Veiqia
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.
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 the gift of a young womean's first liku (fringed skirt) to wear once their veiqia was complete.
Dauveiqia (also daubati) - the tattooists - were paid in masi (barkcloth), tabua (polished sperm whale teeth) or liku (fringed skirts).
[1]:1 Kingsley Roth, a British colonial administrator, described in his 1933 publication, that veiqia was marked onto young women's bodies at the time of puberty, or sometimes at the onset of menstruation.
[4][5]: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).
Notes made by Austrian anthropologist Anatole von Hügel describe the motifs in use in one region – Viti Levu Bay – in the mid-to-late-nineteenth century.
[1]:46 The tattooists, who were called dauveiqia, or also daubati,[10] were older women, whose expertise in creating the tattoos was held in high regard in Fijian society.
[1]: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).
[1]:44 In Tailevu, young women 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[12]) to make them purge, then given coconut milk.
Other materials used to puncture the skin included barracuda or shark teeth, or a sharp-toothed comb made from bone or turtle shell.
[1]:45 In the district of the Wainimala River on Viti Levu, the skin was punctured and ink made from the Acacia richii was then rubbed into the wound.
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.
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.
[1]:52 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.
This view was described in 1908 by colonial administrator Basil Thomson who recorded comments by Vatureba, who was chief of Nakasaleka on Viti Levu.
[15] 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.
[17] Fijian women were encouraged to adopt "Christian dress", by missionaries who equated European clothing with western concepts of dignity.
[4] The Australian newspaper, Evening News, reported in 1871 that five women were fined ten shillings for "tattooing a woman from the mountains".
[18] 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.
[17] By 1933, another colonial administrator, Kingsley Roth wrote that tattooing in Fiji was "a past art", although it went on "surreptitiously" in the provinces of Ra and Mathuata.
[22] Another example is the German trader 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.
[5]:314 In the 1870s 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, where his archive is held.
[1]:79 In 2015, curators Tarisi Vunidilo and Ema Tavola, alongside artists Joana Monolagi, Donita Hulme, Margaret Aull, Luisa Tora,[23] and Dulcie Stewart,[17] 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.
[24] As a result of this research artworks and interpretation produced by the project were exhibited at the St Paul Street Gallery in Auckland (New Zealand) in 2016.
