Tattooing is common throughout the islands that make up Polynesia. However, each group of islands and peoples have their own customs, styles and traditional approaches to tattoo. The Maori tattoo technique, which is almost a cutting and scarring style of deeper grooved tattoo, is unique.
Maori tattoo – loosely described as moko – can be traced back mythological origin stories and have been passed on to the Maori from their Gods, who taught them the various types of tattoo and their significance.
English explorer Captain James Cook brought the word tattoo, which comes from the Samoan tatau, into Western culture by writing of them in his missives to the Queen, while his sailors brought back actual tattoos on the skin of their chests, arms and hands.