This definitive source on the intricate tattoos of Polynesia's Marquesas Islands offers a rare glimpse of a dying art. Because of the colonial authorities' 1884 ban on tattooing, there remained only a single surviving tattoo artist at the time of this 1921 survey--and a dwindling number of living examples. These 38 plates of black-and-white drawings and photographs provide an unusually complete and intimate record of a sophisticated art form. The Marquesas consist of a dozen rugged volcanic islands that lie 1,000 miles northeast of Tahiti. Rich in oral traditions, folklore, and decorative arts, their complex culture was devastated by the intrusions of outsiders during the nineteenth century. In the early 1920s, Hawaii's Bishop Museum sponsored an expedition to preserve what was left of the islanders' vanishing world. Willowdean Chatterson Handy, an expedition associate, created this priceless record of the ancient body art rituals. In addition to detailed information about tattoo methods and customs, Handy's account features fascinating insights into the designs' symbolic significance and their representation of social status. Her painstaking drawings of tattoo patterns are accompanied by captions that explain the traditional motifs.

Excerpt from Tattooing in the Marquesas The poorer islanders who have not a superabundance of hogs to dispose of in luxuries, but live chiefly themselves upon breadfruit, are operated upon by novices in the art, who take them at a very low price as subjects for practice. The lowest class of all, the fishermen principally, are Often not able to afford even the pay required by a novice, and are therefore not tattooed at all. (10, p. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Harboring a dream to sail across the world's widest ocean, a seasick unicorn gathers his friends and casts off to sea to vomit rainbows and battle self-doubt in a quest to reach the sandy shoreline of beach bonfires and success.