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Tā moko: The art and practice of Māori tattoo

The Māori origins of tā moko are found in the kōrero tuku iho of Niwareka and Mataora. After striking Niwareka, Mataora followed her to the underworld, where her father Uetonga – a master of tattooing – had his face marked. When Mataora and Niwareka returned to the surface world, he brought the art of tā moko with him. Mataora means ‘living face’.

Across the Pacific, tattooing used uhi dipped in pigment and tapped into the skin with tā. The comb teeth pierced the skin to deposit pigment, and Māori brought this method from Eastern Polynesia.

In Aotearoa, tā moko developed in isolation. Māori adapted the technique, using narrower uhi to cut grooves into the skin before applying pigment. When applied to the face, this became a form of scarification – similar to wood carving – creating deep, grooved patterns stained with pigment.

Find out more about tā moko in the Te Papa collections.

  • Tattooing instruments in a leather case

    How the tools and process of tāmoko changed

    The tattooing process itself changed early in the contact period, and certainly by the 1840s metals started to replace bone in the manufacture of uhi, tattooing chisels, and combs.

  • A painting of a man who has a facial tattoo and is wearing a bowler hat. The painting is in a frame that has Māori carving on it.

    Biography of the painter Charles Frederick Goldie

    Charles Goldie is one of this country’s most controversial artists, both denounced and praised by various critics, and is considered the leading portrait painter of Māori, renowned for his technical brilliance. Goldie thought that Māori were about to die out or be assimilated by Pākehā, and that he was recording the last survivors. In fact, the Māori population increased during the early part of the twentieth century, and this “old-time” Māori was largely his own creation. Now, many Māori see Goldie's works as taonga (treasures) representing irreplaceable ancestral images of koroua and kuia (elders) which, for Māori, have special significance. 

  • Two men are standing either side of a carving that is laid on a pillow. There is a museum store space in the background.

    Tā Moko Panel: Tales from Te Papa

    Te Papa is home to many precious carved taonga (treasures), although none quite like the impressive three-dimensional faces of the Tā Moko panel carved by Ngāti Tarāwhai master carver Tene Waitere, a master carver from Lake Rotoiti, who experimented with both composition and technique. Then Curator Arapata Hakiwai talks with James Schuster, the great-great-grandson of Tene Waitere, about the panel.

  • Black and white photo of five tattooed hands together

    Watch: Talking Tatau – Mana Wahine Panel

    Who said tattooing is ‘men’s’ work anyway? Watch a panel discussion from Te Papa inspired by the stories of women mark makers who are revitalising female tattooing in Aotearoa, Fiji, Papua New Guinea, and Sāmoa.

  • Full size model of a tattooed Marquesan warrior

    Tattooing in the Pacific

    Since the 1980s there has been a revival in tattooing across east Polynesia, and interest in Pacific tattoo designs has spread across the world.

  • Robert Jahnke (designer), Ranginui (stained glass window), 1997

    The Karanga Aotearoa Repatriation Programme

    Find out how the programme came into existence, how negotiations for repatriation are carried out, and what happens when the Māori and Moriori ancestral remains arrive at Te Papa.

  • A group of people enter a building. Three of them carry boxes

    Toi moko from Germany welcomed home at Te Papa

    Tue 3 Nov 2020

    Four toi moko (Māori ancestral heads) have been welcomed today in a solemn ceremony on Te Papa’s marae, after returning to New Zealand from Germany.

    Press release He pānui pāpāho