rhi, h",,~ " flllhilshnj h, (hlord l'ni\Trsm Press thanks to Ihe genl'rJl ediTorslup 011,,,,, ard .\lorphy, \ ~nivl'rslt) Lt'\.,turcr in Ethnolo~ at Oxlilrd Jnd I :urator al the Pitt Rivers Museum, llnd Fred Myers. Assodatt Professor (,f Anthropology at New York University.
WRAPPING IN
IMAGES
Society and Exchange in Nias .'Indrew Bmlly :\nthropolo!(Y, Art, and\t'sthetics Fdit,.d Ir)' ],.rnnl' COOII' and .1nlhony Shdllln
Tattooing in Polynesia
The C:uhurc of Coincidmcc: .·\reidt'nt and Absolute Lial->ilityin Huli Laurellce (;oldm,n~ Exchange in Oceania: A Graph Tht'oretic Per Hat,. and Frallk- H.irtll)'
Analysis
Wrapping Culture: Politeness, Pn'sentation, Power in Japan and Other Societies 7(1)1 Hend/) \larquesan
and
Soeicties: Inequality and Political Transformation in Eastern Polynesia
Ni,.ho/as Thomas
~/O CLARE~O~RESS'OXFORD
The purpose of this book is to hring together the lacts concerning tattooing in Polynesia and to offer an interpretation of them. To what extent, and in what ways, were the Polynesians tattooed, during the historical period for which documentation exists? \\ hat can we now recover of the cultural significance of this once widespread practice? The extant evidence which bears on these questions is in some respects quite full, because tattooing was a visible trait which tended to attract the attention of early observers of the customary practices of south sea islanders; yet often enough the evidence peters out just as we appear to be approaching the heart of the matter. In order to make the fullest possible use of the ethnographic material bearing specifically on tanooing it becomes necessary to range quite widely over the field of Pol}'Desianstudies. So there are many pages, among those to come, on which the word 'tattooing' fails to make an appearance. This digressivefonnat is an unavoidable necessity, and in consequence this book takes the fonn, at least in part, of a general introduction to Polynesian culture and society, besides being a specialized treatment of one particular feature of these societies. It is not just that some knowledge of the social context and cultural background is required in order to grasp the nature and symbolic associations of Polynesian tattooing. It is rather that tattooing practices played such an integral part in the organization and functioning of major institutions (politics, warfare, religion, and so on) that the description of tattooing practices becomes, inevitably, a description of the wider institutional fonns within which tattooing was embedded. These institutions themselves pose theoretical and interpretative dilemmas, which are the stuff of the ongoing debates between specialists in Oceanic anthropology. Many of these general questions and debating points will be addressed in what is to follow. The idea which germinated this work is a simple one. It occurred to me, in the process of writing some lectures for a course on 'The Anthropology of Art', that one way of exploring regular co-variation between art style (body art, in this-instance) and the socio-cultural milieu would be to collect together the infonnation on tattooing styles fora number of Polynesian societies, and then to align these data with the corresponding social systems (i.e. degree of
:ntr.ucll\. I'rtSllll"(' or ahsuKl' of cl'ntr.lli,ed government, and so on), Would ,r turn Olit rJw thl'll' lITre IlIlcJhglolc correlations between the tattooing tyl .lIld hroadl',r sonal alld politil'al paramett'l'S among the s~"'pl f PIs . es , , " . ' •••• es 0 oyneslan SOCIl'tICS, AccordlOglv I took the social-typololJ'icaJ h " (' IJ ' " '. O' sc erne contamed m , 10 l man S ,~namf Polynesian Society (1970) and collated it with tattooin 1Il10ml,ltlOn from thl' main ethnographic sources. The resulting colla e wa~ nOl \lllhoUl sornl' mterestillg features: Hawaii, reputedly the furthest ~olved 1011.lrds statl'-formatlon 01 all the Polynesian societies, was also the socie shIm 109 the least cultural emphasis on tattooing' Tonga next' I' ,ty d" "" I ' , In mem liS rLSpelt, a so sl'cml'd to underplav hodv art n t th ~1 " , , , U l' 1> arqucsas, at the O!'posI,te l'nd 01 thc political spectrum-the most stn'fie t 1m th I ' ' I ' '. - ( , c cast stateIp o l1l.zel (I.C, the n.lOst Opell according to Goldman's schemel-had the most dabnr.lte tat!oomg oj all. Therc seeml'd, OIl /irst inspection to be some kind of 'elecn' . ffi" hetll" , ..... 'II' ,eamtv , . ,(l,n SOLletles lilt 1 e anorale tattooing .md an Open (competitive) sta~s hler.lr~h}, '10~ ~omerscly, there seemed to be disaffinitv between CI d e (stralihed) SOCIetIesand the existence of a culturally stressed trad't1' fbod°s Jrl B t ' ' I d'd ' . , ) on 0 y .: u. : .IS. I n(~t lall to pomt out in mv lecture, this crude application of thl IOgle of eorrelatlOlls produced as manv I'uzzles and bl t t' h ' j' I ' " " . a an Jrusmatc es as It III Il1tcrcstmg-lookll1g res~l.ts, There were reputedly stratified societies, sU~h. as .\.Iang~r~va an~ Tahiti, which practised tattooing extensively. And thcre ," ere soclenes whIch were not at all stratified but which had I tatto h H" ' ,' even ess , omg t an awall, such as Niue (Opl'n) and Pukapuka (Tr din al Thesl' non-correlations couJd be accounted for in two ways which a , on ). by 'illY mea' t IJ I' .. , "ere not : ' ,. . ns mu ua y exc uSlye; either there was something wron ·th th \Iay In whIch Goldman had classified Pol,,' , I g WI e , , " ynt SIan socia systems, or there was ~omethmg II rang WIth the Idea that one should expect to find correlations C('lltcn body art. and the socio-cuJtural milicu-or at any rate simple ea _ to- gct -at correJatlons. ' , sy The typological, question concerning how best to classify PI' ' SOCICtIesfi· . 0 ~neSlan " , or comparailYC purposes can be deferred until later-tho~gh th ~~~~)encle~ of a typolo~ which puts strife-tom New Zealand and peacefu~ . pula ill the same pigeon-hole hardly needs to be underlined, But the other prob.Jem h~s to be c~n:ronted without delay, because it is essential to the \~hoJe project. ~ ~gue hohstlc mtuitions apart. on what conceivable grounds s ~uJ? o~e anncl~ate a 'fit' between patterns of sociological variation and ~anatlOn m tattoolOg styJes and institutio1i5' Some kind of recondite but lllescapabJe caus~J Jinkage between body arts allU political arrangements; That h as ra
with other social factors to the extent that, and because of the fact that, it is functionally implicated in the maintenance and reproduction of the encompassing social system. Of course, this remains to be demonstrated, by means of arguments whiCh must needs be more subtle and methodologically roundabout than the construction of crude tables of correspondences. But I believe that it is possible to show that the distribution of different types of tattooing in Polynesia did not simply reflect the existence ()f a prior sociopolitical milieu, but, in certain instances, and in combination with certain other factors, was actually constitutive of it. That is to say, tattooing, as a technique (one of the large category which Mauss (1979) idl'l1tified as 'les techniques du corps'), made possible the realization of a distinctive type of social and political being, In the Polynesian setting, tattooing had an intrinsic functional efficacy as a means, a linking element in the sequence of social intention, action, and result. It formed part of the battery of such technical means on which the reproduction of social life once rested, One could say the same of the techniques involved in canoe-construction or weaving mats, As a technical means of modit)ing, the body, tattooing made possible the realization of a particular type of 'subjectioJl'(Foucault 1979; Sheridan 1980) which, in turn, allowed for the elabOtlfliori and perpetuation of social and political relationships of certain distinct kinds. I base this argument on the premiss that the perpetuation of a given polity-a given distribution of power, honour, and access to resources-is contingent on the formation and intergenerational transmission of self-understandings which are congruent with the prevailing milieu, Notions of the person (Mauss 1979; Lukes et al. 1985; .\1. Strathern 1988), its powers and attn'butes, must coincide as far as possible \\ith political necessities, The significance of Mauss's 'body techniques' often stems from the fact that it is through the body, the way in which the body is deployed, displayed, and modified, that socially appropriate self-understandings are formed and reproduced. Tattooing (and, conversely, non-tattooing where tattooing is expected and normal) is a very specific and recognizable way of modifYing the body, and, via the body, reconstructing personhood according to the requirements of the social milieu, Foucault (1979: 25) writes of a 'microphysics of power' exercised over the body: 'the body is directly involved in the political field; power relations have an immediate hold over it; they invest it, mark it, train it, torture it, force it to carry out tasks, to perform'ceremonies, to emit signs'. Pol}ncsian tattooing, as I will show, did ali these things; it was a species of political gesture which marked the b~dy, tortured it, ceremonialiy prepared it for war and sexuality, and which made it emit signs. But, as Foucault immediately goes on to point out, this power exercised over and through the body, is not the privilege of a dominant c1ass...,.-not~ven in western societies and still less so, of course, in ••
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Jiffused everywhere, amongst the dominated
as !litH h ,I' lhe dOllunanL In !'olmesi,l the physical suhjection involved in tattooing nprcss~J hierarch, ,md domination, yel it was most ardently sought wh~rc, Ul dYcel, 11 ,was ,mosl o~ligalory. Power over the body C()lllcs f!"Q1!l the subJection 01 the soul (p. 2tJ), the 'element in which are articulated the ~ffccts of ~ml'r in relerence to a certain type of knowledge' (Sheridan 1980), knowledgl' In tIllS mstance not heing th<.·codes, so minutely explored by Foucault. WIHCh undcrhe wcstnn 'bio-power' (Rabinow 1984: 17) but the indigenous conceptions and lllythologies of the person, the cosmos and the social order which knd thematic consistency to Polynesian societies.' , It is the suhjection/subiectitieation of tlw 'soul' through tattooing institutl~lI1s-ah, ays m conjunction with a wide array of parallel institutions, techl1Iyues, and hOlWy uldes·-which constitutes the main topic of this work. 'Vhy tattoom!l m partlClilar should he susceptible to analysis along these lines is a mallcr wIl1eh I WIll JISCUSSin detail in a moment (Sect. 1.2.1).
