Like today we all have some form of a tattoo,a dot here a name there skulls and sacred hearts on the chest, but most people don't realize how tattooing came to be in the first place. In Samoan history the TATAU came to samoa by way of Fiji. The TATAU was the mark of maturity and of authority, like many things in nature we had great respect for them.

AKUA as it always has been first in daily lives of the polynesians, conquering the pacific ocean long before europeans arrived. They traded goods, weapons and some of the finest carvings the world has ever seen.

TATAU marked your rank amongst certain circles from ALI'I to the commoner, TATAU marked your place in polynesian society.

The arrival of the first christians marked the depletion of a once proud artform. Their greed fed idealism introduced shame, self mutilation ideas that nearly extracted tattooing from all polynesian nations.

Through it all the TATAU survived as it has been since the beginning, unbroken for thousands of years in the islands of the proud Samoan people.

Today the art has flourished and spread through out the world becoming acceptable, and for the most part respected as a fine art. The tools may have changed but every essence of it, is polynesia.

A great deal of respect is owed to the legendary Suluape Paulo who's efforts to reintroduce the traditional ways of the artform to other polynesians are making a strong comeback.

Connecting us to traditions long since confined in western influence. In a way this is our written language to educate future generations of our people's fragile culture and the importance of preservation of our proud history thousands of years in the making.

So before you get your next TATAU remember where it came from.

-Mike Fatutoa