New Zealand/Aotearoa Maori tattoos made up part of the agenda for an unusual conference which took place on Tuesday at a Vatican university about the role of tattoos in shaping identity.
“Into the Skin: identity, symbols and history of permanent body marks” was the brainchild of a Christian arts association and Israel’s ambassador to the Holy See, an unlikely expert in the field given Judaism’s prohibition of tattooing and the painful role that tattooed serial numbers played in the Holocaust.
Speaking about Maori Tattoos, Sean Mallon, senior curator of Pacific culture at the Museum of New Zealand said, “Even today, many players of New Zealand’s All Blacks rugby team sport the traditional tattoos of the country’s Maori indigenous peoples….It’s a tangible way of expressing the past.”
The conference, held at the Vatican’s Pontifical Urbaniana University, just up the hill from St. Peter’s Square, marked the first of its kind and participants marveled that it came together at all given that the study of tattooing is a relatively new field of serious academic research.
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