Is!and-by-island, society-b!-society comparisons within the Polynesian region have he en a lery ?opular lorm oj exercise for the anthropological imagination for a very long tIme, and no wonder (Goldman 1970· Sahlins 1958' Buck } 938a;. etc;). But is. this type of island-by-island comp~rison really a ~erfect laboratory ot SOCIal forms as Margaret -'read once claimed? Recentlv scepticism was expressed on this ycry point by Edmund Leach in one of th~ very last oj the onslaughts on anthropological complacency to which he devoted his career. In a postscript to the volume Transfonnali~lIs of Polynesian Culture (Hooper and Huntsman 1985: 222) whose title alone indicates the intellectual pitfalls he had in mind, he expressed the opinion that 'Polynesia' was 'not quite, but very nearly ... fa] figment of the ethnographic imagination'. H~ denounced the t.endenc}' to esscntialize 'Polynesian culture' and to sttldy t~IS abstrac:IOTI and Its purely symbolic vicissitudes, instead of focusing attention where It should be focused, on tile real world and its concrete historicity. And he went on to say ~hat the apparent cultural consistency of 'Polynesia' was a result of the filter:mg and distorting of the ethnographic record, as a neces~ary by-product of colonial and missionary penetration. The cultural and hIstorIcal depiction of the south seas was codified and transmitted '1a Eur:o~eans :\ho were (1) participants in the creation of (post-European) socletI~s whICh were none the Ics:; reprcsented as tr'dditional and who were (2) commItted to the grandiose schema of 'Polynesia' as a unified whole. Leach's douhts about 'Polynesia' arc overstated. But he was surelv right to denounce the complacent assumption that the cultural spectrum of Polvnesia ref~ects a 'cultural logic' such that each society individually repres~nts a ratIonal transform, according to a global law gOH'rning 'Polynesia' as a whole,
~-------.-.--. ...••...•
of every other one-much as if the relation between these societies was akin 10 the transfonnational relationships which can be said to exist between variant versions of a myth. At the very least, this cultural logic would have to be demonstrated. What is so insidiously tempting is the petitio prin~pii w~ich hases arguments purporting to explore the interconnected transformatH~ns undergone by diverse Polynesian societies on an implicit appeal 10 the prInciple that this interrelatedness exists intrinsically. ., How can the choice of 'Pohnesia' as the frame for comparative studlcs be justified, without appealing' to the idealized concept ~f pan-Polyne~ia.n culture? The short answer would appear to be that the UOlty of PolyneSIa IS based on archaeological, linguistic, and historical facts. Pre-historians, such as Bellwood (1978) and Kirch (1984), are entirely uninhibited in making reference 10 the 'Polvnesians' as a people with a culture which can be traced to a unique and iden'tifiahle origin in time and space. The lin~istic.picture is equally unequivocal: the languages spoken in the PolyneSian mangle, as conventionallv defined, are far more closely related to one another than they are to any other Austronesian languages (Pawley and Green 1975). In the light of these well-established findings, Leach's outburst against the concept of Polynesian culture must seem perverse. . . . But the matter is not so simple as that. The shared ongm and mnumerable resemblances between different Polynesian societies are not in doubt: what is at issue is the implicit assumption that, in so far as Polynesian cultures are actually different from one another, their differences are such as to be attributable to regular transformations of a shared cultural substra~e. ~he similarities between Polynesian societies are a consequence of the hlstoncal facts surrounding their origins. However, the di".ergencies between Pol.Yl1es.ian societies which are hardly less marked, are equally the outcome of hIstOrIcal facts-the same historical facts. In order to account for the dissimilarities between Polynesian societies one can refer to all manner of historical. pr~cesses, ecological shifts, social and ideological contrasts. But the temptanon IS always to explain the re~idual similarities, such as they are, by reference to a prindple of cultural inertia, 'a common Polynesian heritage' which survive.s (tautologously) wherewr the contingent processes of history have not swept It away. . . This heritage or rultural inertia clearly has no status as an hlston~oexplanatory principle on a par "ith the identifiable conti~gent pro:ess~s whIch have caused different Polvnesian societies to pursue different hlstoncal and developmental trajectorie;. If Polynesian societies resemble one another in such a way as to make detailed comparisons possible, it is because the very same historical processes which caused Polynesia to diverge, historically and culturally, from the 'Lapitan' prototype (Kirch 1984: 41-67) also caused the preservation and reproduction of certain cultural elements under altered 6J"(,ulT'''t~n('(' •• and perhaps with alt(red meanings. Each wave of canoe-borne
,ould nol ICIi1Il'nt culture. hlll~UJge, and society in their entirety, to ,lctonl II ith rhc lircumstances in whit'h they found themselves. All the same, it \\ as not the tug of common origins which kept Polynesian culture within delimited bounds-if indeed it is possible to say that there are any such bounds-but the strictly localized demands made by the processes of social feprodudion. A different cultural apparatus could have procured the survival of hUlIWl populations in the eventual Polynesian habitat. The organizational and tcchnical mt'ans relied on by the Polynesians are not the only possible ones. But they wcrc thc ones the Polynesians happened to have at hand, and which tlll'Y pressed into service and modified as time went by. On these grounds I would reject the imputation that willingness to engage in comparisons between Polynesian societies implies acceptance of a global, constLlining Polynesian culture of the kind I,each criticizes. I shall treat the I arious island and archipela~rjc politics under consideration here as independent entities rather than as refractions or transformations of any underlying cultural archetype. I am concerned with Polynesia, not as a whole of any kind, hut as a collection of ethnographic examples of societies which differ interestingly from one another. These interesting differences are arbitrary with respect to those factors, relating to origins, in the light of which Polynesia is one. Thus, it is not on continuities and similarities that I am going to lay the greatest stress, but on contr;1sts and divergent developments. Nor shall I wholly respect the conventional ethnological boundaries of 'Polynesia' which Thomas (l989a) has with some justification identified as the source of misleading contrasts between 'hierarchical' Polynesian societies and 'democratic' .\lelanesian ones (cf. Sahlins 1963; 1989). I shall not, it is true, deal e.\1l'l1sivcly with tattooing in Melanesia, but I iI]clude Fiji in the discussion of tattooing institutions in western Polynesia for reasons which will he come immediately apparent once the discussion gets under way in Chapter 2. And this is not because I think that Fiji ought to be Polynesia, in defiance of the culrural and linguistic data suggesting otherwise, but because Melanesian Fiji was intimately articulated to Polynesian Tonga/Sam~ while remaining culturally quite distinct (Sahlins 1981a; Kaeppler 1977). '.ctlkr,
The plan behind this study is, therefore, to pursue the differences between various Polynesian societies (plus Fiji), and to correlate these with differences in body art, with a view to clarifYing the role body art plays in social reproduction. At this point I am obliged to open a parent.~esis in order to explain what I mean h\ 'social reproduction' in this and the other contexts in which I employ this form of words. Social reproduction is not reproduction carried out by societies (which arc not agents and which cannot be the subjects of
transitive \erhs like 'reproduce'). l\or do \;ulturcs' reproduce themselves for the same reason. Social reproduction is reproduction carried out by rep~oductive agencies (individuals and groups sharing a common reproduetJ~e mterest)'in a social context. Reproduction has been achieved when certam locally conventional criteria of reproductive success have. been met. Among these criteria may be the physical reproduction of offspnng, but not necessarily, and certainly this is hardly ever the sole requirement. The criteria of reproducti\'e success, seen from the point of view of the .reproducers, encompass thc production of 'successors' who have all the attnbutes (moral qualities, status attributes, possessions, titles, etc.) they ideally should have, not just physical bodies. Successtlll reproduction (or even averag~ly unsuccessful reproduction) cannot occur without the active co-operatlOn of the successors (reproducees) in the reproductive activities of the reproducers, for it is their attributes which provide the yardstick of reproductive success. Reproduction thus encompasses the activities of the reproduced, in so f~~ as they seck to fulfil the e.\.p. eetations placed upon them by parents, authontJes, and role models-including the e.\vectation that they, in turn, should become successful reproducers. And so on. . This network of agentive relations, the agency of the reproducers ~n bringing into being their successors, and. the. agency o~ th~ reproducces m bringing themselves into being in confornuty WIth the obbgatJons and .expectations placed upon them, and thereby assuming responsibility .for theIr rep~oducers' reproductive success, is, in sum, the process of SOCIalrep~oductJon (Mcillassoux 1975; Goddier 1978). It is important to note that SOCIalreproduction is not intrinsicallv a conservative process, which seeks only the replacement of a 'generatio~' of reproducers by successors. ,,:h~ are thei~ exa~t counterparts-Xerox copies, as it were. On the contrary, It IS mherent III thIS definition of social reproduction that reproducers may seek to produce successors who are different from themselves (e.g. their superiors with respect to rank or wealth) and, conversely, successors can seek to outdo their antecedents in whatever respect is necessary to magnifY their reproductive success, Social reproduction is guided by collective representations, in so far as the conventional criteria for reproductive success are arbitrary, even though they cannot escape from material constraints. I make the general assumption that societies continue to exist, or change or decay, become extinct, etc. on. the basis of the interaction between locally prevailing collective representatJon~ governing social reproduction and the presence or lack of the necessary material and other conditions on which the implementation of these reproductive schemes depends. .. . The argument I am putting forward is that tattooing play~d a dislmctJ:e part in social reproduction in certain Polynesian cult~ral se~ngs, but not m an of them, and nol always in identical ways. It would be gomg too far to say that tattooing was essential to the reproduction of these societies, though the
I I I I
I
high !'nori!\
,h\l"ned to the ntir)" , , such ,1\ missiooaril's \\h(I'l' '11"11" 't J ,ItI 0ln,ot tattoomg by agents of chan,ge. , "',,, as 0 cst'l ) Ish I I repr\lducthc succcss, may retlect a uite' •. ,a ar~e y nc,,: sC,tof criteria of part, that tattooing institutions PlaYc~ a k~cnume .cultural. ~slght. on their mentality, But one must not exa y p~ m sustammg the 'pagan' , , ggerate; my monvation' d . pages to tatt()()inp' is that tatt" ,, '. In evotmg so many ' , <" oomg IS an exceptionall' . . th at II IS an l'xt'eptionally 'important' onc (h .y mteres.nng sUb,~ct, not portanr subjcl'ls, like politics rcli!i ' I ~ ough It docs hnk up WIth imsolemnilv, thl'refore one m~', , g °hn, a hance, ctc,), Avoiding excessive , " ' " y say t at tattooing pIa d '. . . .angt ntla!, part m social reproduction' th. t' II' ye a Significant, If , , , , m c 0 owmg ways: l. I.l!toolllg mstitutions, and the sub'ect . becoming tattooed and interacting v'll 'd,/r e~enences engendered bv helped produce a cert'lin m' d, vI I ( I, er~nl1ally) tattooed social other~ , • III -set, a certam tram I' ' I I '. ' certain notion of person selt'..h d d e, 0 Socia c assdication, a " ,' 00 ,an empowenn t 'h' h ' , f:actor III the reproduction of th., o'h' en.' W Ic lIas an enablIng c ' e spel'l c types ofsoc I d I" lound III various parts (It' P II ' ( la an po Inca.! reoimes ' , ( vnesla nol in all ' d O' extent). , ,an not everywhere to the same "ltlTI
0
2, T.l!tooing institutions entered d' . ' , more IrectIy mt th pro d UCllOn m that they were olit d' I . 0 e process of re' en Irect v amcul t d th· an d thnebv Ihe social m 'h,' , , a e to e life-cycle . . ec amsms tor the d' tn'b' f hfe-chances. _ IS unon 0 (reproductive) 3. Tattooing was itself a reproductive device' . . mode, Human beings don't J'ust rep d th m the ImagInary or artefaetual ' ro uce emseJves th h b ut a Iso as artefacts (ca~'; as 0 er umap beings " •••ngs, canoes fine t xtil b 'ld' ' mtangIble entities such as 0 ~L' e es, UI mgs) and as s ngs, mv UIS spirit b . . later, tattooing brings into eX!'st . d' emgs, etc. As I WIll describe ' ence an populates th ld·th b eIngs, spirit selves which d e wor \\01 subsidiaM! . ' surroun and protect th ta d' OJ sometimes be the case that the I' I" e ttooc subJel1. It can ' mu tip Icatlon of this th f f: " , , f: d an anraslzed 'companions' inscribed within ~ong 0 amIl18TSpInts Surrogate for reproduction in th the skin can actually be a I.' more mundane (ph . I . I) ta tlooed person is ipso fi ct od '. YSI0ogIca sense, so the a () a repr ucer, vlcanousIy, if not in reality.
1.2.1. The Sailor and the Native Le! me consider another source of preliminarv do I SIngled out tattooing, of all thin for ' ' ub~s. On what grounds have clearly definable phenomen h~h' a comparative survey? Is tattooing a Why should tattooing in onl'tw 11.',\can usef~Ily be studied cross-culturally? , cu ure n necessanlv ha' yth' ta!toom!, in culture BI Th h J ve an mg to do with . e s ort anSWer to that is that th . w hy tallooing in culture A sh Id h ' ere IS no reason at all , ou aye the same cultu I ' 'fi tattoomg in culture B Tatt ' , b ra Slgnl cance as " ' ,., OOlng IS Y no stretch of the . . . unncrsal wllh an InvarIant mea' Th ., Imagmatlon a cultural mng, e mlmmum definition of tattooing, the
I I
basic technic.11 ~chema of punrturing the skin and inserting pigment, cannot hy itself suffice I to delimit any particular symbolic meaning.. The age and scx of the tattooinltl subject, the nature ,and extent of the designs made, their positioning on the body, the institutional framework of the tattooing process, and many other factors, make all the difference in the world, even within a single 'tattooin~ system', let alone in cross-cultural perspective. Although tattooing can carry a very wide range of c:.:!tural meanings, even in Polynesia, as will be shown in later chapters, it is also true to say that this variety is by no means infinite. The basic technical schema of tattooing-the fact that it 'in'l Ives puncturing or cutting the skin, that it involves inserting something into the body, and at the same time letting blood, and that the marking left be ind when the scars have healed is pennanent-gives rise to ccrtain e1ectiyc affinities between a finite range of cultural meanings and this possible means (among others) of giving exprcssion to them. Just on the basis of its underlyin technical schema, tattooing has a certain functional valency, In Polynesia, I will argue, this functional valency was widely exploited in the fonnation and nculcation of a personal construct which may be interprcted in political ten s. T allooing was part of the 'technology' for the creation of political subjects, and hence the reproduction of political relations, In asserting this rather essential proposition, I do not mean that tattooing played a unifdrm role in Polynesian social reproduction. As I have just emphasized, 'P lynesia' is here being considered as a cluster of differentiated systems, held together by no overarching principle of Polynesian sociocultural consis ency, As politics varied, so did the manner in which the basic technical sche a of tattooing was e:.:ploited in the creation of subjectivity; certain aspects of the totality of possibilities inherent in the basic schema are foregrounded ccording to the demands of the local system, others being suppressed, The basic te 'hnical schema of tattooing, which will be considered in greater detail in a mo ent, gives rise to a finite (but inconsistent) range of potential significationsly some of which are locally manifested in (relatively) consistent guises. d it is important to recognize that the meaning of tattooing in 'local' tattooin systems is never autonomous; the technical schema is read not just by its If, but always in conjunction with other technical schemataother mutilation, other treatments of the bodily envelope, including clothing, other art forms and fonns of prestige production, and so on. My intention, so far as possible. is to get at these local meanings, rather than to propose a universal interpretation. But how to be sure of these local mranings? Is the infonnation available good enough? Can it be interpreted in a methodologically sound way? Let me recall another of Leach's admonitory , remarks, cited earlier: the very record on which one might attempt to base such a reconstruction is itself the product, as he says, of 'European categories of thought' (1985: 222).
