Ta Moko

Ta moko is Maori tattooing, and the designs are not decoration borrowed from a flash sheet. They carry whakapapa, the lines of descent that place a person in a family, a hapu and an iwi, along with personal history, so no two are alike. Traditionally the skin was cut with uhi, small chisels of bone, leaving grooved rather than smooth marks; most work today uses a machine, though some artists have returned to uhi. Facial moko, mataora for men and kauae on women's chins, declined sharply through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and has been strongly revived since the 1990s, to the point where kauae moko is now unremarkable in public life.

What you actually see

• Kauae moko - chin moko worn by Maori women, seen in daily life rather than in staged settings.
• Uhi tools - the bone chisels held in museum collections, alongside older portraits and photographs.
• The design vocabulary - the same spirals and patterns that run through carving and weaving.
• Kirituhi - Maori-styled work made for people without Maori descent, named differently on purpose.

When to go

There is nothing to time. Museums in Auckland, Wellington and Rotorua hold the historic material year-round, and Maori arts festivals and Matariki events in June and July often include artists talking about their practice. Galleries in Rotorua and Gisborne show contemporary work. If you want to understand any of it, read before you look rather than after.

Honest expectations

This is not a souvenir experience. Photographing a stranger's moko without asking is intrusive, however striking it looks. Reputable artists work through long consultation and will not put Maori designs on a walk-in visitor, which disappoints people who arrive expecting a traditional tattoo on demand. What is sold to tourists as Maori-style flash art is usually neither traditional nor connected to anyone.

Nearby

Rotorua's cultural centres and carving school sit close together, and museums in every main city hold related collections.