Veiqia

Ra enge, Fijian noblewoman, tattooed with veiqia (hips, buttocks and upper thighs) and qia gusu (mouth), by Theodor Kleinschmidt

Veiqia, or Weniqia, is a female tattooing practice from Fiji, where women who have reached puberty are tattooed in the groin and buttocks area by older female tattooing specialists called daubati or dauveiqia. The practice was prominent pre-colonisation, but it was discouraged in the nineteenth century by missionaries, some of whose activities took place under British colonial rule. By the early twentieth century, there was a single remaining tattooist, known as Rabali, who is recorded as being active between 1908 and 1910. The practice has undergone revival in the twenty-first century, led by the work of The Veiqia Project. Julia Mageʼau Gray is a modern daubati, who has tattooed modern veiqia to several Fijian women.

For Fijian people, the tattoos accentuated a woman's beauty across the stages of her life. Historically, if a woman did not have veiqia she might find it difficult to find a husband. If she died without them, they would be painted on her body after death, so her spirit could proceed into the afterlife. Receiving veiqia was highly ritualised, with many regional variations, and preparation for the process could include abstinence from food or from sexual relations, and purging of the body. The process of tattooing was closely associated with young women, who were also given their first liku to wear once their veiqia was complete. This short skirt, along with the veiqia, symbolised that they were now old enough and able to marry.

Special caves called qara ni veiqia were sometimes used for the ritual. The traditional medicines given to the young women also varied from region to region: some were part of preparation for the ritual, whereas others healed the skin. A wide range of natural materials were used to make the tools for incision and for the ink. To break the skin, some materials used included stingray spines, lemon thorns or shark teeth. Inks were made from Acacia richii or Kauri pine. In some areas, specific inks and tools were reserved for the veiqia of high status women. Motifs for tattoos included: stars, boats, turtles, ducks, wandering tattlers, pottery and basketwork. The tattoo practitioners were women, who were paid in masi (barkcloth), tabua (polished sperm whale teeth) or liku (fringed skirts).

Similar patterns to the veiqia were also replicated on barkcloth and wooden weapons. Veiqia had significant cultural impact outside Fiji. According to mythology, Peʻa, a Samoan tattoo practice, is based on veiqia. Whilst there is an important archive of veiqia research at the Fiji Museum, western museum collections hold many more artefacts relating to the practice than do institutions in its country of origin.

Description

Veiqia design (complete), 1876

Veiqia is a traditional form of tattooing that was exclusive to women in Fiji.^:1 Kingsley Roth, a British colonial administrator, was told that veiqia was marked onto young women's bodies at the time of puberty, or sometimes at the onset of menstruation. The practice demonstrated that the women were available for marriage and had physically reached sexual maturity.^:307 Typically, young women would receive veiqia in the groin and on the buttocks - areas that would normally be covered by a liku (fringed skirt). Veiqia practices varied regionally: marking the pubic area was recorded from the village of Nabukeru, on the island of Yasawa. Other regional variations limited the veiqia to only the area covered by a liku, for example in Ba and Rewa, whereas in the highlands of Viti Levu the veiqia extended to the hips, so the marks would be seen above and below the liku.^:307 It was only after tattooing that young women were permitted to wear a liku, and the whole process was closely linked to puberty and coming-of-age.^:44 Designs were also made around women's mouths - known as qia gusu, but rather than marking transition out of puberty, they were made to mark subsequent stages in a woman's life, such as marriage or childbirth.^:52

Motifs included in the tattoo designs were based on a range of patterns, reflecting nature and culture. Notes made by Anatole von Hügel describe the motifs in use in one area - Viti Levu Bay - in the mid-to-late-nineteenth century. They included: stars, boats, turtles, ducks, wandering tattlers, pottery and basketwork, amongst others.^:136-140 Regional variation was once again a factor, with veiqia patterns more elaborate inland, according to Constance Gordon-Cumming. The extent to which a woman was tattooed also varied: Gordon-Cumming reported that women at the coast only had "an exceedingly small display of tattooing ... so much as was compulsory".^:46