In short, \\t: arc here in the presence of a fused mass of interrelated clements of ethnic and class praetkes l(lrged in a complex historical dynamic which the historians of EuropeanlPolynesian interactions have only recently begun to unravel (Dening 1980; Thomas 1989b; Sahlins 1987). It would be futile to pretend that it is now possible to reconstruct Polynesian tattooing practices as if the encounter between European and Polynesian cultures had never taken place. We can draw no hard and fast line between western ideas about tattooing and Pol}l1esian ideas-the ones we know about, anywaybecause both arc the historical residues of a historical episode in which both Europeans and Polynesians participated. It is true, of course, that the Polynesians had tattooed themselves for millennia prior to the arriyal of Europeans in their area. It is also true that I will often describe Samoan tattooing, \larquesan tattooing, etc. as iitithfully as possible as indigenous traditions of body art, without reference to the circumstances under which these traditions came to bc recorded. That is the most convenient way of communicating the known ethnographic facts. But the interpretation of thesc facts is quite another matter, and the peculiar cultural fusion between tattooing as a western (class) practice and tattooing as a Pol}l1esian (ethnic) practice cannot be hygienically bracketed away because, in the final analysis, that is our point of contact with the long-dead Polynesians. This is not a matter of imposing western values on Polynesians, but of exploiting the historical resonances which the encounter between us and them produced. The source of the interpretations of practices pro,ided in the ensuing chapters is western in the sense that it is critically, but explicitly, founded on the western perception of tattooing as a component of a certain class habitus or lifestyle, rather than being conjured out of thin air and purified ethnography. Why be coy about where hypotheses really come from? But just as Sahlins (1987) says that cultural schemes are 'put at risk' by the contingencies of historical conjunctures, so is this western perception when decontextualized and pressed into sef\'ice here. POl}l1esian tattooing is not a class practice, or a sign of criminaliiy. But in order to begin to form a dearer idea of what it really was, it is necessary to explore the constellation of ideas which makes it into these things for us, because it is only in this way that one can begin to respond to its guiding metaphors.
With this in mind, I will turn to the problems of degeneracy, ornament, and crime, as discussed by Cesare Lombroso (1896; 1911) and Adolph Laos (1962 (1908J), not because I wish to reinstate the intellectual reputations of either of them (especially not Lombroso) but because they provide a point of view on tattooing which is explicitly (rather than implicitly) European, middle-
',l.l'S, alld dh,Jppn \lIl!-,. I do so hCClllsc' these \ery prejudicial altitudes are, in l'\llr \\a.\, Illuch n\(lrl' rnl'ahng than any attempt to conlront tattooing Irom a S!illldpOlllt 01 cullural neutrality or sympathy could ever be Th' 'I ' h" . ,. . rn VlO ent il!1Upat ~.IS mdlcilive not just of da.ss attitudes, but also of the inherent power ~)f 1.H!OOI!I!! to e\l)ke a response: and who is to say that it was not the response 1I1lcndedf l
!let.l1rl' Sherlod 1.lolmes In'came a detective, he wrote a lIIonograph on Ll!tnOlllg, .lI1d the ahdllv to reco!-'llize talloos played an important part in his ",nilest rl'curded case. Here, as elsewhere, Conan Doyle reveals his familiarity \\ 1l h the most. advanced criminological theories of his day, for the turn of the last c'entUT\ wItnessed the development of the earliest scientific investigations of rill' prac,'lllT of tattooing. which were bv nature criml'nolo
These moral deheiel1l'ies werr made evident, not only by the acquisition of tattoo markings but also in the sentiments expressed in words and images. Lombroso listed these carefully, emphasizing the presence of ra.c!i<;id/anll!:cjlist political slogans, defiant assertions of loyalty to criminal organ~ations and to the honour which reigns' among thieves, and a wide variety 01 references to sexual themes. Lombroso also noted the fatalistic ethos expressed in many criminal tattoos. 'The notorious criminal Malassen was tattooed on the chest \\ith a drawing of a guillotine, under which was written the following prophesy: "J'ai mal commence, jc finirai mal. C'est la fin qui m'attend". A prostitute's tattoo showed de\il amid hell-fire accompa~ie~ by thc mot.to: "A toi mon ame".' (1911: 47) On the basis of these and SImIlar tattoos whIch seem to indicate resigned acquiescence in the inevitable consequences of a misspent life, Lombroso concludes that criminals have a dumb, animal-like, acceptanre of their fate, an inherent awareness that, come what may, they arc just not capable of virtue. It is easy enough to detect, nowadays, in Lombroso's expoSItIon of the atavistic n;ture of criminal man, the simple projection of middle-class antagonism towards unsuitably dressed, tasteless, ill-spoken, and potentially dangerous class enemies and/or 'Victims, tricked out in pseudo-scientific terminology. But it is not enough to be suitably indigIlant about Lombroso's bland prescription that such disagreeable persons should be confined to a va.st system of eugenic gulags-for their own good, of course. Lombroso, III treating tattooing the way he does, is doing more than giving vent to class prejudice; he is also reflecting aspects of a cultural system which, th~re is every reason to think, embraced the very classes whose common humamty he was at such pains to dispute. Lombroso's biological theories are worthless, but the factual basis upon which thev were erected cannot be disregarded entirely. It is as true now as it was in Lu"mbroso's time that criminals and the insane are very often tattooed, while criminologists, judges, and psychiatrists, on the whole, are not. The_ statistical basis of Lombroso's association between tattooing and incarceration is as strong as ever (Moran 1980; Haines and Hufferman 1958) and is only undermined ~y his failure to prmide 'matched samples' from. dle nonincarcerated population to test for the genuineness of the causal lInkage he asserts (cf. Gould 1984). Even so, the high incidence of tattooing among prisoners could hardly be regarded as a matter of chance, Neither may.the content analysis he makes of criminal tattoos be dismissed simply as a proJection of class prejudice. In tattooing slogans like 'born to be hanged' or the insignia of commonst gangs on their bodies, Lombroso's criminals appear to have played deliberately into his hands. They have biologized their cri~inal~ty, stigmatized themselves, just as he is prepared to biologize them and stigmatIze them. They want to be seen as Lombroso sees them, or, at least, they want it to appear that an act of will, codified in permanent form in the very tissues of
th,'ll hodi"", precedcd the prUhl'JIllCIlI of criminalitv in which they have 1'''IliIIC l'llfllcshnL Thl' onlv difli:renl'c bct\H'Cn the iattoocd crimin~ls and i ,I'l1lh~os(l i~that he pretends 10 Sl''Cbehind the act (or imagined act) of wilful eonnmtment to IllC,criminJI way of life, an inescapable biological necessity, WIllie tor thc ertmlllals the determining factors are primarily social ones: honour, ambition, the nee'd to struggle against poverty and degradation, and the' Illemal toughness nCl"lkd to recognize, in advance, that the struggle is a 11ll1'l'lcss one.
It ~eems 10 me thaI I,ombroso's treatment of tattooing as a biological atallSIll has ~1 certain rnclatory power about it, not because it is biologically sound. but because l,ombroso's theory e:\"presses in a dish'1lised way the actual Sl rnt'oile proccsscs motivating the practice of the tattooed criminal class, I IOil'llIr anwlIg- thien's. commitment to criminal associates and a criminal life Cltahsll1. making a virtue of nccessity-these arc necessary adaptations t~ ve rv pressing social conditions, yet. at the same time, they are particularly sus"l'[,tibJc ro expression by means of mutilations of the bodv, These mutila~ tions cwkc the permanent, scar-like imprint of lifelong struggles with adversity, and testif}' to the JitCIong commitments which the common struggle CJ1f'cllders, I,ombroso's biologization of the criminal disposition is countered b~ ;lll. oppositional pra~tice, a demotic culture of the body which chooses blOlog1cal metaphors lor social impulses, and consequently coincides on es~ential ~oints with the prejudicial notions advanced against it by the ~nm1I1oI0~st. Or to be more specific, the powerful metaphor which is implicit In the baSIC schema of tattooing works identically in both instances but is interpreted differently. ' In order ~o grasp more fUl~ythe metaphoric burden implicit in the tattooing schel1l.l. It IS necessary, I thmk, to enquire more deeply into the role of the skin in ,elation to the body-image and the psyche in general-a task which has. hitherto mainly been attempted by certain psychoanalytical writers, whom I will diSCUSSm due course, Meanwhile there is another aspect of Lombroso's assenion of. the natu~al affinity between tattooing and criminality which deserves nOl:Ice, espeL1ally in the present context. Lombroso believed that tattool'd criminals were lower on the evolutionary scale than 'civilized' persons. Pred1Ct:lblv enong]l, he regarded 'savages' as born criminals as well and for the same reasons. Savages were representatives of the 'childhood 'of man' criminals not in the sense that actual crimes could be attributed to them' because in the rude societies in which they lived no laws existed for them t~ break. but certainly criminal in their lack of moral refinement. The fact that tattooing is a practice which united contemporary European criminals and 'Stone\ge' sayages could not fail to escape his attention. But Lombroso's antipath~ t~)wards tattooing is only an aspect of his far more encompassing condemnal:Ion of ornament in all its forms, which he traced back not just to the shallow impulsiveness and emotionality of the savage, but to the basic
condition of animality itself-since where does one lind showiness epitomized if not in the animal kingdom? Savages and criminals (and children, the prototype of both) share ~ith animals their love of finery, which· demonstrates their moral inferiority (Lombroso 1911; cf. Gould 1984). In elaborating these views, Lombroso played a part, not only in the development of modern criminology, ?ut in. the history of modernist aesthetics, It is not by chance that the penod of Lombroso's greatest fame coincides with the period (between 1885 and 1925) during which decorative detail in art and design fell into ever greater disrepute, leading to the promulg-ation of the aesthetic of functional (dccorationfree) forms. The designer and critic Adolf Loos exercised a decisive influence over the development of the modernist attitude towards decoration, and in his essay 'Ornament and Crime' one can easily see direct borrowings from the Italian criminologist, as the title would suggest. The child is amoral. The Papuans are equally so for us. The Papuans slaughter their enemies and eat them. They arc not criminals. If, however, a man of this century slaughters and eats someone, he is a criminal and a degenerate. The Papuans tano.o their skins, their boats, their oars, in short, everything within reach, But a man of thiS century who tattoos himself is a criminal and a degenerate,.,. I have found the following law and present it to mankind: the evolution of civilization is tantamount to the remo\'J1 of ornament from objects of use. (I %2, cited and !T. in Gombrich 1984) This passage perfectly expresses the rationale behind the negative ~~ge enjoyed by tattooing in educated circles in contemporary western sOClel:Ies. Tattooin~ is archaic; and it runs counter to a very basic idea in western thought, long antedating Loos, that the human body, unadorned, is beautiful, and is so because of its functionality. Gombrich (1984) has provided a brilliant account of the history of taste with respect to decoration applied to 'objects of use' and th~ pendulum swings between pro- and anti-decoration sentiment. But even during the most ebullient periods of Eilropean taste, mutilation of the body by scarring or tattooing has rarely been openly promoted among the privile~d ~Iasses. Loos, brusquely imposing the 'denial of synchrony' ris-avis the 'savage' Other criticized by Fabian (1983), consigns it to the 'Papuan' doubly displaced to the evolutionary-historical past and the ontogenetic phase of childhood amorality. I cite this passage-, not simply because it exemplifies a still-widespread middle-class perception of tattooing, to wit, that it is barbaric, but because it signals a basic theme of the ensuing study. !:-oos's objection to tattooing is not, truly that it is criminal, but that it is in poor taste. How has it come about that , in est, tattooing hasfemained such an obdtJrately 'tasteless' practice? Even a recent glOSSYvolume including chapters on contemporary tattooing in California and l'oti;led, ~i
