death by taking a traditional facial tattoo. Te Awekotuku writes about the rise of the Maori tribal tattoo for the BBC. “Tattoos are no longer the trophies of rockers, sailors, bikers, bohemians and criminals, they have gone mainstream. Tattoo conventions are a world where ink equals art, where Japanese Koi carp swim along the same tide as Maori tribal markings and the goddess Aphrodite. The important reality remains – it is ours. It is about beauty, and desire, about identity and belonging. It is about us, the Maori people. As one venerable elder stated, more than a century ago, ‘Taia o moko, hei hoa matenga mou’ (Inscribe yourself, so you have a friend in death). Because it is forever.”