IN T E R S T IC E S 1 8 38 S U R F A C E / P A T T E R N From product packaging to individual tattooing, ornamental motifs and images pulled from Pacific arts and crafts, like barkcloth, tattooing, carving or weav- ing, have become popular and efficient means by which to mark a wide range of carriers and media with a “nesian” identity. This appears to be the outcome of several decades of indigenous and exogenous appropriations, re-appropriations and revitalization enterprises occurring among Pacific and other cultures around the world (Kuwahara 2005, Awekotuku & Nikora 2007, Mangos & Utanga 2011, Salvador-Amores 2013, Krutak 2014). The transfer of images from one medium to another and their diffusion far beyond Pacific islands communities changes their mode of reception and the way they mediate social relationships. In this context, the question of iconic power also brings up a range of other controversial issues among tattoo practitioners and tattoo wearers. The most contentious one relates to the economy of images and the professional ethics ruling the circulation, ap- propriation, and copying of images. Given the global proliferation and appropriation of Pacific tattoo imagery and hand tapping techniques, it is important to understand the effect of these pro- cesses on the meaning and agency of tattoo designs. What kind of social relation is mediated by Samoan tattoo iconography? What kind of sign predominates in Samoan tattooing? What does it stand for, and what kind of action and mental operation does it provoke? This papers draws on my fieldwork conducted between 2001 and 2013 in Samoa, New Zealand and Europe over a period of 28 months. Other sources of data are my curatorial activities involving Pacific and Samoan tattooing and my personal engagement as an assistant (toso) during several tattooing operations. Starting from previously published work on ritual efficacy (Galliot, 2015a) and ritual trans- mission (Galliot, 2015b), this paper aims to examine changes in the mode of reception of Samoan iconography by questioning the changing status of Pacific tattooed images. To this end, I will first give some contextual information about contemporary Pacific tattooing. Then I will clarify the theoretical framework I used to explore the way images work, before addressing in more detail what I have called the multimodal reading of Samoan tattoo iconography. I will high- light some key ethnographical insights about the ritual production of the images to show how the global (re)appropriation of Pacific designs has caused a change in its mode of reception. SÉBASTIEN GALLIOT From ritual efficacy to iconic efficiency: ritual encoding, surface/pattern and global perceptions of Pacific tattoo iconography IN T E R S T IC E S 1 8 39 From ritual efficacy to iconic efficiency: ritual encoding, surface/pattern and global perceptions of Pacific tattoo iconography S U R F A C E / P A T T E R N Pacific tattooing and the emergence of a tattooscape The development of the Polynesian tattoo is closely linked to that of the Euro- American. Especially, “the mutual relationship between a changing market and innovation” (Sanders & Vail, 2008: 29) had tangible consequences on the 1980s Polynesian tattoo revival. One of the most striking patterns of change is proba- bly the mutual borrowing between indigenous tattoo practitioners (Pacific, South East Asian and Japanese iconography) and western ones. The most significant of these exchanges for this paper are based on thirty years of friendship and men- toring relationships that were established and consolidated thanks to tufuga tā tatau (tattoo experts), like Sulu’ape Paulo II and his cousin, Tavui Pasina Iosefo in New Zealand. Other Samoan tufuga also frequently participated in Pacific cultural festivals and tattoo conventions in Europe and United States (Mallon, Brunt & Thomas, 2010). Since the 1980s, exchanges, contacts and patronages have contributed to a cross-fertilization of the art—so that, nowadays for exam- ple, Māori-Polynesian designs are included in western repertoires. On the other hand, Pacific tattooists who proclaim and emphasize the indigenousness of their work have adopted not only western standards of hygiene and technology, but also what one could consider as a western understanding and interpretation of tattooed images. For instance, a now widespread practice among tattooists us- ing machine and hand-tapping tools involves creating Pacific design patterns by drawing from traditional iconographies and modes of assemblage and rearrang- ing them to fit with the personal aims and biographies of their customers. This is similar to the