tht \\'
!.Ilk I" "ldll.llt that thc Clil'llldc of up-market West Coast parlours t'l\\ecn tattooing-, thc bodv, and sub;cctivity, which has an irreducibly political dimension, !f\uhll1 j<)\S) I.ltl"(ljn~
In ren'lll vears we haH' heen made aware of the relation which exists hel\\ een taste and p(m cr in its more recogniz;lble forms. The notion of the b,',11 .lI1d its hca!thv appearance .Ire intrinsic to the contemporary middleel."s lit/hilii.'. as !lourdiCli (1979) has shown with copious examples. Yet, ~r.ll1tlJ1g Ihis li)r thc mome!)t, wc arc still left with an intellectual puzzle. \\ !ur. if alll, is the ClIT\-(,\l'r, so to speak, hetween the apparently unbreak.lhk linkagc hetwcel] social repn:ssion/marginality and tattooing in our Culiural "'item, and the role which tattooing plays in (non-class) social Sl SIcms in which tallooing is accepted practice? I oos, in the pass.lg-e cited, suggests that there is this carry-over: savages are cllll,lIike and unciliJi/ed, they arc motivated by the same impulses which g-()\ern the behaviour of children and degenerates in our society, and that is "h~ they succumb to the impulse to become tattooed. The difference is only onc of the population mcan of evolutionary advance, so to speak; among the Papuans the ata,-istie types are in the majority, while among men of this ccntury thcy are (or should be) the minority. The atavistic Papuans are not criminals only because they constitute tlle majority, but they behave as criminals. Their conduct is dictated by the same impulses as those which produce criminals and degenerates in a civilized milieu. Inns, in other words, is postulating a universal ne:ms between primitiveness/ crimlllaJitY/ornamentality, in opposition to civilization/restraint/functionality. This opposition works along two axes, first to discriminate, within western society, standards of taste (linked implicitly to social class) and secondlv to discriminate between western civilization and barbarism. Here we detect the ideological consequences of the fusion I spoke of earlier between class and cthnic stereotypes and practices, which arose directly from the- historical coincidence of the development of industrial class society and world-wide colonial penetration. (lne can respond to this fusion in a variety of ways. One strategy is to attl'mpt 10 impose a barrier betwe'?n class and non-class societies in the name of ,mti-ethnoeentrism. It is ethnocentric to form interpretative analogies hetll l'cn class practices in class societies and ethnic practices, even when these practices arc superficially identical. ,!,he alternative strategy-a much lIlore dangerous but possibly more productive one-i;:; to take class practices as the starting-point for the analogical rcconstruction of the significance of
practicl's in non-class societies on the basis of th.e postulate of the intrinsic functional valency of practices under whatsoever clfcumstances they occur. This is not to absolve Loos of gross ethnocentrism. It is clear that he knows little and cares less about the Papuans and Red Indians he uses as stcx:k figures in his tirade against ornament. Inv~tigation will show .tha~ h~ IS far from correct in attributing body decoratIOn, or other decoratJ~e a~s, to motives of childish gratification. But that really goes without saymg .m. the present context. Rather than restrict oneself, to sim~le-minded denu,ncla~ons. of ethnocentric prejudice, it is much more mterestJng to preserve eertam 01 the logical elements in Loos's thought while revaluing his valu~s. . Consider the tentative conclusion reached just now m relatIOn to Lombroso's discussion of criminal tattooing, namely that Lombroso and the criminal classes are in different ways responding to a single core meta~hor. centred on the schema of tattooing. Can one not follow an analogous tram. 01 thought with respect to Loos's opposition between primitive ornamenta~on and chilized refinement? Is it not conceivable that 'barbarous' orn~entau~n has exactly the significance (the reverse of 'tasteful') which ~oos ascnbes t~ It, but in the' context of a value-system which revalues this sigruficance, reversmg the polarity of good and bad but leaving everything else unchanged? . Consider the alternative, which is to suppose that the body decoratJo~ which Loos regards as uncivilized are locally unders!ood in quite the opposIte sense as culturally approved indications of confonruty to tasteful standards of orna~entation. For many examples along these lines we need look no .funner than the collection Marks of Civilization edited by Rubin (19.88) whi~h has already been mentioned. This phrase occurs ~ ~ the text, III an arnde b}' Vogel on the Baule of West Mrica '[whose] scanficatJon can be seen as a mark of civilization in general' (1988: 97). The Baule, by scarifYing themselves, arc seeking to distinguish themselves from 'bush creatures' and to show themselves as 'real human beings' according to Vogel. They are placing themselves on the side of culture (denoted by the presence of artificial scars) as opposed to nature. . th Ii h f th But this conclusion does not seem partiCtllarly secure III e g toe following facts reported by the same author.
I
1. Canings of nature spirits show elaborate sca~fic~tions, So do carvings of animals. This does not support the idea that scanficauon deno~es culture. as opposed to nature to the Baule. (And on the. difficul~s inherent III employm~ the nature/culture opposition in ethnographIC analySIS, cf. M. Strathern 1980, and below, Ch. 2.) . 2. Scarifications were done by foreigners, outside the Baule area. DeSIgns were widely imitated across tribal boundaries .. For instance, one common design was called 'slave' and imitated the markings of Senufo slaves. If. ~e standard for eivilizedness for the Baule is set by the Baule themselves, It IS
llimrl'll'it! !ll/ro,!"I'I;iJ/l
;l,lrd
SeCIlhl {Ilt I should lrall" lo distant laces to " ,, , to he assol'i.Hed willJ l't'I" ( .p acqlllre scanhcatlOns II trent posslblv ho 'fl) h' I'\Tn sl'l\t's. ', J S I e et mc groups and 10
~nnwll
3.. It was.c.ommonto scaritYchildren and 've ' '.' to divert SpInt attacks. Here scarific (. !Pvid'them rubbish names, so as rather than beautification ()t'her ,a ~fion~ c endy a matter of mutilation . Scan catlOn w d' . Haule had a varien of diller"nt rea' Ii . as me ICInaI.It seems that , ,sons or engaging in 'fi' to thl' indigenous thcorv of th' bIb scan cation, connected . , ,e o{v ut these had nth· d pro1e:l!ng a civilized image. .' 0 109 to 0 with 4. I he Baulc, despite preserving their r' ., .ihandolll'd scariliCH;'}IJm' _ _ llstInctJ\e culture and ethnicity . " .1Il) )ears ago-but witho t bl . , . ' (I1atthl'l have retrclll'll t(l -Jpr' h d' . u presuma y IIlternng , ' '. e- uman con Ilion 0 th . tlw tor ContemporaryBaule bei ",'I', d . n e Contrary, It must be ',. . - ng llllize stronglventails b' o attcmpt to counln this b'. ' h' not emg s{'arified, . - ) .lr/-''1llngt at what c t d . ,. II·tIOn.i1k {roil (and "h;ch 11--1" ("'pI' "d' ., oun e as CIVIlization , '. -, " esse via sc'mti ti ) h b 11ell, modem but implicitly e"uival' t ":'1." .ca on . as een replaced by a .' . ,'1 en CllllzatlOn (whIch e " . l1on-scanheatlOn) is to imply that th. d'ffi xpresses itself via ciYililationis a'nutter t,e .1 he.rencebetween traditional and _modernBaule h' IIIthout reallv changing "0 ' Iior .!I1otcr. h' swltc T' 109 one set of ar b'tI rary SignS \'iCII'or the histon' of'the ], 't 11' anyt In.g. hiS hardly amounts to a tenable , as 10 centunes. It is apparent that the strategy of ·ti·· body arts such as the Baul~s' b' tu .cn thclzmgthe. ethnocentric response to . " I rnmg e accusation of . .. b on Its head and claiming that' ou 'b b ' . pnrmnve arbarism , J r ar arous IS the BauIes ". cnl'1'Ized', IS . lDaliequate. It is no less eth' p . nocentnc to project on t th B I '1 Pllans a definition of civilization d fi 0 ~ au e or the condemn them, as Loos does as d' aS wed e ne .and value It, than it is to I to modern men. \\'hat i d' d . ISPace ~archaIc,child-like) counterparts , s nee e IS a theorencal a h h' nrde between standard eth' pproac w Ich squares the Lombroso and Loos and the nocendtns~ and/or class bias, represented by , ', more e\Cl0US ethnoc tris f . apolOgists for primitiye man who insist th en. m 0 cultural-relativist liberal and gifted with perfect t t . at, despIte appearances, he is a squ.lring cannot be achieved ~tshem mki~tters of Art, Culture, etc. This circler I WI out ta ng serious acc f . o t 1e Loos/Lombroso position and I Id rk ount 0 certain aspects • wou I e to spell out what these are. >
1.2.3. The EPidemi%g)' of Tattooing (;ross!v", speaking' tattooing, and'tI s sIster-art . scarifi . . (I ) pre!Jterate tribal societies (2) cation, are charactenstic of , repressed or ma""'; aI' d . . . more complex state System Th _•••n Ile mmonnes within " s. ere are many e ti b . general case. Lombroso and L '. - xcep ons, ut thiS is the , oos, by mvoking th ataVIsm,proyide no satisfacton' I' . e concept of hereditary •I . exp ananon for thISstat f lr' . a. east respond to it and refl"ectit A Iy .. eo aJlalrs, but they do . pure relanVIstanalysis would regard >
tattooing cultures in category (I)-in PolYl1esia,lor instance-as haying nothing to do with the tattooing subcultures in category (2). But to do this is to reity cultural boundaries and leads, as we have briefly indicated, to reverse ethnocentrism just as debilitating as the straightforward variety. Alternatively,we can take this global observation as a starting-point for the elaboration of more positive and plausible hypotheses. Instead of retreating into cultural relativism, one can develop Loos and Lombroso in the following direction. Tattooing in the West is characteristic of marginal subcultures, especially those which suffer repression (e.g. criminals, common soldiers and sailors, lunatics, prostitutes, and so on). As a particular form of bodily mutilation, it scems to have an elective affinityfor a certain constellation of lifestyles, a certain class of being, which always stands in opposition to the dominant canons of taste in bodily presentation and adornment. (Incidentally, this constellation is precisely reproduced in the Far East, Japan particularly: cL McCallum 1988.) Outside the West, in tattooing cultures of the preliterate/tribal category, tattooing is not subcultural in this sense, but it is perfectly possible that the lifestyle and values associated with subcultural tattooing in the West continue to be associated with the practice, the only difference being that these are now sociallydominant, constituting the majority culture and no longer the minority one. In other words, these are societies which are dominated by criminals, soldiers, and prostitutes, not societies which repress them. This conclusion, obnoxious to standard anti-ethnocentrism, is not wholly true, as more detailed investigations will reveal, but it cannot be rejected out of hand because it appears to denigrate non-western societies. What this hypothesis does is to run counter to deep-seated middle-class d7Juhts about the moral worth of criminals, soldiers, and prostitutes. That an anthropological hypothesis Should conflict with these moral standards is no reason at all for rejecting it, because it is precisely these deep-seated moral evaluations which constitute ethnocentrism, not the assertion that other people are possibly free of them. Following this train of thought, it can be suggested that tattooing has a world-'Aide distribution which can be interpreted according to consistent 'epidemiological' principles. In speaking of an 'epidemiology' of tattooing I am invoking Sperber's (1985) proposal for an 'epidemiology of cultural representations'. Sperber's metaphor is an apt one, because tattooing resembles a '3ermatological complaint, and has been the subject of learned dermatological discussions, ycry much as if it were a somatic illness. Sperber suggests that many 'reprcsentations' (he has in mind such common notions, founGin many cultures, as that kings are like lions, or that offerings please the gods) are widespread because they conform to certain basic cognitive requirements of • the human mind. It is well within the spirit of Sperber's ideas that I should put forward the 'basic schema of tattooing' as a candidate representation for epidemiological
