- In the Marquesas archipelago, the tattoo was a strong marker of identity. With the arrival of the colonizers, the ancestral custom was banished. Heretu and Teiki founded a tattoo school to pass on this tradition.
- In the Marquesas Islands, an archipelago in the Pacific a thousand leagues from any continent, the tattoo was a strong marker of identity. But with the arrival of the colonizers and missionaries, this ancestral custom was banished. Heretu Tetahiotupa and Teiki Huukena are the heralds of the rebirth of the art of tattooing in the Marquesas Islands and have recently founded a tattoo school to pass on the theoretical and practical foundations of this tradition. Their work is essential, as few people still know the meaning of traditional designs. The two Polynesians frequently roam the jungle of the island of Nuku Hiva, the archipelago's capital, in search of the remains of their ancestors and traces of ancestral designs. Living apart from any other civilization, the Marquesan people had created their own language and developed a system of symbols "inked" in the skin or engraved in the stone. These enigmatic signs, originating from tribes that had become extinct long ago, have for some crossed the centuries and open the doors to the past. It was in the fourth century that this archipelago in the Pacific was colonized by sailors from Western Polynesia. Today, the Marquesas are economically and politically linked to France, and are regularly supplied by cargo ships. In the past, they were controlled by cannibalistic South Sea people, whose members had full-body tattoos. Today, no one regrets the disappearance of such sacrifices. Body ornaments, on the other hand, are all the rage. Heretu is a pioneer in the movement to revive this practice. He has even had his face tattooed, like the elders. Will other Marquesans follow his example? Do warrior motifs have a place in modern society in the archipelago?
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By what name was Îles Marquises, le tatouage dans la peau (2022) officially released in Canada in English?
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