Non-fiction
Tattoo Traditions of Hawai’i Tricia Allen Mutual Publishing, 218 pp, $17.95
The traditional tattoos of the Pacific islands, known as kakau or tatau in Hawaiian, were practiced as far back as the first migrations into the area around 1500 BC, primarily in Fiji, Tonga and Samoa. Before the creation of a written language, tattoos told stories, denoted status and simply indicated a person’s cultural background and home, unlike the many tattoos today of scantily clad ladies or skulls that simply evoke attitude not heritage. As these early Polynesians moved east towards the other islands, the changing environments and adaptation to new lands and languages created unique symbols.
Tattoo Traditions of Hawai’i by tattoo artist Tricia Allen, attempts to tell the story of the heritage of people of the Hawaiian Islands. It is also a detailed, scholarly examination of the evolution of the art form–from its early beginnings and the primitive equipment employed by tattoo artists to the reaction and documentation of tattoos by the first European explorers.
The most fascinating aspect of the book, however, isn’t the thorough history, drawings and accounts of the sailors, but the brief, personal stories and photos of modern people that choose to be marked.
As a genre of tattooing, tatau is the most inclined to tell a story of family, ancestry and connections to the land and ocean through common signs, patterns and symbols. Using specific details, such as the directions in which shapes like triangles face and the relation of one basic element to another, tells others where the bearer of the tattoo comes from, what he does and even his lineage.
But many of the tataus are often hidden, and a cursory glance at the faces and style of dress of the person inked often tell little. The first-person accounts, often candid and always proud, shed some deserved light on people of native blood, people living in a multi-national city.
From archaeologists to musicians to judicial judges, these profiles of feeling people expressing their heritage through ink is faithfully and honestly collected by Allen in this academic and personal book.
Ka ‘Oihana Lawai’a: Hawaiian Fishing Traditions Daniel Kaha’uleio, translated by Mary Kawena Pukui Bishop Museum Press, 356 pp, $16.95
Fish is an important part of the Hawaiian diet, and the methods used to catch the wide variety of fish that live in our waters is largely one of practice, something shared and passed down to family and friends.
Daniel Kaha’uleio, a Maui native born in 1835, once wrote in his fishing column for the Hawaiian language newspaper Ka Nupepa Kuokuo that ‘going fishing is only interesting to knowledgeable people, and if those going are unskilled, they [will] return with crabs as their fish.’ If Kaha’ueleio’s detailed accounts of the techniques he and others used to catch fish as collected in Ka ‘Oihana Lawai’a: Hawaiian Fishing Traditions are any indication, it is unlikely he often came up empty-handed.
A judge in Lahaina, Kaha’uleio had fished his entire life, and at the request of the editor of Ka Nupepa Kuokuo, agreed to write a simple fishing column. What Kaha’uleio wrote so artfully and described in minute detail were not only the techniques of the fisherman, but he also provided readers with a glimpse into the local geography, peoples and beliefs.
From a discussion on the proper sizing of a net to the best way to tackle a current, Kaha’uleio is humble and his words are aimed at those not versed in fishing.
In the introduction, Kaha’uleio admits that he felt the tried-and-true techniques used by himself and other fishermen were being lost by his fellow Hawaiians, skills that were being learned by the Japanese instead. The Hawaiians of the time, according to Kaha’uleio, lacked the knowledge and the resources. He hoped to change that.
While he was trying to educate a new generation, what Kaha’uleio has also succeeded in doing is to bring to the modern reader, who more than likely buys his seafood at the supermarket, an appreciation for the art of fishing and the world of wonders surrounding it.
While Kaha’uleio’s anecdotes–from the details of torch fishing at night to the proper way to spear an octopus, which according to Kaha’uleio, is best eaten raw with a bit of sweet potato–are certainly interesting to those who fish today, for those not inclined to use a hook and line but who are willing to wade through the author’s precise details, the book is equally as valuable and insightful. Through Kaha’uleio’s words, the modern reader will slowly come to understand the day-to-day life of the local fisherman.
With the advent of commercial fishing, a growing reliance on imported foods and, most significantly, a decline in the practice of traditional local culture, Ka ‘Oihana Lawai’a brings together this important, yet fading, facet of Hawaiian life.
