Ink drawing of a Puhoro thigh tattoo design

In 1841, Edward Jerningham Wakefield witnessed tā moko (tattooing) being performed on the high chief Iwikau Te Heuheu Tukino:

The instruments used were not of bone, as they used formerly to be; but a graduated set of iron tools, fitted with handles like adzes … The man spoke to me with perfect nonchalance for quarter of an hour, although the operator continued to strike the little adzes into his flesh with a light wooden hammer the whole time, and his face was covered with blood.

In New Zealand, tā moko evolved from the straight-lined and motif-based forms of the wider Pacific into spiral patterns like those on these remarkable casts. In recent years, Māori have reclaimed tā moko as a symbol of cultural pride and identity.