lfc',lllllcnf. 'I atr"nlnc; .1"" indced hwcl )' tt ' ~idcrl'll l'omparali\ t:h. whil'h r" ~I' ' ,I a ern 01 m;currenee, when eon'. " ,,' escm" es t Ie uneven b t 'I h '. ' Pltdlll',lhle, lIlCldence of an illness' th 'I' u ate same tlme ' , ere are u tra-suscept'bl ' I' I' W!t're IlIcldenee rises to near 100' • , • I e popu atlons " ' per cent (reCIdIVIsts) d" • Iatlom who arc hardly CYer touched (" an resIStant popuhas the outstandinu n~erit of 5impIJ'c'ty~mvcrslhty~eachers). Sperber's proposal , r" ' I. once avmg chart d th d' 'b . pattern of the causal factors I' th e e Ism utlonal ., "n c structural prop rti· f th cogmtl\ e ap1'aratlls, which arc res ons ·hl. fi e es 0 e human 'catchilll(' li,r some suh,'errs alld ,p fiI C or the representation being " ' , ,. .• not 50 or others. Alcordlllglv, hanng charted the d' 't'b' f . . • • IS n utlOn 0 tanoolng e th I ~l.Ige or on a more n'stril,t"d (r" I) h ' J er on a g obal , ' • eglona one t e obj - ti ' b lhscoYl'T\ of the tlcrors "hi.'ll .' I,'h ec ve can e stated as the " • np am t e observahl d', 'b' , Spcrbenan project is Yen mUl'h w'h, "II I e Istn utlOn. ThIS , " at WI )e anempt'l h ·th l'l11pJO\lng the epidemiolo'rical met' h " et ~re, WI OUt openly incidenl.I1 to the basic idea SIJerb h,I1' ,or a,m fur~h~r, SinCe this is quite 'h ' er as m mllld. I dIner from S b-' 1.,It er Important respect thou h ' th I per cr m one , , g ,m at 1m far I" . d I~ th~t cpi-'1litive psychology provides the kt.v' to th ~s~ CO~Y1nC~ than he sl.lndmg of all conceivaLle . d'd ' e epIdemIOlogical under. , " can I ate represent ti Th" 1;lt1ooin!' (considered as a r' _' . a ons, e mCldence of epresentatlOn) certaml)' c t b I . thc basis ,,( am theon in co'ml'tl' k anno e exp allled on , , • r'" on nown to me thou h "f: exptun satisfactorih' the distrl'b tl' f th ' g cogmtIve actors may , ~ U on 0 0 er types of II . non. Tattooing is also of Course n t " co eC!lve representa, " 0 one representati b 01 representations and the probl . I on ut a protean family " , em IS ess a matter of h . th· . of a smgle specific cultural 'disease' than :>f " . cartIng e inCIdence traceahle ro this 'd'" '. , , e:\plalnlng the varied symptoms I,ease among the dlnere t I' , Polynesia. rattooing is often f"ar too" I n popu a!lons It affects. In , intimate y embedd d ' I 01 technical schemes and symboll'c as " Ii e In a comp ex matrix . SOClatlons or the de f b " '1 !'cprcsclHation from its context, implied in S b' gree 0 _a stractlon of possible, -"one the less, it may be hel ful to J:er er s proposal,. to b~ really CJ'ldemiologicaJ metaphor for purp p f e reader to bear In nund the if nor working-out in det;il. oses 0 general methodological orientation,
if annhing like Sperber's epidemiol 'cal d . must he that a certain principle of ii:ntitymo e1 IS to work, how~Yer, it rcpresentations: the idea that 'kl'n I'k I: has to apply to the target' , gs are I e IOns' as fo d' I aI '), has to COUnt as the same idea ( , un 'n cu tur system repertoire bclonuing to cult I ' representatlon) when encountered in the O' ura s~stems B or CoN Th' . the model which is most ll'kely't" , d 'b ,r. IS IS the feature of 0 raIse ou ts In wh t I h "d I , may I,law appeared to equivocate betwee~ a , . ave sal up tO,now, lO:lI1el'tlOll. in principle, betvieen the si ifi the POSltlon ~at ~ere IS no CUltural Svstems where it is present while~ hca,nce of tanoolng In any two a ,hasic schema of tattooing W'h" • h ~Ye also repeatedly r,eferred to IC may pOSSIbly be u· IN' nlllmenr to deal directh with tl' d I" . mversa " ow IS the . liS C !Cate questlon.
1 have just suggested that tanooing is primarily associated with two sociologically defined categories (1) marginalized subcultures and (2) preliterate tribal societies. I have further hinted that this distribution is explicable because there is elective affinity between tanooing as an expressive mode and certain lifestyle attributes and value orientations, and that these are the common properties of both categories (1) and (2). It would seem to follow that I must have in the back of my mind some universalist interpretation of what tattooing means. It is indeed true that I have a certain general interpretative idea, but 1 hope that this need not imply that 1 am hell-bent on forcing all the available ethnographic data, from whatever source, into a single procrustean bed of 'tattooing-theory'. For a start, I am at present only interested in responding to the overall trend of the evidence, rather than in explaining every single instance of tanooing in one way. For instance, in Polynesia tanooing is not regarded as therapeutic in any obvious way. Nor, as it happens, is therapeutic tattooing much a feature of western practice. But there are parts of south Asia in which the basic technical schema of tattooing is exploited primarily in this connection, to the relative exclusion of the kinds of meanings which tanooing has either in the West or in Polynesia. An account of therapeutic tattooing among the Shan (on the Thai/Bunna border) has "recently been published by TaJlnenbaum. She states: 'Shan tattoos are not decorations; they are medicine, in the broad sense, and can be thought of as analogous to vaccinations against various diseases' (1987: 693). Here the basic tattooing schema generates a particular metaphoric coding of the therapeutic process, in which the idea of injection (of evi.l-spirit-deflecting or bullet-deflecting sacred power) is involved. This idea is not found everywhere, and not in Polynesia so far as I know. Similarly, the Shan tanooist is either a Buddhist monk or a person of high spiritual standing, and the therapeutic effectiveness of the tanoo depends on L'1ekeeping of religious precepts and food taboos. Merit is absorbed directly via the ink used in the most potent 'five Buddha' tattoo, which contains as an ingredient the exfoliated skin of a monk, This extraordinary idea has no parallels elsewhere and, in the tanooing cultures I will be describing later, tattooists are neither attributed with spiritual gifts nor the power to confer them. It is necessary therefore to give full recognition to the rdative autonomy of the complex of ideas underlying Shan tanooing which, as Tannenbaum well demonstrates, are intimately connected to popular Buddhism. None the less, when Tannenbaum uses the following terms to descnbe Phi Lo ('cannibal ogre'), the most powerful of all the Shan's annoury of protective tattoos: 'The tanoo is the body of a monster, rectangular in shape, the face contains a mouth with pointed teeth or, alternatively, the face
l' U)\(JcJ \\JlIi the 'pJril\ hands .. " Phi Lo are said to close off a person, making- Imn. mmpkleh impervious Ito bullets]', certain Oceanic parallels \.Orne 1f!U11edlalt'l~to nund (e,g, the Marquesas: Von den Steinen 1925). . JUSl as there IS mort', than one possible reading of the tattooing schema, SO can titnt' be man~. qUite distinct ways in which tattooing practices can be Illcorporated Into hfrstyks. Just to give one striking example it is worth relllarklll~ on the "lCt that, despite Loos's claim that only criminals and deg-elllT,neS were laltoonl in early twentieth-century Europe, in fact, at !11~t \ny moment, the crowned heads of England, Germany, and Russia were aU (dlscnTtly) tattooed, having each of them submitted to the operation while ILl\clhn~ Jbroad ~lSlOung men (Scutt and Gotch 1974), And so of course IIlTe thousands of per/i:ctly respectable gentlemen who had been 'involved i~ !1nhtan or mercantile anilities which usually involved living away from home hut IIIndl ~\T~e.otherwise lar from criminal. Joseph Banks, who obtained a l.lltuo If! I ahltl, \\as perhaps the original tattooed aristocrat. These indi\ Iduals, ,lI1d still less Ihe tatlflOed royals, can hardlv be discussed in the same Inms .IS the archet\pal tattooed prisoners of Lombroso's pages. We are .i1ways ohl~ged tr! respect the distinction between genuine subcultural tattooing ,llId the kind of ~attooing all aristocrat might acquire, which incorporates a rc!lTcl1c',' 10 lOIl-hte practice, but which cannot be mistaken for the real thing (the 'Prince Hal' syndrome). The Felon, the Aristocrat, and the Good Soldier may all he found to have identical tattoos, but depending on their actual CirCUmstances in li,fe, quitc different linkages may exist between this particular clemen! III the SOCIalpersonae and the remainder of the elements which enter I!1to lts composition, The prisoner's tattoo may best be interpreted as a e()mpO~lellt ,of '~)Ppositional practice' (Hobsbawm 1969), the soldier's as ~r(lllp-IdentlfieatlOn, and the aristocrat's as mark of distinction, to be revealed (ll1h, ,to chosen companions who can be relied on not to misinterpret its sl~'lllhcancc, All these complexities arc possible w:iL~out compromising the Id~a that m each of these cases the same core metaphors arc being invoked for llittcrent purposes.
, I believe that it is possible to do justice to the empirical diversity and mdeed, ambiguity of the ethnographic material relating to tattooing pr;ctices: \\ I!hout abandoning the notion that tattooing, by virtue of its basic technical sdlema, i,s comp~rable wherever it Occurs, and that this schema generates mnaphoncal readmgs which, though distinct, arc related to one another, The schema can be taken up and metaphorically exploited in different wavs and for ,IIUcrclH purp~ses, but because it retains its unique character "(Which is ~jehncd III phYSIcal/technical terms) in the final analysis all these readings are IIllcrcollnected, and each carries with it all the others as a series of more or Jess prominent overtones, How precisely the tattooing schema is read, and whIch of the possible readings assumes the dominant role and which arc cmcred up. depends on the o\erall Context: the political context, and the
b.~I.iiiliiiiiiii""'
,,,,,,,,,",_,
_
culture of the body which is part of it, and the position of the t~tto~d individual in relation to this political milieu. These arc th~ factors ~h,ch ~1l1 be examined in later chapters in relation to PolyneSJ.an tattoomg. 1.he analytical strategy I propose is universalistonJy in thiS sense: tattool~g provides a unique source of powerful poIitic~1 metaphors; but I remam, relativist in thinking that this unique source prOVIdes not on~, but ~ numb~r of different metaphoric possibilities, and that these arc explOlte? dl!Terentlal1y, according to the context. To phrase this in terms of ~per~enan Ideas, .1 a~ concerned to chart, within a delimited area, the epidemIOlogy ,not o! one representation but of a family of representations .• ~hic~ arc genencally mtcrconnected but which are individually perfectly dlstmgulshable.
