- end_line
- 1139
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:48:15.149Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 1062
- text
- Some tattooers, yearning after perfection, employ, at large wages, one
or two men of the commonest order—vile fellows, utterly regardless of
appearances, upon whom they first try their patterns and practise
generally. Their backs remorselessly scrawled over, and no more canvas
remaining, they are dismissed and ever after go about, the scorn of
their countrymen.
Hapless wights! thus martyred in the cause of the Fine Arts.
Beside the regular practitioners, there are a parcel of shabby,
itinerant tattooers, who, by virtue of their calling, stroll unmolested
from one hostile bay to another, doing their work dog-cheap for the
multitude. They always repair to the various religious festivals, which
gather great crowds. When these are concluded, and the places where
they are held vacated even by the tattooers, scores of little tents of
coarse tappa are left standing, each with a solitary inmate, who,
forbidden to talk to his unseen neighbours, is obliged to stay there
till completely healed. The itinerants are a reproach to their
profession, mere cobblers, dealing in nothing but jagged lines and
clumsy patches, and utterly incapable of soaring to those heights of
fancy attained by the gentlemen of the faculty.
All professors of the arts love to fraternize; and so, in Hannamanoo,
the tattooers came together in the chapters of their worshipful order.
In this society, duly organized, and conferring degrees, Hardy, from
his influence as a white, was a sort of honorary Grand Master. The blue
shark, and a sort of Urim and Thummim engraven upon his chest, were the
seal of his initiation. All over Hivarhoo are established these orders
of tattooers. The way in which the renegado’s came to be founded is
this. A year or two after his landing there happened to be a season of
scarcity, owing to the partial failure of the breadfruit harvest for
several consecutive seasons. This brought about such a falling off in
the number of subjects for tattooing that the profession became quite
needy. The royal ally of Hardy, however, hit upon a benevolent
expedient to provide for their wants, at the same time conferring a
boon upon many of his subjects.
By sound of conch-shell it was proclaimed before the palace, on the
beach, and at the head of the valley, that Noomai, King of Hannamanoo,
and friend of Hardee-Hardee, the white, kept open heart and table for
all tattooers whatsoever; but to entitle themselves to this
hospitality, they were commanded to practise without fee upon the
meanest native soliciting their services.
Numbers at once flocked to the royal abode, both artists and sitters.
It was a famous time; and the buildings of the palace being “taboo” to
all but the tattooers and chiefs, the sitters bivouacked on the common,
and formed an extensive encampment.
The “Lora Tattoo,” or the Time of Tattooing, will be long remembered.
An enthusiastic sitter celebrated the event in verse. Several lines
were repeated to us by Hardy, some of which, in a sort of colloquial
chant he translated nearly thus:
“Where is that sound?
In Hannamanoo.
And wherefore that sound?
The sound of a hundred hammers,
Tapping, tapping, tapping
The shark teeth.”
“Where is that light?
Round about the king’s house,
And the small laughter?
The small, merry laughter it is
Of the sons and daughters of the tattooed.”
CHAPTER IX.
WE STEER TO THE WESTWARD—STATE OF AFFAIRS
The night we left Hannamanoo was bright and starry, and so warm that,
when the watches were relieved, most of the men, instead of going
below, flung themselves around the foremast.
- title
- Chunk 2