eck but transposed in drawing to right side for comparison with b: 1, rau teve with three lobes and small lozenge-shaped space left untattooed; 2, hour-glass motif with triangular spaces not filled in on each side; four to the middle line (3) with one on other side when Tupai refused to allow second half to be completed. b, rau teve of Pakitoa on right side: 1, rau teve with four lobes with upper part touching lower end of mastoid bone (4) and end 16 mm. from attachment of ear lobe (5); 2, hour-glass motif of which there are four, but midline of neck (3) passes through middle of fourth, c, rau teve of Tai Uritaua on right with four-lobed leaf and six hour-glass motifs of which the sixth (6) reaches the midline of the neck and the next (7) on the other side is outlined, not filled in. d, ruru: wrist pattern which completely encircled the right forearm of Pakitoa at the lower end of the radius; lines 1 mm. thick. e, ruru: pattern on back of left wrist of Pakitoa 56 mm. long, f, 'etu (star): five-pointed star on back of left hand of Pakitoa on ulnar side with rau teve on radial side; same as Mangaian maurua motif.
It is evident that ruru as a term for the pattern around the wrist was shared by people in all the islands, but inhabitants of each island express it in a different form. The difference in the other motifs used in individual islands is equally marked. Hence, though tattooing was shared by all, any set pattern that may have been used in the homeland was evidently not adhered to after diffusion of the people to the various islands of Polynesia.
Painting and Staining
On special occasions people rubbed parts of the body and the face with charcoal to darken it. Warriors did it to make themselves appear more ferocious. Sometimes it was used as a sign of mourning, and Cook (20, p. 204) records the following information from Atiu: "…upon seeing one man, who was painted all over a deep black colour, and inquiring the reason, our gentlemen were told, that he had lately been paying the last good offices to a deceased friend.…" The black soot from candlenut kernels used in tattooing was probably used as a paint instead of wood charcoal which was merely rubbed on.
Various other colors were also used, for Williams (81, p. 67) says of the people of Aitutaki who came out in canoes to meet his ship: "…Some were painted most fantastically, with pipe-clay and yellow and red ochre; others were smeared all over with charcoal, dancing, shouting, and exhibiting the most frantic gestures."
Williams (81, p. 175), in giving the Tahitian missionary Papeiha's account of a scene on a native temple in Rarotonga, says of the people gathered there: "Some had one side of their body blackened with charcoal, others were painted in stripes of all the colours they could procure. …"
During mourning, it was customary for the near of kin or intimate friends to exaggerate their grief for the deceased by cutting the skin with sharp shells or flakes to allow the flow of blood to relieve their feelings. The older women were particularly prone to this form of expression and Cook (20, p. 195) in speaking of women of advanced age in Atiu, says: "…many were cut, in oblique lines, all over the fore-part of the body; and some of the wounds, which formed rhomboidal figures, had been so lately inflicted, that the coagulated blood still remained in them."
These self-inflicted wounds were on the forepart of the body, and oblique lines were the natural direction in reaching across the body with the sharp shell. The rhomboidal figures were due to crossing the cuts rather than to design. When the wounds healed they left scars but such scars were merely the tokens of a grief custom and are not to be confounded with the ornamental scarification of Melanesia and other areas.