Ritual

Veiqia - female tattooing in Fiji, drawings by Theodor Kleinschmidt

The dauveiqia (also daubati - tattooists) were expert older women, who were held in high regard in Fijian society. One of the last traditional dauveiqia was Rabali, who was tattooing women between 1908 and 1910.^:152 The young woman due to be tattooed had to pay the dauveiqia in masi (tapa cloth), tabua (polished sperm whale teeth) or liku (fringed skirts). Although there was usually one woman applying the tattoos, other women might be present to hold the young girl still.^:45 Knowledge-holders of this tattooing practice worked regionally. For example, in the Wailevu river region, one specialist tattooed all the women, and she was a member of the maitaisu clan. No records remain for other areas, so it is not known if clan affiliation was important for the practitioners.^:45

Preparations for veiqia varied among Fijian regions and was highly ritualised.^:44 According to Kingsley Roth writing in 1933, near the Wainimala river, no preparation prior to tattooing was undertaken, but in Noiemalu district the pelvic areas due to be tattooed were rested for three days beforehand, then the skin was massaged prior to marking. For example, young girls in Naboubuco who were to receive veiqia, could not be menstruating and had to fast for 24 hours in advance of the procedure. During that fast, they also spent a night fishing for freshwater shrimp which they ate to break their fast. They were also required to bring their own lemon thorns to make the tattoing implements.^:44 In Tailevu, girls had to rest for four days with their legs elevated, were given plant medicines made from the Rewa tree (Cerbera manghas) and a leafy green called Boro (Solanum viride) to make them purge, then given coconut milk.^:44 On the day of the ritual Tailevu girls were fed food to constipate them, such as yam.^:45 The practitioners themselves also had to refrain from sexual relations for one day prior to their work.^:54

Special caves called qara ni veiqia were sometimes used as the location for the ritual. The process could take several weeks, or even months, since it was extremely painful and skin required time to heal between sessions.^:46 Pubic tattoos were made first, followed by the hips and buttocks.^:46 To support healing, the tattoos were not made all at once, rather work occurred for three days, followed by a rest for the skin to heal, then a return to the ritual depending on how quickly the skin adapted.^:46

Most often, four days after the veiqia was complete, there was a ceremonial feast. This was sometimes known as 'the shedding of the scales' and was when the scabs over the tattoos would come off and reveal the designs. The feast was often paid for the family of the man who the tattooed woman was intended to marry.^:47 It was at this feast where the newly-tattooed woman was presented with her first liku.^:48

Implements

Veiqia design (complete), 1876

The implements used showed regional variations. In the Noiemalu district on Viti Levu the instrument was called a bati (mbati is a former traditional spelling). It was shaped like a very small adze and the blade made from a lemon tree thorn. A wau (mallet) made from mbeta wood tapped the back of the bati, which punctured the skin. The handle for the bati could be made from reed. In Lau, the jitolo (another term for the mallet) was made from hibiscus wood; these mallets could also be made from stingray tail spines.^:45 Other materials used to puncture the skin included barracuda or shark teeth, or a sharp-toothed comb made from bone or turtle shell.^:45

In the district of the Wainimala River on Viti Levu, a different approach was taken; there, the skin was punctured and ink made from the Acacia richii was then rubbed into the wound. This was in contrast to other methods, where a blade was dipped in the ink. In Rewasau, the ink was made from the Kauri pine. An ink made from soot from burnt candlenuts was reserved for women of high social status.^:307 Ink was also blessed with prayers to the gods prior to the process.^:60 Some dauveiqia, such as Rabali, used soot to sketch designs on the bodies prior to beginning to tattoo.^:153

Tools were usually used for one specific woman's veiqia. Afterwards, for women in Viti Levu for example, they were given to the subject's mother, who kept them with other special objects from the young woman's childhood - such as her umbilical cord.^:48 For women from Vanua Levu, the masi (cloth used to wipe away blood and excess ink) was kept and then taken out to sea as part of a fishing trip and then thrown in the water.^:48 This was followed by a blessing usually given by the young woman's grandmother.^:48

