42 thoughts on “What’s Big and Green and Bleeds all over?”

  13. Yo : i think it’s based on the maori’s technique , they didn’t use to tattoo the face but made engravings deep enough to create a wound/scar and they would rub “ink” over it to create dark toned scars ….
    that’s why modern maori’s have a soft face and the pictures/faces of the older maori people look old/beaten up and rough …

  14. Yo : i think it’s based on the maori’s technique , they didn’t use to tattoo the face but made engravings deep enough to create a wound/scar and they would rub “ink” over it to create dark toned scars ….
    that’s why modern maori’s have a soft face and the pictures/faces of the older maori people look old/beaten up and rough …

  17. Oh jeez, gotta weigh in on comment #3.

    Ko te mea tuatahi (firstly/the first thing), there is no ‘S’ in Te Reo Maori, the Maori language. The plural is distinguished from the singular is a number of ways, most commonly ‘te’ (the for a single thing) and ‘nga’ (the for any number of a thing). Also, the first vowel of a word is doubled to indicate the plural form of that thing, so “wahine” (woman) becomes “waahine” (women, said with stress on the first vowel). So “he wahine” is “a woman” but “he waahine” is “many women”. Te and Nga are used when formally naming something, such as Te Atua Wera (The Burning/Hot God, the name of an early contact period Maori prophet).

    Your use of the apostrophe and ‘S’ for the term “Maori’s” is considered offensive to Maori.

    Ko te mea tuarua, Maori didn’t rub ink into the cuts of ta moko. They had a separate uhi, or chisel, for inserting pigment.

    Ko te mea tuatoru, what’s this business about modern Maori having a soft face and our tupuna/ancestors looking “old/beaten up and rough”? Are you referring to the defined grooves of ta moko created using uhi?

    Our tupuna utilised steel uhi when steel became available. This created a less defined or “soft” scar compared to the original uhi koiwi/bone chisels. Either of these uhi were used on our tupuna.

    Our tupuna are beautiful. Their ta moko has been copied, stolen, commodified, pillaged, and all those other uncomfortable words, since the first contact between Maori and Pakeha. People wouldn’t have stolen those designs, and sometimes their very upoko/heads, if they weren’t beautiful so I don’t know about this whole “old/beaten up and rough” thing you’re talking about.

  18. Oh jeez, gotta weigh in on comment #3.

    Ko te mea tuatahi (firstly/the first thing), there is no ‘S’ in Te Reo Maori, the Maori language. The plural is distinguished from the singular is a number of ways, most commonly ‘te’ (the for a single thing) and ‘nga’ (the for any number of a thing). Also, the first vowel of a word is doubled to indicate the plural form of that thing, so “wahine” (woman) becomes “waahine” (women, said with stress on the first vowel). So “he wahine” is “a woman” but “he waahine” is “many women”. Te and Nga are used when formally naming something, such as Te Atua Wera (The Burning/Hot God, the name of an early contact period Maori prophet).

    Your use of the apostrophe and ‘S’ for the term “Maori’s” is considered offensive to Maori.

    Ko te mea tuarua, Maori didn’t rub ink into the cuts of ta moko. They had a separate uhi, or chisel, for inserting pigment.

    Ko te mea tuatoru, what’s this business about modern Maori having a soft face and our tupuna/ancestors looking “old/beaten up and rough”? Are you referring to the defined grooves of ta moko created using uhi?

    Our tupuna utilised steel uhi when steel became available. This created a less defined or “soft” scar compared to the original uhi koiwi/bone chisels. Either of these uhi were used on our tupuna.

    Our tupuna are beautiful. Their ta moko has been copied, stolen, commodified, pillaged, and all those other uncomfortable words, since the first contact between Maori and Pakeha. People wouldn’t have stolen those designs, and sometimes their very upoko/heads, if they weren’t beautiful so I don’t know about this whole “old/beaten up and rough” thing you’re talking about.

  21. …I rephrased that one too many times without reading… exclude the “are” obviously…

  22. …I rephrased that one too many times without reading… exclude the “are” obviously…

  25. i love how we just become ‘the maoris’ when other people talk about us like some extinct but fascinating primitive people, who rubbed ink on their beat up worn faces, danced exotic wild war dances, indulging in great ritualised cannibalistic feasts of boiled flesh, and all that wonderful stuff.. even those within the body modification community. there are so many who love how strangely beautiful ta moko is, but have no idea about reality. and living cultures. i am never surprised as to how amusingly bizzare the comments are from people from all over the world who know all about ‘the maoris’ from snippets from books passing on inaccurate secondhand information, and weird and wonderful 19th century contact period engravings that made their way back to civilisation from the antipodes. i guess we are so isolated here in the middle of the south pacific on the way to antarctica. its just sad that after 200 years tauiwi are still defining our practices and what ‘the maoris’ did/do.

    jon p, ki o kupu tautoko i te reo tuturu: second vowel is not always lengthened for plurals. is in the example of wahine/tane, but not a general rule. dont really need to school definitive articles and pluralising grammar for noobs who dont know the difference between possessive s’s and plural s, and write ‘the maoris’ anyway. but atleast someone said something about it.

    please please post some follow up pictures soon! gorgeous work. would love to see how that teal ink goes after a couple of months of healing. oslo love.