earlier professionnalisation of western tattooing, in which stand- ardized popular imagery was adapted to the individual aims of a client. In Samoa, the continuity of ritual tattooing and hand-tapped techniques throughout Christianization and colonisation, as well as its mediatisation in the western world of tattooing during the 1980s, has propelled Samoan tufu- ga tā tatau forward onto the global scene as the main representatives of this knowledge. Consequently, tufuga tā tatau were considered as the custodians of pre-modern Polynesian tattooing and have acted as mentors and patrons for in- ternational newcomers to their craft, providing apprenticeships, bestowing titles, granting rights to perform ritual or ornamental custom creations (Mallon, 2005). In the 2010s, the number of self-taught tufuga tā tatau and tattoo practition- ers from diverse ethnic origins using a hand-tapping technique similar to the Samoan one continues to increase steadily. This includes Samoans operating in New Zealand and Australia, as well as westerners who learned the craft without the guidance of a matua o faiva (established elder) from one of the two main tat- tooing clans (Su‘a and Tulou‘ena). The emergence of these tattooists without the patronage of a matua o faiva causes not only debates about their legitimacy, but also concern regarding what appears as a global trend of (mis)appropriating in- digenous heritage. In this context, newcomers and long-time established tufuga are urged to think about the ethics of their profession, particularly with regard to knowledge about the images, their diffusion and their copyright. In the last decade or so, Pacific tattoo iconographies have participated in a global movement of traditional tattoo revival, in which practitioners of an ethnic ances- try perform ancient tattoo techniques to apply images that are considered part of their culture’s traditional repertoire. At the same time, western tattoo practitioners have started to promote themselves as specialists in one or several of these ancient techniques and iconographies, http://context.reverso.net/traduction/anglais-francais/professionalization IN T E R S T IC E S 1 8 40 From ritual efficacy to iconic efficiency: ritual encoding, surface/pattern and global perceptions of Pacific tattoo iconography S U R F A C E / P A T T E R N reproducing or creating new arrangements of ‘ancient designs‘ for their custom- ers and experimenting with non-electrical techniques such hand poking, hand tapping or skin stitching using reconstructed ad hoc tools. While evolving into an entrepreneurial activity, Polynesian tattooing has also become a trade in images, and their semiotic status changed in due course. The most striking illustration of this fact is the frequency with which tattooed im- ages are interpreted as pictograms today, or in the fashion of a visual language, for which every sign should be associated with a referent. In other words, for most wearers, tattoo designs must either contain a meaning, deliver a message, symbolize something, or they must match with their intention, their history, ex- periences, affects, etc. This also affects wearers of custom-made Samoan tattoo (the taulima, arm band, or tauvae, leg band, for example), so much so that parts of the indigenous iconography could be qualified as floating signifiers, i.e. signi- fiers that absorb rather than emit meanings (Levi-Strauss 1999 [1950], Falk 1995, Sweetman 1999). Samoan tattooing technique and iconography are particularly affected by this global trend in the re-appropriation/re-interpretation of images and new pro- cess of learning. In today’s world, where migrations, media and mobilities tend to multiply models of action, consumption and identification, tattooing (and Pacific tattooing especially) requires us to consider global contemporary prac- tices within what I would call a tattooscape. Inspired by Appadurai’s notion of scapes (1990), a tattooscape is best understood as a relatively unstable network of actors (practitioners, clientele, media, equipment manufacturers, promoters of events) whose mobilities and modes of association depend on their respective “historical, linguistic and political situatedness” (296). So, addressing the case of Samoan tattooed images simultaneously opens a space of debate that also encompasses other Polynesian tattoo iconographies. I cannot address in detail the question of techniques here, but it goes without saying that questions concerning appropriation, transmission and circulation also apply to techniques and their transformative consequences. This is precisely the process I wish to investigate. What