For qia gusu (mouth tattoos), an 1878 account on Vita Levu described how a woman's head was held still while lemon thorns fastened to a reed were used to incise either side of her mouth using an ink made from the gum of Agathis vitiensis. For some women in other areas of Fiji, such as Nagadi, women were tattooed all round their mouths, not just in the corners.^:52

Cultural significance

Unknown Fijian woman with qia gusu (mouth tattoos), Vanua Levu, 1910-12, by Arthur Maurice Hocart

For Fijian people, veiqia did not just symbolise a woman's maturity - whether at puberty, marriage or motherhood - but were also believed to enhance women's beauty. If a woman were to be untattooed, she would have been historically viewed by wider Fijian society as unusual. Indeed the woman might have been unable to find a husband to marry her. This was view was described in 1908 by Basil Thomson who recorded comments by Vatureba, who was chief of Nakasaleka on Viti Levu. He reportedly said that "the idea of marriage with an untattooed woman filled him with disgust". Vatureba also perceived women with tattoos as more sexually passionate.^:53 If a woman died who had not received veiqia, at burial her body was painted with designs so that the gods would not punish her in the afterlife.^:307

The process of acquiring veiqia was undoubtedly painful, and the suffering the women underwent was important to the process, since it was seen that toleration of the pain transfrormed the young women between life stages. Indeed, veiqia were a source of pride for women.^:55 The veiqia, especially at the mouth, might be altered at other stages of women's lives, such as childbirth - the length of the liku would also be extended. Young women from families of the chief would receive the veiqia and the liku when they were older than those of a lower social status.^:307

Veiqia designs were geometric and similar to those printed onto barkcloth or incised onto decorated weapons, such as clubs. The designs are meaningful and express cultural identity through their forms.

Samoan tattooing c.1895 - supposedly derived from veiqia

It also had a significant impact on communities outside the Fijian island group, who copied the styles. According to one Samoan tradition, it was two women from Fiji who travelled to Samoa, beginning the practice of malu. Legend states that the women were the conjoined twins, Taema and Tilafaiga, who were the daughters of Tokilagafanua, the shark-god, and his sister Hinatuafaga, the Moon. In another version, Taema and Tilafaiga travelled to Fiji, where they learnt the art of tattooing from two men Tufou and Filelei, who told them to "tattoo women, but not men", but on the return journey the twins made a mistake and reversed the phrase, leading a tradition of male tattooing in Samoa, known as Peʻa.

Missionaries, colonisation and decline

Nundua, a Fijian widow, tattooed with veiqia and qia gusu, drawing by Theodor Kleinschmidt

With the activities of missionaries and the introduction of Christianity, especially Methodism, veiqia was strongly discouraged, with those bearing the designs reportedly victimised. Fijian women were encouraged to adopt "Christian dress", by missionaries who equated European clothing with western concepts of dignity.^:318 As a result the practice began to become less common from the 1850s onwards. The Australian newspaper, Evening News, reported in 1871 that five women were fined ten shillings for "tattooing a woman from the mountains". By 1874 Fiji was part of the British Empire, and to some extent colonial administrators felt that the practice should be tolerated: citing that it was missionaries who often told Fijian women their tattoos were not allowed.^:108

British colonial administrator, Adolph Brewster, published Hill Tribes of Fiji in 1922, in which he recalled how when he arrived in Rewa and Mbua in 1870, middle-aged and older women were tattooed, but younger women were not. Brewster described the small elliptical mouth tattoos as "rougeish", but he regarded the broader sweeps around the mouth as a "disfigurement". However, the practice did continue, in secret, in several remote locations until the early twentieth century. One location was Bua province, where one of the last women to be tattooed was Bu Anaseini Diroko. By 1933, another colonial administrator, George Kingsley Roth wrote that tattooing in Fiji was "a past art", although it went on "surreptitiously" in the provinces of Ra and Mathuata.

