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In the 1800′s European artist began returning from visits to the South Pacific with sketches of the copperline engravings or tattoos, that the native Polynesian Islanders adorned themselves with. Indeed, Queen Kamamalu herself had a tattoo put onto her tongue to show her deep and lasting grief when her mother in law died in the early 1800′s. As a missionary at that time, William Ellis watched as the procedure was performed. He commented to her that it looked to him that she should be in great pain. To this the queen replied “He eha nui no, he nui roa ra ku‘u aroha” or Great pain indeed, greater is my affection. 
Some of the earliest European explorers to the islands found that both men and women of these tropical paradises wore tattoos for a wide variety of reasons. They learned that although some of the tattoos were purely decorative but also found that some of the men were heavily tattooed on only one side of their bodies. An explorer wrote that they looked like men who had been half burnt, or dipped in ink from the tops of their heads to the soles of their feet. A Hawaiian historian by the name of Samuel Kamakau also noted that this solid black tattooing was known as Pahupahu and was commonly applied to warriors.
Oral history tells of warriors whom after being defeated in battle were than taken prisoner as well as beaten and tattooed. As the final disrespect their eyelids were turned up to have the inside tattooed. This form of tattooing was called Maku Uhi. Even some outcast who were born into slave caste were permanently marked with either the curved line on the bridge of the nose or a circle tattooed in the middle of the forehead, with curved lines as brackets on either side of the eyes.
Hopefully, some of the tattoos that you see today, such as the Maku Uhi can now be more easily understood than just, “that guy with the face tattoo!”
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