1.3.1. The Skin as a Symbolic Fonn In order to take this idea further, it is obviously necessary to begin t~ s~ecify the basic tattooing schema in rather greater detail: onl~ the~ will It be possible to evaluate the claims I have made both as to ItS umve,rsah~ and local variability. The best way to approach this topic is via ~ ~onslderatlon of the skin itseif since tattooing (and scarification, body-pamtlng, etc.) are technically pr~duced modifications of this very important but not really very wellunderstood organ of the body. , Anthropologists and other historians cf culture, in the course of theIr. researches, have amassed enough material to make ~ cross-c~ltural stu~y, of the role of skin as a symbolic form a perfectly feaSible and I~deed en~c~g research project. The material 1 am about to adduce on Polynesian tattoomg IS part of this mass of relevant ethnographic mat~rial. 1 hope that ~OI~e of the interpretative ideas 1 am going to put fo~ard ml~ht also be contnbutlons to a more general understanding of this subJect. But It would be ~e to sa! that, with a few exceptions, anthropologists have not focused on s~ a.s specdically as they might, and that anthropological theory in this area IS stili somewhat inchoate. , 'Th Among the outstanding exceptions, to date, are Turner. s essay on , e Social Skin' (1980) and, less directly on the subJect but stili very releunt, Marilyn Strathern's 'The Self in Self-Decoration' (1979; cf. A. Strath~rn and M. Strathern 1971). More recently, some other writers ?n Melane,sla have emphasized the role of skin as a basic focus of symbohc elaboration (e.g. o'Hanlon 1983; 1989). , 1 do not intend to subject this literature to much by way of scrutiny h1:r~, since to do so raises many issues which require detailed .ethn~grap~lc exposition, which would not be germane. However, there is ?ne cruCial pomt which a number of anthropologists have stressed and whlc.h needs to, be highlighted. T. Turner expresses this key idea in the followmg words: the
!.
sud.!IC "j lllc budl bl'LO!lIe~, III all} human sockty, a boundary of II peculiarly complo. kmd,. Whllh slIllultaneotlsly separates domains lying on either side of it and contlates dil1i:rent levels of social, individual, and intra-psychic meaning. The skin (and hair) are the concrt'te boundary between the self and the other, the individual and sotiety' (I 980: 139), Marilyn Strathern has developed this idl'a in her analysis of the way in which the spectacularly decor;lled bodies of Nl'W Guinea Highlanders allow them to express their 'truc' sdves, in defiance of our prejudices concerning the basic mendaciousness of cosmetics and adornment (1979).
For .It least some people, the social skin is the support or vehicle for the opressjon of social relations. There is a contrast here with conventional IITSIlTll attitudes. ',"e tend to reason in this way: the skin is on the outside of the hod, -> what is outside is always less important/true/real than what is inside ,hence the skin cannot tell us about the real person. But there is .If]othn way of looking at this. which Occurs more naturally to the kinds of people ·l~. Turner and M. Strathern arc talking about. Thi~ reasoning runs: lhe. skm IS o~ the outside of the body --,> the outside of the body is the part \\/uch IS pubhe .and which comes into contact with other people ~ people are the sum total of their relations with other people ~ the person is his/her skin. l'he. nlllion that the skin is a constitutive clement of the social person and proVIdes the means. of conducting social relationships is clearly a very significant one, though of such generality that, by itself, it is not very informative. There ~as, howe\'~r, been one attempt to provide a more generalized a~coulll of the role of the skin in cross-cultural perspective which, unlike T. lurner or M. Strathern, explicitly attempts to examine the transition between the symbolic significance of the skin (and skin treatments) in so-called primiti\l' societies and more evolved societies such as pre-modem states and Llltcr-dav modern societies. I am here referring to a work by Maertens which hove.rs bttween anthropology, evolutionary reconstruction, and psychoanalysis Jnd IS consequently rather difficult to classifY. Maertens's work is valuable and inspiring, Lho.ugh casual enquiries among francophor.e colleagues of mine h'IVC so. far faIled to unearth any details about this anthropologist whose book /.( /)(.
L
These successive parturitions can be arranged in a sequence eorresponding to indhidual ontological development (this is orthodox Lacanian psychoanalytic theory). Maertens, in the tradition of post~Freudian, analytically inspired social theory, supposes that this· ontological sequence of individual parturitions can be aligned \\-ith a sequence corresponding to the evolutio~ary stages of human civilizations, which he borrows more or less unaltered from Morgan. The evolutionary scheme he proposes consists of the three-stage sequence proceeding from 'tribal' (non-hierarchical) societies, via 'barbarian' (hierarchical, pre-capitalist) kingdoms, to modem industrial states. In gross terms, he asserts that in societies at the tribal level body art flourished as part of a mythical discourse centred on the primary separation of the fusional body-mother and the social self. Body-marking practices in barbarian societi~s introduce a second severance between the 'profane' (sexual) body-the one which is ritually celebrated in primitive rituals-and a 'sacred' body. Thus, while in primitive rituals we observe a 'parturition' which could be represented as: fused body-mother
~ own (social/sexual)
In hierarchical but pre-capitalist reduplicated as follows: fused body-mother
systems
~ own (social/sexual)
body. this parturative
sequence
IS
body ~ sacred (a-sexual) body.
The relation between the profane body and the sacred body is a hierarchical one and provides a basis for hierarchy in general-an idea not so different from some expressed by Dumont (1970). Capitalism, via the fetishization of commodities, introduces a further severing. The body becomes a possession that one owns as a thing, and that others may own as a thing. Capitalist bodyrituals arc about creating, via cosmetics, clothes, accessories, and body-culture in general, this uniquely desirable but vulnerable possession. This account is historically oversimplified, but Maertens fills out his scheme with an impressive array of well-selected examples to which any interested person may turn for more details. I intend to concentrate on only one aspect of his treatment of the subject, namely the contrast he draws between non-hierarchical and hierarchical societies. In non-hierarchical societies (for which Maertens includes all tribal or archaic societies) bodypainting and tattooing are expressions of the original unity of the fusional body. The coat of paint, or pattern of tattoo markings, envelops the body and is integral with it, recapitulating the original fusion between own body/ enveloping maternal body. At the same time these body-markings are exteriorisations of the inner hidden self (here Maertens's ideas coincide with those of M. Strathern 1979). The self and the enveloping integument which ~nites the self and the world (Le. the mother) are revealed as one. But there is an important difference between body-painting and scarification/tattooing.
nodI -pJIJliJl1g (1111ICh ISseCl1'I" 111('f'e pnnlltl\e ' "')' IS temp , ' 'I . and gennally rrotic. Scaritit:
".>
)
\ b:nens argues that tribal body art serves in ritual, . socI.11relations of solidarity on th. b" t' h ~o~te:\1s,to establ!~h ' ,e aSls 0 s ared renuncIatIon t th th" anl I th IS renunciation is achieved by fj', t' II ' 0 e mo er, rSI 0 a recaJImgthe fi ' d tIlCIIconsclluentlv re-ell'ICtI'ngth " I' act 01 sepa t' '1 , • e' ongllla p'use , state, and thc !1Iolhrr is rc~'ained but th. ' I, . ra IOn, amt ISdonned, T ' . " " r pamt a \\ays has to be washed if ' .lllt10Sand mutilatIOns serve as 'lived' si sf, ~ .agam. thc ;r~odb~ands IOlposed from represents, a ue y and what that body I
r:
The' diacritical use of body-markin s t 'd '. ' indeed an old and widespr~ad fi 0/ enn~ margmal/outcast status is Romans had to deal with the 'P' ~ta, (re? Pdre-modem state systems. The " Ie s pamte men) ha ' th· L ' while within them, slaves were customaril b rrymg e~ Honners, hihiting marking the body (Le•.iticus 19.2/ r~~ded. Th.e Mo~alc law prothe idea that the marked bod ' ' b'), an~ Its Koramc eqUIvalentreflect , , IS an a ommatlon whi h b b lI1to proximity with the sacI' d- (' I,' c cannot e rought " . e Just as a eper 0 d fi d ahomination), Outlaws (beginnin with Cain r a ~ orme person is an thun from social and religious life Bu ' ' ) were mutIlated s~ as to exclude he set the more unusual "liz' t agamst these marks of mfam~'have to marglna Illg marks which b k . sanctity: the scars left by exceptional devotions the . eto en extra,ordmary the wounds endured bv Christ h' If ,stIgmata of the samts, and \1, >, , ,I~se . , at nens shows how tattcomg m modern ind .r . . be a~sociated with marginal (though not unifo~tna Ised society connnues to verv I1lterestingpoint that tattooing th " . th Ylow) ~tatus. He makes the mes m ose margInal groups which are
confined in society, but which are denied the opportunity to reproduce within it and have little personal stake in it, apart from their own continued hodily existence. He '"suggests that these non-reproducing groups-prisoners, soldiers andSiillors, prostitutes-tattoothemselves with designs which both seek to compensate for a rootless existence (MOTHER in large letters across the chest) and simultaneously express tiltalistic acceptance of social exclusion. Lombroso had earlier remarked on the linkage between tattooing and fatalism, the philosophy most characteristic of the criminal classes, but he accounted for it merely as a consequence of animal dumbness. Maertens shows, more sympathetically, how the pennanent inscription of the hostile attitudes of the dominant group, so that they become absorbed into the very substance of the body, can be interpreted as an attempt to achieve reintegration, an encompassing wholeness, even if thc practical clfect of tattooing a device such as BORN CRIMINAL on to the body is to make social reintegration even more of an impossibilitythan it was before. The prisoner who docs this accepts once and for all that he is a criminal and seeks to reconstruct the world on that basis; either by challenging the forces of order or, more typically, by representing passive acceptance of destiny as thc s~nlbolic equivalent of exercising mastery oyer it, Tattooing is thus a bodily code for registering social forces as part of the person on whom these social forces impinge, thereby creating a conceptual closure, a unity, out of what is; in fact, a relation of marginality and exclusion. Thus soldiers and sailors (especiallyin old-style armies in which enlisted men had little cbance of marrying and having families) tended to cover themselves with national flags, regimental badges, plus sundry female figures, identified as mothers, girlfriends, ",ives, etc, so as to create an enveloping social matrix as a symbolic surrogate for the domestic envelope which their circumstances in life made it impossible for them to develop satisfactorily. Maertens's discussion of tattooing, body-painting, and cosmetics is in many ways'bighly instructive (cf, Thevoz 1984). But, quite apart from the issue of the plausibility of Lacanian psychoanalysis, it is unsatisfactory in that it is ba$ed on an excessively simple paradigm of social evolution. In particular, from the standpoint of the present work, it is unfortunate that Maertens's social-evolutionaryscheme appears to have no place at all for societies such as those in Oceania which are distinctly hierarchical, but which are none the less not states nor prone to eschatological discourse of the ]udaeo-Christian kind. Maertens is either unaware of, or at least does not mention, any instances of tribal societies with repressive codes of sexual morality, which exist in plenty,-for instance Manus (Fortune 1935) or Kaulong (Goodale 1980)nor any pre-capitalist hierarchical societies with permissive sexual regimes, which are also not uncommon (e.g. the Society Islands; cf. th. 3), Such a crude stereotype of cultural evolution cannot provide a secure basis for the kind of global theory.Maertens is aiming at, which most anthropologists would
rC.'~.lrd .IS hopdcssh amhilious ilnvwav Th" I \1·' ~ -' Is l ors not mean however th ~ .llTll'IlS IS IlClTssarilv wrong "/1 all "h' d 'I d ' ,at , 0 IS etill e analyses f hi can'v a good deal of conviction, " some 0 w eh I also entirely disagree with the idea that sta f' . , corrdated with stages of psych' d I ges 0 SOCIalevolutlon can. be ". . Ie eve opment This is tJ th otJ!o!'eny recapitulates phv'logenv' idea . .' exae y . e same" as derh.Ts frum another of ihe in(ellectual InsPlref~ fII,omkbrlo~o, only this time it I (P-) \1 sons 0 . ae e I e Fre d (G Id I, '. ,Iertens docs not deprecate a~'h . '. ' ' . u ou , . ' .c alc SOCieties as 10mb d'd b . more IIlchned to romanticize thc'l'r egal't " d'fi' roso I, e/llg . . I anamsm an usio I' , It comes to the same thl'llg fl' h' na Integratl.on, but . . e IS at IS m 't· ., h ahout states and ,thout m
1.3.2. Anzieu: The Skin-Ego In ihis book, Didier Anzieu outlines a theo I' " careful consideration from anthr I' b ry 0 ~e ego whIch ments very p "th opo ogJsts, ecause It tends to confirm from a Ps\'cholu:ncal . O' erspectlve e verv pro " h' h ' Turner and from Ivl S 'th : posluon w Ic I extracted earlier from . tra ern, I.e. that the ki . . . , person himself/herself Turner d al 'th sth~ ~, m many ways, the SOCIal . e s WI IS In tenus which strikingly
