Passage I

PROSE FICTION: This passage is adapted from the short story “Tattoo” by Rai a Mai (@2006 by University of Hawaii Press).

The first time I heard about tattoo, I was still a little girl. My grandmother was telling me that the last woman in Polynesia to have the face entirely tattooed in those days was living in Hiva‘Oa.

“She would often come down to the village by the shore. Maybe because she loved the ocean... Her whole face was tattooed and her hands and feet. For the body, I could not tell because she was always wrapped in tapa cloth. I used to play with the other village children at the shore. And she would come and just sit there, under the sun, for hours. She would stare silently at the sea. Not moving. Not talking. Not smiling. Not looking at anyone. Her eyes on the sea, as if captivated by these ever-rolling waves. Her body leaning with intensity toward the ocean, as if her whole being was listening to something we could not hear.

“I like people who can sit under the sun without moving and without talking, their eyes filled with dreams from another world ...

“I was probably about your age when my parents decided to migrate to the Marquesas Islands. You know, child, the people over there have skin different from ours. Mine is black. This is Pa‘umotu skin! Yours is white because you have in you the mixed blood of your ancestors. But theirs is a beautiful reddish color, like ahi mono‘i, made from sandalwood and powder. The way they speak is also different. When they speak, you hear a song. They sound like the white birds that fly over the cliffs along the shoreline just before the rain.

“Yes...I do like people who can sit under the sun without moving and without talking, their eyes filled with dreams from another world ...

“So when we played tāpō, I would hide behind a rock not too far away from the tattoo lady and I would imitate her. I would sit against the rock and feel the pleasure of the sunrays trapped in the rock warming my back. I’d close my eyes, breathe deeply, and feel the sunrays on my eyelids. Then I would open my eyes again and just stare at the sea ... I tried to hear what she was hearing ...

“But you see, child, I didn’t have any tattoo around my eyes, and I couldn’t see what she saw. I didn’t have any tattoo around my lips and on my chin, and I couldn’t shut my mouth for very long. I didn’t have any tattoo on my forehead, and I couldn’t concentrate on the ocean’s language.

“Sometimes the tattoo lady would lift her hands up toward the sky. And from her hands would dance a few words among the clouds from Heaven. See, child, her hands were beautifully tattooed on the side of the palm and along the small fingers. At times, she would catch a word and bring it back to her chest, as if to bury it in her heart.

“I would see, then, tears run along the tattoo on her face ...

“So I went to see my father and told him that I wanted a tattoo somewhere on my body. I said that I wanted to be able to hear what others couldn’t hear. I said that I wanted to catch the words from among the 60 clouds from Heaven.

“My father looked at me, opened his mouth. But no word came out of it. Then he closed his mouth again and just looked at me. He drew me against him and sat me on his lap. With his arms wrapped around me, he chanted. He sang like the white birds that fly over the cliffs along the shoreline just before the rain.

“Then he said, ‘We used to tell our story on our body. And people and heavens would know who we were. They would recognize us. But nowadays, stories and words are written in books. The words are caught directly from our memories and written with ink on paper. You don’t need to catch the words in the clouds from Heaven any longer. They are here!’ And he pointed a finger to my forehead.

“So you see, child,” my grandmother went on, “today no one has Polynesian tattoo on their body anymore. Well . . . some men bring back tattoo from the army. But theirs tell not of war; they speak of love and broken hearts. They draw a heart pierced by an arrow . . . They draw the name of a woman they fell in love with ... They are unfinished designs. In fact, nobody knows how to tattoo the way our ancestors did. They have forgotten.

“Our word tātau has traveled all over the world and is known by all the nations. It has become such a part of everyone’s language that people have forgotten that originally this word was a Polynesian word: tātau! tātau has disappeared from our memories ...

“And you know what? I was never able to catch any words: neither in books nor from among the clouds from Heaven.”

As I listened to my grandmother, I looked at her naked black hands and I felt the desire for words to grow inside me.