distro tattoo: maori art tattoo gallery

maori art tattoo gallery
Not many people know that I am 3/64 Maori. Some of my cousins have a bigger proportion of Maori descent. Recently one of my relatives who was very keen on Maori culture passed away at a grand old age. He liked very much my pair of paintings that I called "Maori Meta Morphis Eyes" which is a blend of Maori design with a strong Escher influence. He thought that this was very appropriate for out mixed Maori and European ancestry. I have used photos of those paintings to make a frame for this picture. His dying wish was for me to take up more Maori art and culture and he left his Korowai (cheftain's cloak) to me with the express wish that I get a Maori Moku (tattoo). The Korowai is a very sacred and prized possession and this one is over 80 years old. They are made by very fine flaxwork with feathers woven in and this one has baby kiwi feathers which would not be possible to get today

marquesan tattoo art
Marquesan tattooing (rear), by Von de Steinen. From Alfred Gell (1999), "Strathernograms, or the Semiotics of Mixed Metaphors," in The Art of Anthropology: Essays and Diagrams. London: Athlone.