Tattooing Kit
date: label: Accession Date
content: 17 Jan 2017
name: label: Donor Name
content: Su'a Uilisone Fitiao
notes: label: Notes
content: Traditional Samoan tattooing kit with 10 parts, each piece made by the donor, Su'a Tupuola Ulisone Fitiao. He described the pieces as follows: 1) Tuluma. Wooden container. A cylindrical container, carved with linear geometric patterns. It is open on both ends. Made from wood of the milo tree, used to carry the tools safely. [Note that the tools are currently kept tucked inside this container, kept in place with a piece of barkcloth]. 2) Au mogo: small tattoo instrument. Made from wood of fetau tree, turtle shell, and boar's tusk (needles). Used for making small details in the skin. 3) Au sogiaso: medium tattoo instrument. Made from wood of fetau tree, turtle shell, and boar's tusk (needles). Used for making curved lines on the body, for creating larger patterns that go into larger spaces on the body, and to shade smaller areas of the body that the larger au cannot fit. 4) Au lau lua: medium large tattoo instrument. Made from wood of fetau tree, turtle shell, and boar's tusk (needles). Used for making long straight lines on the body, and also as a shader. 5) Au tapulu: large tattoo instrument. Made from wood of fetau tree, turtle shell, and boar's tusk (needles). Used for filling in solid large areas of the body. 6) Sausau: tapping instrument. Made from wood of the olasina tree. Used to tap the au (tattoo instrument) when tattooing. 7) Ipu popo: container. Made of coconut shell. Used to carry the lama (black dye) for tattooing. 8) Tulaga: stand for the container, ipu popo. Made of coconut shell. Used to steady the container of black dye to keep it from spilling. 9) Autu'i: stirrer. Made from wood of the fau tree. Used to prepare the lama (black dye) by stirring the water with the soot of the candlenut. 10) Vatu'e: file. Made of sea urchin spine. Used to file the boar's tusk [needles on the au (tattoo instrument)] to make them sharp.
label: Record Last Modified
content: 16 Jun 2017
label: Specimen Count
content: 10
place: label: Place
content: Pago Pago / Matuu Village, Tutuila Island, American Samoa, United States, Polynesia
topic: label: Topic
content: Ethnology
culture: label: Culture
content: Samoan
setName: label: See more items in
content: Anthropology
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: NMNH - Anthropology Dept.
identifier: label: Accession Number
content: 2071956
label: USNM Number
content: E434510-0
objectType: label: Object Type
content: Tattoo Set
physicalDescription: label: Height - Wooden Container
content: 32.5 cm
label: Maximum Diameter - Wooden Container
content: 17 cm
label: Length - Largest Tattoo Instrument
content: 27 cm
label: Width - Largest Tattoo Instrument
content: 5 cm
label: Height - Largest Tattoo Instrument
content: 7 cm