  26. i love how we just become ‘the maoris’ when other people talk about us like some extinct but fascinating primitive people, who rubbed ink on their beat up worn faces, danced exotic wild war dances, indulging in great ritualised cannibalistic feasts of boiled flesh, and all that wonderful stuff.. even those within the body modification community. there are so many who love how strangely beautiful ta moko is, but have no idea about reality. and living cultures. i am never surprised as to how amusingly bizzare the comments are from people from all over the world who know all about ‘the maoris’ from snippets from books passing on inaccurate secondhand information, and weird and wonderful 19th century contact period engravings that made their way back to civilisation from the antipodes. i guess we are so isolated here in the middle of the south pacific on the way to antarctica. its just sad that after 200 years tauiwi are still defining our practices and what ‘the maoris’ did/do.

    jon p, ki o kupu tautoko i te reo tuturu: second vowel is not always lengthened for plurals. is in the example of wahine/tane, but not a general rule. dont really need to school definitive articles and pluralising grammar for noobs who dont know the difference between possessive s’s and plural s, and write ‘the maoris’ anyway. but atleast someone said something about it.

    please please post some follow up pictures soon! gorgeous work. would love to see how that teal ink goes after a couple of months of healing. oslo love.

  27. Arohamai, Toroa. Kia ora mo tena. I’m a noob myself when it comes to te reo tuturu!

  28. Arohamai, Toroa. Kia ora mo tena. I’m a noob myself when it comes to te reo tuturu!

  29. Djeezes crhist , I was jus explaining some stuff that i read , freaking children ….
    and btw my native language is not English so i can’t know everything about stuff , like that ‘ S i’m useing !
    I’m just a human not a computer ….

    Did i say anuthing bad about maori people ?! NO so what the hell are you wining about …

  30. Djeezes crhist , I was jus explaining some stuff that i read , freaking children ….
    and btw my native language is not English so i can’t know everything about stuff , like that ‘ S i’m useing !
    I’m just a human not a computer ….

    Did i say anuthing bad about maori people ?! NO so what the hell are you wining about …

  35. Yeah then what did i say bad about them ?
    Did i offend them in any way that i could’ve known about ? NO !
    Are you the guy who knows everything and understands anything ? NO !

    fucking hell , like i said before i only said what i read somewhere.
    that’s the only thing , and i expect when reading a book about Maori people that the content of the book is true.
    If i don’t know than i’m unaware , unaware doesn’t mean i’m negative about them or saying something bad , i only don’t know it isn’t good ….

    but appearantly that’s kinda hard for you to understand …

  36. Yeah then what did i say bad about them ?
    Did i offend them in any way that i could’ve known about ? NO !
    Are you the guy who knows everything and understands anything ? NO !

    fucking hell , like i said before i only said what i read somewhere.
    that’s the only thing , and i expect when reading a book about Maori people that the content of the book is true.
    If i don’t know than i’m unaware , unaware doesn’t mean i’m negative about them or saying something bad , i only don’t know it isn’t good ….

    but appearantly that’s kinda hard for you to understand …

  37. Yeah then what did i say bad about them ?
    Did i offend them in any way that i could’ve known about ? NO !
    Are you the guy who knows everything and understands anything ? NO !

    fucking hell , like i said before i only said what i read somewhere.
    that’s the only thing , and i expect when reading a book about Maori people that the content of the book is true.
    If i don’t know than i’m unaware , unaware doesn’t mean i’m negative about them or saying something bad , i only don’t know it isn’t good ….

    but appearantly that’s kinda hard for you to understand …

  38. Yeah then what did i say bad about them ?
    Did i offend them in any way that i could’ve known about ? NO !
    Are you the guy who knows everything and understands anything ? NO !

    fucking hell , like i said before i only said what i read somewhere.
    that’s the only thing , and i expect when reading a book about Maori people that the content of the book is true.
    If i don’t know than i’m unaware , unaware doesn’t mean i’m negative about them or saying something bad , i only don’t know it isn’t good ….

    but appearantly that’s kinda hard for you to understand …

  39. Nah, but being Maori, I understand that most books about Maori are written by non-Maori and are therefore analytical in a very Western way which negates Maori views and values. So you shouldn’t expect to read a book about Maori and have everything in it be true. Relaying that information before you’ve cross-referenced it, even by doing something as simply as googling the information, is a bit daft.

    It’s the same as any book written about indigenous peoples by the non-indigenous. Real insights rest with those peoples and not those analysing them and their practises like some kind of curiosity.

    Anywho, I don’t claim to know everything, but I try to maintain a form of rigorous regime when it comes to my reading, and a lot of that reading is about te ao Maori among other things. Thus, if I can chime in with information, perhaps a correction that I’m confident is actually correct, I will do so. And when it comes to te ao Maori, if an incorrect assertion is made, I make a point of clearing up the error.

    Kia ora koe, kia ora mo to korero me whakaaro.

  40. Nah, but being Maori, I understand that most books about Maori are written by non-Maori and are therefore analytical in a very Western way which negates Maori views and values. So you shouldn’t expect to read a book about Maori and have everything in it be true. Relaying that information before you’ve cross-referenced it, even by doing something as simply as googling the information, is a bit daft.

    It’s the same as any book written about indigenous peoples by the non-indigenous. Real insights rest with those peoples and not those analysing them and their practises like some kind of curiosity.

    Anywho, I don’t claim to know everything, but I try to maintain a form of rigorous regime when it comes to my reading, and a lot of that reading is about te ao Maori among other things. Thus, if I can chime in with information, perhaps a correction that I’m confident is actually correct, I will do so. And when it comes to te ao Maori, if an incorrect assertion is made, I make a point of clearing up the error.

    Kia ora koe, kia ora mo to korero me whakaaro.

  41. Dear god, he’s from the other side of the world and your ripping on him for assuming what was in a published book was true? Just because you know more than the average person about maori culture doesn’t give you the right to be an ass. Chill out and do it nicely. Don’t give all of us from New Zealand a bad name.

  42. Dear god, he’s from the other side of the world and your ripping on him for assuming what was in a published book was true? Just because you know more than the average person about maori culture doesn’t give you the right to be an ass. Chill out and do it nicely. Don’t give all of us from New Zealand a bad name.

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