,mtIClpate those used by Anzieu, and which also explicitly refer to psychoanalytical concepts, when he writes: At one level, the 'social skin' models the social boundary between the individual actor and other actors; but at a deeper level it models the internal, psychic, diaphragm between the presocial, libidinous energies of the individual, and the 'intemalised others' or social meanings, that make up what Freud called the 'ego' and 'super-ego'. At yet a third, macro social level, the conventionalised modifications of skin and hair that comprise the 'social skin' define, not individuals, but categories or classes of individuals." The 'social skin'." [is) ... the boundary between social classes, (1980: 140) The formula Isocial skin -4 social person/, which in the hands of T. Turner, Maertens, or M. Strathern amounts to an insight rather than a theory, becomes in the work of Anzieu (1989) the basis for a radical reformulation of ego-psychology, He prefaces his work with the obsen'ation that the very organ with which we think, feel, know, and experience-the cortex of the brain-is embryonically a development of the surface of the early foetus, an introverted and reticulated 'skin', But we are prone to habits of mind which make us blind to the significance off acts like these: Since the renaissance, western thought has been obsessed with a particular epistemological conception, whereby the acquisition of knowledge has been seen as breaking through an outer shell, to reach an inner core or nucleus. This notion has now been exhausted .. , we are faced with a paradox. The centre (the cortex) is at the periphery. (1989: 9) He goes on to point out the way in which the development of bodily organs (the brain and other organs as well) typically occurs, in utero, through a folding-up process technically known as 'invagination', the process which creates the endlessly complicated array of folds, envelopes, tubes, caps, and pockets of which the body is made. He sees this as preparing the ground for a process of psychic development which can be seen in metaphorically the same way. And not just metaphorically, either, because the psyche is grounded in bodily existence and bodily structures at every point. His theory of the skin ego is designed specifically to integrate the understanding of psychic development with the understanding of physical development, a somatically based ego-psychology. The key to Anzieu's approach is contained in the insight into the doublesidedness of the skin, which both protects the 'primal cavity' of the body from the external world, yet at the same time reveals and communicates the internal state of this primal cavity to the external world. The skin has an 'outsiee' which serves as a shield, creating the boundary between the self and the world, but this protective shield is also acutely sensitive to ,the world, and liable to accumulate a complex texture of marks which bear witness to the impinging external, forces. The skin also has an 'i!1side', an inner-facing
Sur),h,' \\ hich 'holds in' the body contents, but which is no less sensitive than the ollter surf;\[e; registning the inner state of the cavity-its emptiness repletion, well-being, or malaise. The inside-facing and outside-tlll:ing skin; are, me~nwhile, one indivisible structure, and hence the skin continually eommUllleates the external world to the internal one, and the internal world to th,c otern?1 one. This traffic, mediated by the skin, is the formative principle of the ego s basICsense 01 scllhood in the wodd. PSllhoa~laJytically,\nzieu argues, the skin ego originates in babyhood, as the mf.tnt ISbrought to recognize that it docs not share its mother's skin but has one of its own. and that its inner senses of pleasure and pain are detenl1~nedby the \\;1\. ill which this skin relates to other skins-originally the ~nothl'r s. I Ie emphNzes-lollowing Winnicot (l958)-the significance of iJoldlll).:and caresslllg IIJthe process of allowing thl' child to develop a secure sense 01 sell, and he dIscusses clinical cases, whil'h unfortunateh' cannot be considered ill detail here. of children whose (psychological) skins fail to deH'lop ~roperly (a little girl who believes that her head is full of holes, an older pa~lcnt wh.oscratches her face until it bleeds, and so on). The psychoanalytICImphcatlons 01 :\nzil'll's theory arc not what is important for present purposes, t~o~~h I will have occasion to refer later to his basic hypotheses that babies Intllally share one skin with their mothers and that ego-formation necessitates the rupture of this skin. For the present I wish to concentrate on .~nzie.u's admirably methodical descriptive account of skin as a basic symbolic lorm In mental life, since this provides one with a series of useful leads which can assist in formulating interpretations of cultural practices which involve modification of the skin. . Anzieu lists nine 'functions of the skin ego' (Ch. 7). Very briefly, thev are as lollows. . I. .\ Ltintenan~e a~d. support. The skin-ego maintains the psyche as a develop~ent .or Intez:on.sal1onof the holding maternal embrace. The person's sense 01 .selfISa denvauve of early attachment, clinging, support, reassurance eommumcated through the skin. . 2. C.ont~ining.. T~e skin-~~o is a container, an outer bag, which keeps s.ome,~In~ 111. ~hls Inner selr tS frequently identified as spontaneous, appetiI1ve, Illsl1nctual-very much on the lines suggested by Turner in the passage cited above. . 3. Protection. The skin-ego is a protective layer which shields the inner sc.lf..The protectiv: skin mav be reinforced in various ways. Anzieu notes c1:mcal.cases of pat1e~t~' ohses.sionalbody-building as a means of developing a .muscular sec?nd ~ki.n-a skill of muscle, under the skin itself, as protective remforcement In clrmcal cases of defective (psychological) skin-formation. The protective role of skin will play an important part in the analysis developed in later chapters.
4. Individuation. Anzieu regards the development of a.skin as criticali~l the process of aequiJ1nganjndividual identity~This. re~e:-,both to the spwl1cally psychoanalyticalthesis of the emergence of the mdividual p~ychef~oma st~te in which ego's identity is submerged within an unbroken skin-shanng relanon with the mother, but it is obviously entirely consistent with much more familiar sociological ideas about identity (cf. M. Strathern 1988). . 5. Intersensoriality. The skin is not a homogeneous envelope, hut IS marked out by pockets containing specialized sensol)' organ~, the n:routh, nose, eyes, genitalia, etc. These sensory pockets are co-ordmated na the global relation which situates them all within one common structure, I.e. the skin-ego. . 6. Support of sexual excitation. The skin is also marked out Illto arcas of localized erogenous significance. The skin-ego is the structur: whIch c~ordinates the sum of differentiated erotic zones (and in patholOgIcalcases, IS the source of confusion between them). 7. Libidinal recharging. The skin-ego is the structure which registers the steady accumulation or sudden depletion of libidinal desire. ',' 8. Registration. The skin is the register or mirror of external reaIrty. [he skin ego is the original parchment which preserves, like a palimpsest, the erased scratched-out, written over, first outlines of an 'original' pre-verbal writin~ made up of traces on the skin', says Anzieu (p. ~05). Here .~zieu cites Bettelheim (1955), a psychoanalytic authority whose VIewsare familiar to anthropologists, and suggests that mutilations, tattoos, etc. can be understood as registrations of separation from the mother, much as Maertens does as well. 9. Self-destruction. This is the pathological function of skin turned against its owner as in auto-immune skin diseases, or m}1hologicalincidents such as Hercules: self-flaying in the course of his vain effort to rid himself of the shirt of Nessus. Many, indeed most, of these nine functions of the skin-ego can be implica~ed in the interpretation of body art and body mutilation in th~ P?l)n~slan material to be introduced in later chapters. As a source of onentmg Ideas about skin Anzieu's discussion is extremely useful, even if one retains a degree of ~cepticism concerning his account of psychic ontogeny in all its details.
Using Anzieu's nine functions of the skin-ego as an armature, I can ~ow begin to fill out in more detail some of the possibilities inherent in the basiCschema of tattooing.
FUIh'iiUI1 ] (Support). !'he lanoomg interpremtion of this function has already heen indicated to a certain rxtCI1l, in the discussion of Maertens's workyee Sec!. 1.3.1). It will be ret:allcd that this writer interprets tattooing (particularly e.g. t11l' type of tatlooing practised by soldiers and sailors invokinl! Home, .\ lUIll, Best Girl, Flag, Comrades. etc.) as the creation of ~ sub~tit\lt~' en.velope enfolding an otherwise exposed social persona in a protecnv", ,ImpliCitly maternal, embrace. Evidence wiII crop up later that in PolyncslJ tattooing. was sometillll.:s quite explicitly conceptualized as the culmmatmg stage or lhe birth process, and there is no doubt of the association hctwel'll birth, rebirth, and tattooing in these instances. The idea here is that tatt.ooing, hy prO\iding an extra skin, over the skin, a wrapping for the person which IS not scpar,lte, hut integral, permits the recapitulation of the original sItuatwn of an unlllediated single-skin relationship with the mother while at thc SJme timc-and somewhat paradoxically-marking the final stage of renunciation of that orit,rinal relationship. : do not intend to press this idea too lar, at IcJst not where the question ()f the primordial relation with the mother is concerned, hecause to do so is to yenture too far into the domain of purely psychoanalytic theory. For the purposes of social and cultural analysis of tattooing institutions. this fill1ction is effectively merged with function 4 (indhiduJtion, see below).
The close linkage between tattooing and \iolence is everywhere in evidence, and can hardly be eJI1t>h~t:d~ufficientiy. The underlying idea here is that the tattooed skin is eithe ••reinforced or becomes the locus of harm-detlecting (>OWC1'$. I think that it is under this heading that one should consider the painfUlness of the tattooing process, since there seems to be a spontaneous costlbenefit inference at work here; i.e. the advantage secured by means of a tattoo is proportional to the pains endured in the process of acquiring it. Protective tattooing seems thus to be a way of mastering dangers by preempting them. But it would be incorrect to think of the protective function of tattooed skin exclusively in this directly magical/instrumental framework. There is J much wider sense in which tattooing can be understood as protective. llere, following Anzieu, I would like to invoke a concept introduced by \Yilhclm Reich in the year 1929, namely the so-called 'character armour' .. -\t this period in his career, Reich was especially concerned with psychoanalytic 'hard cases' -patients who simply could not submit or be persuaded to lie down on the couch and Tell All. Accordingly, he developed a special theory about the way in which the 'difficult' patient's psychological malaise is itself the source of his inability to submit to the psychoanalytical treatment which alone might cure it. This is not the moment to deeide whether this is a deep insight into human nature or merely a device to ensure that psychoanalytic theory could never be said to have failed, even if psychoanalytical treatment proved totally inelTective, or perhaps both. What is useful is the idea that the social person ('character' in Reich's terminology) may be understood as fundamentally a defensive structure, something which is there to resist or absorb assaults. In fact, there is no need to assume that character armour conceals, or is produced by, damage to the psyche. Character armour could equally well be considered a most useful acquisition, and those who remember the 1960s will perhaps agree that partly Reich-inspired efforts to be divested of it did not produce very attractive results. Later on in his career, Reich developed the notion of character armour in an interesting direction, though by this time he had become decidedly cranky. He became preoccupied wim the musculature, which he thought of as a second muscular skin. Muscular tension physically represented me elTon to form an impenetrable carapace to resist intrusions into repressed psychosexual disorders, or bottled-up desire (Reich described the sadistic person as 'like a baBoon full to bursting' (1950». Once again, there is no need to restrict these ideas to tlleir original context of abnormal psychology. These metapl'iors of carapaces, balloons, etc. and their bodily referents are often met with as components of the standard culture of the body, not by any means , confined to the mentally unbalanced. I think that the idea of character armour can be taken up in this connection
Fun~tion 2 ~Containing). It is under this heading that .the idea that tattooing hol~s m me mward person can be considered. This inward person is restramed by the tattooed envelope yet, just as with any container, what is inside reveals itself indirectly through what is outside (as me shape ora violin-case cummunicates the shape of a Yiolin). Thus it is often found that muscles, organs, hones, etc. are indicated in the formal arrangement and specific motifs In tattoos. Sometimes tattoos arc bindings which physically restrain me organs beneath. Here there arc complicated interactions between the tattooing schema and clothes and other types of body-binding which will be considered in due course. .But what is inside? Is it correct to assume, as Turner does (in conformity wH.h.psychoanalytic tradition) that the inside person is always spontaneous, hbldlllal, etc. and that control is exercised by social Others (authority figures, etc:) from the outside? This seems to me too restrictive an approach, and one whICh ref1ects the traditional (western) presumption that the real person is inside the exterior mask. For the present, the contents of the contained inside can be left uns.peci~ed; v~'hat is at issue is only the role of tattooing in making ma~1fest the function. of the skin as a container, and the dialectical way in whIch the tattooed skm as a container communicates and at the same time conceals that which is contained. Fu~etion 3 (Protection). One non-Polynesian instance of protective tattoomg has already been brief1y discussed (cf. Tannenbaum 1987, quoted above, on the Shan). Polynesian examples will be discussed in due course.