happens to ritual prototypical images (such as pe‘a and malu) when they are broken down into smaller units of pattern? How does their circulation and relocation affect their iconic power (i.e., in this context, their evocative potentialities)? Meaningful or powerful images? To tackle the question of the iconic power of these images, I follow the line of thought drawn by David Freedberg (1989) who claimed that to understand this power one has to abandon an art historical, Kantian orientation for a pragmat- ic approach to images. This implies exploring images within a field of practices, their context of production and reception, restoring anthropological thickness to the images. By this I mean that the image cannot be understood outside its practical and social context. Regarding the process of perception and its socio- logical components, Bourdieu and Delsaut (1975) have established that, for an image to be “read” efficiently, to be readable, its formal elements must meet the dispositions of the receptor. Thus, to understand how the rather enigmatic notion of iconic power actually works, one must investigate the conditions of production of the image (the formal, the technical), as well as the conditions of IN T E R S T IC E S 1 8 41 From ritual efficacy to iconic efficiency: ritual encoding, surface/pattern and global perceptions of Pacific tattoo iconography S U R F A C E / P A T T E R N the production of dispositions towards it (Bourdieu, 1979). Further, the referent and the distance between the image and the referent have been a central concept in art history and in the practice of art itself. I want to stress that this theme is also one of the crucial functional operators for Samoan tattooing. To clarify the notion of iconic power, I return to Charles S. Peirce’s three semiot- ic categories of signs: An index has a metonymical or a causal relationship with the object to which it refers. An icon has a relation of likeness, and a symbol has an arbitrary, conventional relation with the object it stands for (the meaning of a symbol relies on the knowledge of a code). Crucially, all categories involve an interpretant, an understanding of the sign/object relationship held by someone. I will try to give some insight into the specific power of these images and into the changes of their semiotic status between a (reconstructed) pre-Christian under- standing of tattooing and contemporary responses to tattooed images. In other words, I will try to show how the socio-historical context of the interpreters influ- ences not only the image itself (which is, as we will see, a mimetic repetition of a prototype) but its semiotic status, its content and, finally, its agency and capacity of acting in the world. Alexander and Bartmański have recently emphasised the dual nature of iconic- ity as an “interaction of surface and depth” (2012: 2). This remark is particularly relevant when applied to tattooed images, which make this interaction obvious. Whatever the function or intention related to the sporting of a tattoo, the mark inscribed on the skin does have an effect and often a (loose) meaning—located, as it were, beyond visual perception. Whether magical, eschatological, therapeu- tic or associated to one’s sense of identity (collective or individual), the efficacy of tattooed images stems from a kind of experience called iconic power by Jeffrey Alexander, or iconic difference by Gottfried Boehm. That is to say, tattoos, as icons, are simultaneously meaningful and practical (in the material sense, per- ceptual and palpable): the recipients both experience the visual saliency and perceptual properties of the patterned skin surface and project meanings at the same time. As Alexander notes, “iconic power depends on the seamless inter- twining of surface aesthetic and depth meaning at the same time.” (Alexander 2012: 32) Thus, Samoan tattooing epitomizes a process of change in iconicity and provides a relevant case to test the conception of iconic power. Fig. 1 Su‘a Loli Misitikeri (2007). Pe‘a or male tattoo. [Photo: Sébastien Galliot] Fig. 2 Su‘a Loli Misitikeri (2007). Malu or female tattoo. [Photo: Sébastien Galliot] IN T E R S T IC E S 1 8 42 From ritual efficacy to iconic efficiency: ritual encoding, surface/pattern and global perceptions of Pacific tattoo iconography S U R F A C E / P A T T E R N Production and reception of the ritual image Pe‘a/tatau (male tattoo, figure 1) and malu (female tattoo, figure 2) result from two standardized configurations of patterns. Each occurrence of these images reiterates an invariable model of zoning the body with specific vāega (zones, or groups of