Ashtabula telegraph. (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1874-1880, 1879-06-06
rATrOOING As a FINE ART.

TAT1UOING AS A, FINE ART.
MAN in his primitive state exhibits
many instincts and customs which civ
nization modiies, if not entirely dissi-
pates. One of the curious customs
which obtain among savage people, is
the habit of tattooing, or marking the
person, generally out Of vanity, partly
in case of mourning.
Those very remarkable people, the
Jews, seem to have been very fond Of
marking themselves. Moses distinctly
tells them they shall not do this. Lee
viticus may be said to be consolidated
act, and the ritual is so strict that he
lays down laws even for individual
dress, thus: "Ye shall not round the
corners Of your heads, neither shalt
thou mar the corners of thy beard; ye
shall not make any cuttings in your
flesh for the dead, nor print any marks
upon you." From this, therefore, it
seems probable that some custom re-
sembling tsttooing was prscticed in
the time OF Moses, at the time of the
Exodus, 1870 B. c., or 3,S68 years ago
l don't think the Jews could have
learned this from the Egyptians. Mr..
Douglas Murray, who has been to
Egypt many times, and given great at
tention to the drawings of the sculp-
lures, thinks that the Egyptian priests,
in carrying out their splendid ritual,
would never think of cutting them
selves.
am induced 10 make these rem arks
on the ornamentation of the human
body, being requested by Mr.. Jsmrach
to describe q magnificent specimen of
a head Of q New Zealander which had
lately come into his possession. The
head is dried up so that the skin ap-
pears like piece of parchment taken
from an illustrated missal. The hair
is q rusty black, had been worn in
curls, and is still curly. A mark ap-
pears round the front of the head as
though 8 fillet had at one time been
tied on. The nose has been stuffed out
of its natural dimensions, but yet it
looks somewhat shrunk in. The lips
in process of drying have been so ar
ranged as to show the teeth, which
are exceedingly white, very regular
and quite perfect. The ears are much
shrunk, but they are perforated with
round hole big enough to admit the
pointed end of cedar pencil. The
face is tattooed in a most beautiful
manner. a straight line runs from
the middle of the forehead to the
middle of the nose; toward this the
lines on the nose converge either in a
zigzag or straight direction. The
oh 1T,
temple.
Upon the cheeks the marking some
what resembles the fguIe eight; round
the mouth we observe rings. A dark
line is taken from each angle of the
cheek, and this line gives off other lines
upward toward the nose and downward
toward the chin. At each angle Of the
nose there is an elegant marking, rep
resenting very much an ordinary watch
spring. Even in its present state these
tattoo marks give the face a particu-
larly ferocious appearance. In life
they must have made the eountenanee
of this savage very terrific, if not
diabolical in appearance.
Of late years the tattooed heads !"
new kfodln1ttcIS lllNf 'JCCn hCt SCdACG-
The infiueEcc uf civilization seems to
have almost done away with the native
customs Of the New Zealanders. d.
not think that the tattooed heads Of the
New Zealanders were at all known in
this country before Capt. Cooks zine.
Ny authority for Sa4jDg this is that the
late DR.: Kidd, reg;ns professor Of
anatomy in the University of Oxford,
told me so when attending his lectures
in the anatomy school at Christ Church.
In this museum there used to be two
very fine heads of NewZealanders, and
DR.. Kidd pointed out to this class that
one OF these heads had been tattooea
after death. The reason for his COM
ing to this conclusion was that in the
case where the markings had been
done before death the lines showed as
distinct hollow grooves; in the case
where the marking had been done after
death they did not appear as grooves,
but as patterns in the skin itself. The
reason of this is, of course, that the
euticle, or searf-skin, in the live man
had grown over the cuts, and, as it
were, vanished them over.
The word tattoo is first mentioned in
Capt. Cooks account Of the South Sea
Islanders. Capt. Cook began his voy-
ages in 1868, and finished them in 1771.
The operation is called tattoOing, and
appears to be formed in the duplica-
ton of the Polynesian verb Sta"
meaning to strike. This may possibly
be the origin of the word "tattoO" as
applied to the peculiar beating Of
drum. Capt Cook writes: The pTac-
tice of tattOOing. or puncturing the
body, prevails among these people
(the Sandwich Islanders), and Of all
the islands in this ocean, it is only at
New Zealand and the Sandwich Isles
that the face is tattoOed. There is this
difference between these two nations that
the New Zealanders perform this oper-
alton in elegant spiral volutes, and the
Sandwich Islanders in straight lines
that intersect each other at right an
giles. Some of the natives have half
their bodies, from head to foot, tat
tooed. This gives them most strik-
ing appearance"
Now comes a most interesting para
graph, which may possibly be brought
to bear upon the argument that the
New Zealanders are descended from
the ten lost tribes of Israel. We have
seen above how very strictly Moses for
bade tattOoing as marks of mourning.
On this point Capt. Cook writes, and it
is strange piece of evidence: 1--WE
have some reason to imagine that the
practice of tattooing is often intended
as a sign of mourning, on the decease
Of Chief or any other calamitous oc-
currence."
In work entitled 'The New Zeal
ander," published by Charles Knight,
in 1880, find some sketches of tat
tooing instruments. They appear to
be very like combs of different sizes,
only that the points of the teeth of the
comb are very sharp. 1t appears that,
in 1916, 3 sailor Of the name of Ruther-
ford was captured by the natives, and
remained with them some ten years.
At the end of this time, out of compli-
nlent, they tattooed him. The follow
ing is an account of the operation;
Having taken a piece of charcoal
and rubbed it upon stone, with a lit
tie water, 80 as to produce a thick
liquid, they dipped into it an instru-
ment made of bone, with sharp edge
like chisel, and shaped in the fashion
of a garden hoe. They then applied