Tattoos

Tattoos The tattoos for women are called **malu**. They can be as big as the male tattoos, but they don't have the large black areas. The Samoan women also had tattoos on their hands. On Samoa the art of tattooing stayed **alive** throughout history, where in other parts of Polynesia tattoos disappeared after missionaries banned them. As with other main Polynesian cultures [|Hawai'ian], [|Tahitian] and [|Māori] with significant and unique tattoos, Samoans have two gender specific and culturally significant tattoos. For males, it is called the [|Pe'a] and consists of intricate and geometrical patterns [|tattooed] that cover areas from the knees up towards the ribs. A male who possesses such a tatau is called a [|soga'imiti]. A Samoan girl or //teine// is given a [|malu], which covers the area from just below her knees to her upper thighs.[|[][|34][|]]

[[|edit]] Contemporary culture
attooing has been a [|Eurasian] practice since [|Neolithic] times. "[|Ötzi the Iceman]", dated circa 3300 BC, bearing 57 tattoos: a cross on the inside of the left knee, six straight lines 15 centimeters long above the kidneys and numerous small parallel lines along the lumbar, legs and the ankles, exhibiting possible therapeutic tattoos (treatment of arthritis) There are not many Polynesian words that have entered the English language, but perhaps the most widely used is tattoo. Exactly where and when the word "tattoo" originated is open to debate, but it is certain that it was a corruption of the polynesian word //tatau//, picked up by the early European sailors exploring the Southern Ocean. URLS http://www.freetattoodesigns.org/polynesia