Tit for Tat

Several of the works we have read lately have shown the importance of tattoo in Pacific Culture. Several other students' blogs have already discussed this, talking about how a tattoo has deep meaning. What Wendt has made evident that I had not realized before however, is that a tattoo in itself is its own medium of literature. These markings on a person's body are just as meaningful and delicately constructed as a novel, short story, or poem.

I noticed this as I began reading Wendt's Afterword first. He gives an entire lecture on the origins, types, and meanings of the tattoo in his culture. This is no different then having someone speak about impressionist paintings or haiku poetry. He also goes through many of the individual characters that make up the Tatau and the Malu, just as someone would be teaching foreigners new characters in a language.

The experience of receiving a tattoo can also tell a story. Wendt mentions in this lecture that he only has one, small, modest tattoo. He received it from a prisoner yet it was unfinished, and afterward he "returned home to an angry father and, years later, to writing one of my first published stories, A Cross of Soot , which is based on that incident" (p. 410). Even a small unfinished tattoo such as his has much significance. He uses a short story to tell the tales of the tattoo in his culture, because even the experience of getting the tattoo is meaningful. Wendt has the ability to make a deep Christian meaning surround the tattoo, because just like a work of literature its form can be manipulated to give a specific message.

Wendt wants to alert people, especially those of Western culture, that the tattoo is much more meaningful than they might think. He even gives terminology to use, saying "much of what has been considered 'decoration' or 'adornment' by outsiders has to do with identity, status, age, religious beliefs, relationships to other art forms and the community and not to do with prettying yourself" (p. 400). We can see here how he says a tattoo relates to "other art forms", showing his clear belief in it as a work of art. He also says it is more than just decoration, just as a meaningful novelist would want to be distinguished from those "drugstore novels" authors write simply to make money. Who knows, perhaps one day people will begin a type of blogging and write short accounts of their experiences in tattoo form on a regular basis.