Samoan Tātau Tools
Set of combs and mallets used in the Samoan tatau, the hand-tapped tattoo applied by a tufuga ta tatau, the tattoo master. A comb of bone, turtle shell or later steel, set with teeth of graduated length, is dipped in soot pigment and struck with a wooden mallet to drive the ink into the skin, line by painful line. The tools and the art are traced by legend to the goddesses Taema and Tilafaiga, who brought the craft from Fiti to Samoa, and the full male pe'a and the female malu are still given with ceremony as marks of dignity and genealogy. A set of tools is the master's most guarded possessio