Originally, the Moko gave insight to a man’s tribal affiliation and social ranking.

“Every shape, pattern and symbol told a story of his unique background and offered an insightful connection to his integrity and whakapapa. However, what you see today isn’t always a precise representation of the past. A lot of the patterns used today are for aesthetic reasons.”

The Patterns on this arm are blocked in 3 big rectangles. These rectangles get cut into much smaller ones and filled with geometric patterns that are also often used in Polynesian Tattoos. On the Back of the arm three different but similar patterns form a stripe that runs down the whole piece, which lets everything band together even nicer. ( seen in the left picture )

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