Parse Journal (Nov 2022)
Embodying Violence Oceanic Tattoo Cultures
Abstract
The Oceanic cultural tattoo is an embodiment of the sociocultural relationships that dictate the structure and socio-normative roles within Indigenous Oceanic society. This paper explores the imbricated themes of violence inflicted onto this Indigenous cultural marker because of the different Western contacts that occurred across Oceania. It uses the examples of different Oceanic societies and their Western records on these Oceanic tattoo cultures and explores how violence, under a metaphoric understanding of “infection”, created a ripple effect of tattoo erasure, (inter)generational trauma and cultural (dis)connect. The essay uses vignettes of Indigenous women’s cultural practices and the enforced Western gender conformities on their different tattoo cultures, silencing the latter. Through these, the text explores the indoctrination of Western laws onto several well-known Oceanic nations that practice cultural tattooing—Tonga, Fiji, Aotearoa New Zealand and Tahiti. Subsequently, it looks at the Dusky Maiden trope of tattooed Indigenous Oceanic women as it articulates the different forms of violence that create generational trauma and the ripple effects this has on female cultural tattoo praxis. Lastly, it approaches the cultural (dis)connections, specifically exemplifying the dormancy of tattoo practice on the Oceanic Island Rotuma. The paper suggests that the (re)(a)wakening of the Oceanic cultural tattoo is an important remedy to violence seen as an infection on Indigenous cultures.
