Pakeha Ta Moko: A History of the Europeans Traditionally
Tattooed by Maori
by Trevor Bentley
This book explores the hidden history of the European men
and women who were traditionally tattooed by Maori in 19th century New Zealand.
Tattooing might seem an unusual subject for an historian, but it was one of the
most effective methods Maori used to assimilate Pakehas captives and voluntary
culture-crossers into their communities.
While the book describes the Pakeha women and girls who
received chin, lip and body moko moko, its primary focus is the lives and fates
of the 58 Pakeha men identified to date who were incised with ta moko or full-face
tattoos. The tattooing range in location from Northland to Foveaux Strait, and
chronologically from 1777, when one of Cook’s runaway sailors was ‘tattowed
head to toe’ at Queen Charlotte Sound, to the 1870s, when the last Pakeha men
and women adorned with puhoro-raperape (buttock and thigh moko) were seen and
reported.
Many Pacific Islands had their semi-indigenised, tattooed
beachcombers and in the Marquesas, a number received facial tatau. What set New
Zealand apart was the large number of Europeans who became Pakeha-Maori
(Europeans gone native) and acquired body and limb moko. Additionally, more
Pakeha males were tattooed on the face in New Zealand than anywhere else among
the islands of Oceania. Given the numbers of European men and women who crossed
cultures semi permanently and permanently in 19th century New Zealand, those
described in this work represent but a portion of their original number.
Pakeha men and women with face tattoos are an elusive
minority and this work draws on a myriad of sources, including contemporary
accounts by Maori, Pakeha and Pakeha-Maori who witnessed and described the moko
ritual and/or were themselves tattooed. It also draws on numerous published
primary sources as well as the works of Maori and Pakeha historians,
anthropologists and moko/tattoo scholars and practitioners, past and present,
whose contributions are evident in the text and bibliography.
The book is, in part, a testament of respect to the
courage and adaptability of the European men and women who crossed cultures to
live and die as tattooed Pakeha-Maori, far from their original kinsfolk and
native lands. It is also a testament to the Maori cultural practices of
manaakitanga and whanaungatanga, whereby disoriented and vulnerable European shipwreck
survivors, captives, runaway sailors and fugitive convict men and women were
reassured, shown kindness and integrated into Maori families and communities.
Tauranga Connections
The area between Motiti Island and Mt Maunganui was a
main anchorage for whaling vessels seeking provisions in the Bay of Plenty
during the early 1800s. Tauranga’s first non-Maori resident was probably
‘Robson’, a convict who fled ashore from the pirated NSW brig Mercury during
the early 1820s and became a trading intermediary. When the Sydney whaler Caroline
anchored to trade pigs and potatoes for muskets and lead in 1827, the sailor
James Heberley recorded that Robson had ‘got tattooed like the natives’.
Robson’s fate is unknown, unlike that of the Ngati Porou
flax trader Barnet Burns. Burns claimed to have had one quarter of his face
tattooed after being captured by a Ngai Te Rangi raiding party near the Motu
River entrance around 1832. He alone survived the attack on his Maori trading
party. Held captive for several months, almost certainly at Tauranga, he was
befriended by a wahine rangatira who saved his life after he had been caught
trying to escape.
 |
Barnet Burn’s
elaborate ta moko incorporated both Ngati Porou and Ngai Te Rangi motifs
J. Sutcliffe, ‘Pahe A Rance, The New Zealand chief Barnet Burns’, B-110-061-a,
Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington |
Burns’ Ngai Te Rangi captors insisted that he be tattooed
like them, trade and fight for them ‘and in every way become a member of the
tribe’. Burns finally consented, and the ta moko operation immediately began.
The tohunga ta moko cut his patterns with bone chisels, a process he described
as ‘tedious and painful’. Escaping during a storm, Burns eluded his pursuers and
following an arduous, barefoot journey, he returned to Ngati Porou and the East
Coast where the remainder of his ta moko was completed.
Though based at Maketu during the 1830s, the Danish
trader Phillip Tapsell frequently exchanged muskets and munitions for flax at
Tauranga, either in person or through his agent James Farrow at Otumoetai Pa. Tapsell’s integration into te ao Maori (the world of
Maori), was typical of that made by trader Pakeha-Maori, John B. Williams, the
American Consul at the Bay of Islands noted in 1842, [he putting] ‘himself on a
footing with the Chiefs, allowing his hair and beard to grow long, having
himself occasionally tattooed, assuming the authority of king [and] proclaiming
himself as such’.
Pakeha women fully integrated into Maori
communities as whangai or adoptees in the Bay of Plenty during the 1800s, were
gifted chin and lip tattoos (moko kauae and ngutu purua) if they had served
their communities well, were considered deserving and understood the
significance of the designs.
In 1864 Major Horatio Robley, a British Army
officer and artist, was present in Tauranga during the battles of Gate Pa and
Te Ranga. While stationed at Te Papa he encountered a Pakeha woman who had
married a sailor named Anaru in Sydney
and was living nearby in one of the local pa. Robley reported that she had not yet received the womens’
moko kauae or chin moko, suggesting that in due course she may have become
eligible.
This privilege may have previously been
extended to a fugitive convict woman who, along with two male companions, made
their way to the Bay of Plenty during the 1810s and disappeared among the Te
Arawa people. This anonymous Bay of Plenty female culture-crosser was by no
means alone. According to the Te Arawa knowledge keeper Tui Ranapiri-Ransfield:
The Pakeha women we adopted were
expected to marry and become part of the community in every way, including moko
and haka. Because they were raised as Maori, and had Maori children and
grandchildren, they became part of our whakapapa [genealogy] right down to
their receiving land that was gifted or inherited. They do not appear in our
whakapapa as Pakeha, but as Maori tupuna [ancestors], because that is what they
became and that is how we remember them.
The Author
As many readers know,
Trevor Bentley is a member of the society and an active contributor to this blog. He has a special interest in researching and writing about the interaction of
Maori and Pakeha in 19th century New Zealand as well as its maritime
and military history. Dr Bentley is the author of six previous New Zealand
history books. His interest in New Zealand history began as a teenager when he
read Frederick Maning’s rollicking colonial classic, Old New Zealand: A Tale
of the Good Old Times by a Pakeha Maori (1863).
Book Details
Pakeha Ta Moko is currently available at all
good New Zealand bookshops.
Bentley, Trevor, Pakeha Ta Moko: A
History of the Europeans Traditionally Tattooed by Maori, Upstart Press,
Auckland, 2022.
ISBN 978-1-990003-69-1