It is important to also acknowledge that the history and practice of veiqia was largely recorded by people who were not indigenous to Fiji. One example is anthropologist Anne Buckland, who published an article in 1888 which discussed the transmission of tattooing from Fiji to Samoa. Another example is Theodor Kleinschmidt who made many drawings of veiqia, using them as evidence that the patterns created by inland inhabitants of Viti Levu were more elaborate than those of coastal communities.^:106 Women he drew included: Ra enge and her veiqia, qia gusu and other body modifications; Nundua and her veiqia and qia gusu, as well as several others.^:140

Museum collections

Illustration of and notes on Laniana's back tattoos, 1875-1876

During the nineteenth century, liku and records of veiqia began to be collected for museums primarily by non-Fijians. As anthropologist Karen Jacobs has observed "the tattooed body is hard to collect", so pratice is recorded through illustrations and the objects related to its practice. The largest record of veiqia was made by Anatole von Hügel, who became the first curator of the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (MAA) in Cambridge (UK), where his archive is held. Although Von Hügel made drawings in the field, some Fijian women also drew and recorded veiqia for him. Through careful comparison of archival drawings and von Hügel's notebooks, objects and drawings have been connected with the names of women whose veiqia were recorded. One woman, Laniana, whose veiqia are recorded, also travelled with von Hügel from 1875 to 1876.^:316-317 Other women mentioned by von Hügel included: Yasenati, who had a turtle motif on her cheek; Tikini, who had with firestick motifs on her arms; as well as others.^:142 Von Hügel was also himself tattooed by some Fijian women, and the tools that were used are in the MAA collection.^:147

In 1981, the then director of the Fiji Museum, Fergus Clunie, and his colleague Walesi Ligairi, recorded the veiqia of five eighty-year-old women at Vanua Levu. The women were all tattooed between 1908 and 1911 by Rabali, who was described at the time as the "last daubauti". The women chose to be anonymised once the record of their veiqia was created, in order to spare their families from perceived embarrassment.^:318

The South Australia Museum has bati (tattooing instruments) in its collection. Other museums which have also collected similar material include the Auckland Museum, New Zealand; the Pitt Rivers Museum, UK; and the Peabody Essex Museum, USA.^:304 The Peabody includes the collection of Benjamin Vanderford, who was captain of a trading vessel, and collected what is likely to be the earliest known liku.^:69 The United States Exploring Expedition (1840-1842) expanded knowledge of veiqia through collecting, and many of those objects are held in the Smithsonian.^:79

Revival and The Veiqia Project

Fiji Museum, Suva

In 2015 curators Tarisi Vunidilo and Ema Tavola, alongside artists Joana Monolagi, Donita Hulme, Margaret Aull, Luisa Tora, and Dulcie Stewart, initiated a research project to expand knowledge of veiqia and contemporary understanding of the practice, as well as drawing on its personal significance for them as Fijian women. Stewart, for example, is the great-great-granddaughter of Bu Anaseini Diroko who was tattooed in the early twentieth century.

Working as a collective, under the title The Veiqia Project, the group travelled to Suva, Fiji, to examine museum collections and speak to community leaders there. Artworks and interpretation produced by the project were exhibited at the St Paul Street Gallery in Auckland (New Zealand) in 2016. In 2017 the collective held an exhibition on veiqia at the Fiji Museum. A further instalment of the collective's work, curated by Luisa Tora, was exhibited in Christchurch in 2021, and was entitled iLakolako ni weniqia: a Veiqia Project Exhibition.

The work of The Veiqia Project has sparked a revival of interest in the tattooing practice, and a number of younger Fijian women are undergoing veiqia. Twenty-first century dauveiqia include Julia Mageʼau Gray. As of 2022 eight women were known to have full veiqia markings, all of which had been created by Mage'au Gray. Ema Tavola designed a veiqia tattoo for Margaret Aull to mark the death of her grandmother.^:158

External links

• The Veiqia Project
• Radio NZ: The Traditional Fijian Female Tattooing Practice of Veiqia
• Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology: Drawings and notes in Anatole von Hügel's hand on Fijian tattooing