The Samoan tattoo. A Polynesian rite in history

We cannot trace back to a unique origin of the tattoo, practiced all over the world, but the origin of the word itself is Polynesian. In Polynesia, it has been practiced for more than 3000 years, and has a strong symbolic dimension. It is omnipresent there, on the bodies as well as in the speeches. In the Samoa Islands, it consists of a predefined iconographic arrangement on invariable parts of the body, from the middle of the back to the knees for men, around the thighs for women. It is not a narcissistic act, an individual gesture, but always takes place in a social environment and in a ritualized context.
It is on this initiation ritual that the author focuses his work, highlighting the phenomena of continuity, change, transmission and globalization of the profession.
While Polynesian tattoo motifs have spread throughout the world, this book analyzes historical and ethnographic data in a novel approach.