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as a f:(llcral (mer term lor the: elahoration of defences around the social person. The expression contains a useful ambiguity, in that it can be understood hoth, as an ~Irmour'for' the character, and an' armour 'consisting of' the character. [attonmg can he regarded in this way as character annour which d~fends the social person (an apotropaic second skin) and simultaneously, at a hlg~er level, as a component of the social person as a whole, regarded as a dcfe:nsnc structure. In thiS way one can think of tattooing as simultaneously proteC!lllg and also constituting the person. i\loreover the physiological connotatIOns oj the concept of character armour allow one to forge the link hetween the social person as a hasically defensive structure, and the social person ;ISa hod", consisting of layers wrapped around a core, and with an outside .md an inside. The Icry common linkage between tattooing and violence has just been mentIPnc·d. Hut the point whieh needs perhaps to he stressed in this connection ;s that this \iolence is essentially defensive. I have never come across an insl.ll~ce of tattoo~!~g(th: self) as a means of inflicting harm directly on sOl.~eother person. I attoomg does not confer omnipotence, but invulnerahdI.!}.. In our contemporary system of body culture invulnerability is sought eX'PIICllI~ through body-building and Anzieu discusses this practice as a means ~)fde\l'.lopin~ ~n extra-resilient second skin around the 'real self' (he has mterestmg clI~lcal examples). Likewise, in our culture, there is a linkage hetween tattoomg and body-building (tattooing aficionados are often bodvhUild~rs as well) and b.oth tattooing and of course body-building are mu~h praCt1Sel~a~ong the pnson population, often simultaneously. The tattooing/ body-bUlldmg nexus has perhaps no precise parallels elsewhere but it is com~on enough to find tattooing associated \\ith growth, strengili, prowess, etc: In the ~~re general sense, particularly the tattooing of adolescents just ;llTI~'lI1g at mIlItaryor reproductive age. I suggest that this type of tattooing can he IIlterprcted as the construction not just of the tattoo but also the newgrown body a~ a whole, of which the tattoo forms an integral part. Thus, on my readmg of the evidence, character armour provides as good a summary definition 'co:e metaphor' of Polynesian tattooing as I can conceive, though ~f coursc tattoomg has many aspects to it, not just this one alone. . Function 4 (Individuation). The creation of personal identity is probably the tactor whICh IS most regularly invoked in the sociological literature as the sourcc of the motive to become tattooed, at least in the West. Indhiduals mark themselves with indelible insignia which, by their singularity, testifYto thclr ~l1lquc per~onal relations, achievements, etc. and also their personal fancy In the, chOIce of this or that design. At the same time they adopt emblems (oj gangs, military units, etc.) indicating group-affiliations which support their social identity l'is-a-l'is outsiders and enemies. Anzi~u, as a psychoanalyst, secs individuation in terms of establishing separatIOn from the mother on satisfactory terms, and failure to arrive at a
satisfactory sense of individuality as a consequence of unresolved moth~rl child difficulties from an early infancy. Seen fi·omthis point of vicw, tattoomg may be interpreted, as Maertens suggests, as ,a symbolic scar, indicating separation from the mother, and her renunciation. There is clearly only a Partial overlap between the psychoanalytical understanding of 'establishing a social identity' and the more neutral sociological definition, which docs not require any psycho-dynamic interpretation. At this point there i~ no n~cd to choose between them; either way, there are features of the PO~l1eSIan tattooing material which can be related to the individuating function of skin. But caution is necessary for another reason. Thc concept of individuation is a derivative of the concept of the individual, but this concept is both slippery and controversial. 'Individuals' in the sense implicd by 'social indi\iduality' in the western context has becn claimed not to cxist in othcr cultures (e.g. India: Dumont 1965; 1970). Within Polyl1esia,some societies may bc said to be more individualistically oriented than othcrs (this is partly the basis of the Traditional versus Open contrast proposed hy Goldman (1970) for typological purposes). If tattooing is to be seen as a means of establishing a c.crtain individuality, what that means has to be specified in terms of local tact?rs governing the definition of the individual. Indeed, there is no logical hnk whatsoever between identity and individuality, since a social identity could be purely categorial/relational, without implying any individuality at all, in the sense of independence, boundedness, self-containedness, etc. Functions 5 (Intersensoriality) and 6 (Sexual Excitability). These two functions may be dealt with together, and that only very briefly. This is not because they are unimportant, but because they can more profitably be considered later, in relation to more specific data. Essentially,these functions are relevant to tattooing because tattooing is always localized on some part of the body envelope, and the placement of tattoo design is always a factor in understanding its significance. Function 7 (Libidinal Recharging). ;\!lissionaries in Polynesia, if not Polynesians themselvcs, left abundant testimony that they regarded tattO?i~g as a major incitement to vice and lewdness (Ellis 1831; Clavel 1885) It ISIII '(act true as will be described later, that tattooing ceremonies were followed by erotic di~plays,dancing, etc. and there is no lack of evidence that some, if not all, Polynesians resorted to tattooing for erotic purposes. . It is a moot point, though, whether libidinal recharging really fits the case, in the Polynesian context, because the concept of libido is not universally appropriate for understanding cultura1 representations of se.xualityoutside. our own system. I have not come across any evidence of the skin as a pressun~ed container of accumulated libido in the Polynesian sources, and I do not thmk they thought of desire in quite that way. None the less, the linkage between tattooing and the expression of se;\.Llalityis clear enough. How should OI~e interpret this linkage? It is altogether too simple (not to say circular) to put thiS
down. to. the tact tlldt :attooiflg bcautifi·esthe I>d d th ,I ',' t' h . ,(j v an us provokes th al lIura,lOn 0 t c opposite sc'x, Why should marked ki ' . e unmarked skin docs not?' s n provoke deSIre that
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,'l~rked, pattcrned, or scarred skin draws in the ' ~xcrClses the power of fascination, and lowers ~f the onlooker, Isolates and follows the mazy pathwavs of th I' dC ences. The eye . .' "h ' J' e (eslgn an eventually so t spca". t e body ' . th 0 ',' . ell!crs . . of the other , because th"c p ccuI"lanty 0f tatto' 1< ISJI1S11!c the skin rather than on its surl'.ace Th ' omg tS at ' ," " 1;', us to Vl(:wa tattoo is al d to h e III a pOSItIOnof seduction' it prov k h ' rea y k' 1 . ,0 es, not an aest etlc rcspon b dm~. of, b(IJdil)I',look~ng which is intrinsically sexualized especialh' w~eenu~ a eSI~'11IS oca !Zed III a wav wh' h f] '.. . e bod~ (i,e, in the light of tu~ctionl(6),re ects on the erotic posSIbilities of the , !\ot only is the act of looking a' a tattoo an a m~ltcment) to sexual intercourse. but the technical SCh:~ogu; (and. hence an a further series of anal(j
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events, social obligations, individual and collective relationships impinging on the social person, Thus a tattoo-let us say a tattOOwhich is purportedly there at the whim of the individual-'-is always a registration of an external social milieu, because it is only in relation to that milieu that the tattoo has meaning. The apparently self-willed tattoo always turns out to have been elicited by others, and to be a means of eliciting responses from others, the tattoo being the permanent record or trace of this process of social exchange as well as one means of conducting it. Tattoos register the impinging social milieu on the skin: sometimes tattooing is compulsory, in which case tattoos register power/authority relations; in other instances it is voluntary, in which case tattoos register the strivings of individuals in relativelyopen competition. In either case, however, the fact that tattoo designs are permanent inscriptions means that there is an affinitybetween them and that sense of commitment to certain overwhelming social demands which is not lacking-which is indeed often exaggerated-in the most 'competitive' systems. In Hawaii and New Zealand, where 's1ayes' were kept, they were tattooed in special ways, in effect branded. This is the extreme instance of the compulsioniauthority pole. But one cannot say that a Marquesan chief (and we will introduce later the testimony of one chief to this effect), the least 'constrained' Polynesian imaginable, could afford not to get tattooed. Obligation takes many forms: subjection is inescapable, even when it Seems to come in the guise of the most absolute autonomy, Tattooing is the objectiw correlative and permanent reminder of the inescapable. Function 9 (Self-destruction). From the dermatologist's point of view tattooing is a self-inflicted skin disease; from the point of view of a psychiatJic specialist it is masochistic self-punishment; while the sociologist of criminality sees it as a voluntary act of social self-stigmatization. The tattooed skin may indeed by considered as the skin turned against its owner or, more precisely, the subject turned against himself via his own skin. This negatiye evaluation is evidently shared by a number of the tattooed themselves. Experimental programmes dispensing free tattoo-removal operations in prisonsd!ew-an enthusiastic response and it is recorded that as many as 83 per cent of affected prisoners interviewed expressed a wish that they had neyer acquired their tattoos (Maertens 1978). This ought to occasion no surprise, since as I have just noted, the prisoner's tattooing is the physical registration of the objective milieu which dictates his lifestyle and criminality. What these prisoners are really saying is that they wish they could somehow have a';oided becoming criminals. The tattoo is the consequence of the exercist: of the prison~r's own will oyer his body so, equally, is his incarceration. Tattooing regarded as a fOim of self-stigmatization is not so much a special masochistic , syndrome' as a paradigm case of the paradoxical situation in which a stigmatized existence is determined by factors beyond the subject's control while, at the same time, the responsibility for the subject's predicament lies in-
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has been applied externallyi prior to being absorbed into the interior. The basic schema of tattooing is t)lus definable as the exteriorization of the interior '\'!!! .. which ilsim\lhaneoUSJy~ IIlterit»iladon oftht~. , ',. ,: ,,,: 0' OnecaD tllisasa,~ of , d!!~. of 1Il.!DI-layer by folding the skin.~t~i~lf, ma de of an o~e and· arioutside oran inside. (For an analogous idea, cr. Mosko 1985.) This double skin folded over on itself, creates the possibilily of an endless elaboration of inte;acting components of the social person. The body..multiplies; additional organs and subsidiary selves are created; spiritS, ancestors, rulers and victims take up residence in an integument which begins to take on a life of its own. External powers impose themselves and leave their indelible traces; they are everted and turned back against themselves in a display of defiant subservience, passive heroism, pitiable grandeur. The character armour is in place. It is time to turn to the task of understanding in more detail the rich variety of forms this armour assumed in Polynesia.
esrapably with him and his own acts of will. However, the self-destruction fun('tio~1in relation to tattooing is less salient in the Polynesian material, as one mIght el-pect, since this analysis, applies mainly to highly stigmadZed sllbcultures such as prison inmates, rather thlll to the generality of the tattooed population, even in the West.
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I trust that the exercise of looking at the tattooing implications of Anzieu's nine functions of the skin-ego will have served to indicate some of the many ways in which tattoos can signify. But there is still a little more which needs sa)ing, because Anzieu is not specifically concerned with tattooing, but only wI1hthe skm In general, and it is necessary, before turning to the detail of the Po!vnesian material. to direct the spotlight once again on the technical aspect of tattooing. The defining feature of tattooing is that it is the making of indelible pigmented traces which arc inside or underneath the skin. The tattooing-tool goes through the skin, the ink is absorbed into the interior of the body, and remains there, subsequently being inaccessible from the outside but still visible, behind what seems like a transparent layer. In terms of the b~ic bodyimage of the subject, tattooing produces a paradoxical double skin. One can see this as an artefactual skin, a protective lay!,:rlike dothes. Tattooing (as skin-covering) is certainly in some ways cognate with dothingthe analogy frequently struck early European observers encountering tattooing for the first time. As will be described in later chapters, the Polynesians did not regard their tattoos as Ersatz der Kleidernng in Von den Steinen's phrase. But they certainly did see tattoos as coverings, wrappings, shells, etc. in a wide variety of ways, so the European perception of tattoos as clothes was not wholly off the mark. Where the European observers were wrong was in assuming that feelings of modesty provided the motive for becoming tattooed, rather than a need to be protected, sealed off, defended from external threats, i.e. armoured. This fundamental idea, so far as Polynesian tattooing is con~ern~d, is perhaps most pithily encapsulated in the Marquesan expression dcslgnatmg the whole-body tattooing 'suit' worn by Marquesail men:pahu tiki ('wrappings in images'). This theme will be elaborated at length later. But despite the fundamental nature of the scheme transfers between natural coverings (shells), artefactual coverings (clothes), and tattooing, it remains equally important not to lose sight of the fact that the skin and the tattoo are integrally one and indhisible. Tattooing can only be aeen when the wearer is naked, and it would be trucr to say that it draws attention to nakedness than that it functions to conceal it. And what tattooing reveals, beyond th; revelation of nudity itself, is an inside which comes from the outside, which
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