motifs). They are made by a tufuga tā tatau, an expert with the same ceremonial prerogatives and social status as tufuga fau fale (house builders) and tufuga fai va’a (boat builders). The tattoo experts’ status derives from a genea- logical link with the tutelary deities Taemā and Tilafaigā who, during a mythical voyage throughout the Samoan archipelago, met several individuals from differ- ent villages and granted them a basket of tools (atoau) and the ceremonial right to be served the first cup of kava during gatherings. Samoan tattoos are the result of a ritual which is organized in the fashion of a three-step initiation as theorized by Van Gennep (1905), Turner (1969) and Bloch (1992), to name only a few. In Peircean terms, the full pe‘a and malu can broadly be qualified as indexes of a completed ritual. In fact, in this regard and despite the complexity of the assemblage of patterns, the images’ efficacy depends pri- marily on their completeness. I would even add that formal aesthetic judgments are secondary—these are not so much decorative surfaces than entities with their own agency. As Albert Wendt (1996) puts it: “The tatau and the malu are not just beautiful decoration, they are scripts/texts/testimonies to do with relationships, order, form and so on.”3 The ethnographic data I gathered on many occasions be- tween 2001 and 2013 also point to an indexical priority of the tattooed mark over its iconic and its symbolic content. Pe‘a and malu are, at first glance, indexes of a ritual that has been conducted well: a ritual where the two parties managed to maintain respectful and caring interactions throughout the process. Tattooed marks are primarily an index of good relations and the strength (both physical and psychological) of the wearer. Of course, these tattooed images are now emblematic themselves, to the point of carrying ideas of cultural pride, sense of identity, distinctiveness of the Samoan bodies, and so on—but this is the result of historical change. In the first half of the nineteenth century, a tattooed mark covering the body from the loins to the knees was worn by most men in western Polynesia, precisely as an index of a suc- cessful ritual. Tongans used to travel to Samoa to undergo the same ritual, and people from Uvea and Futuna also wore the same kind of tattoo. In fact, through- out western Polynesia the pe‘a was not the sign a specific ethnicity but rather instantiated a shared ancestry and a shared religiosity based on life cycle rituals. Let us now have a closer look at the way in which smaller pattern units actually work as signs. In the men’s tattoo, the pute (or blackened navel) has a metonymi- cal relation with the tattoo as a whole, and so has the pe‘a design (a small triangle in the middle of the back), to the extent that they indicate a completed tattooed image.4 The diamond shape in a woman’s popliteal area shares the same charac- teristics. Thus, any individual of a group can, at only a very brief glance, identify what can be called, in this case, an initiate. However, as a whole, these shapes are not designed to be deciphered. There is no esoteric grammar that would reveal deep meanings. Or, if this was once the case, today the symbolic interpretation of the images is excluded from the interactions during the ritual. Thus, in this cultural setting, images in the male and female tattoo are both indexical and, lit- erally, transformative: by being inscribed through a very painful method, they IN T E R S T IC E S 1 8 43 From ritual efficacy to iconic efficiency: ritual encoding, surface/pattern and global perceptions of Pacific tattoo iconography S U R F A C E / P A T T E R N produce an effect on the recipient’s response to bodily pain. As Gell noted, the images strengthen the integument and magically fortify young men (1993: 57). They also render visible moral disposition: mental and physical toughness. As I will stress below, completion or non-completion of the image stands as an index of the quality of the relations the wearer entertains with his social environment. Simultaneously, however, the adornment confers an aura, an attractiveness, a surplus of existence on the wearer (Simmel quoted in Wolf, 1950: 339). Translated into local terms, the tattoo visibly confers on the wearer a surplus of dignity, mamalu, as well as moral and social responsibilities. ‘O vāega ma ‘ava‘ega ma mamanu o le mālōfie: zoning, putting up and the patterns of the tattoo What kind of iconic experience does Samoan tattooing offer viewers and wearers? If we examine how the image is composed, we can formulate further statements regarding the iconic power of the Samoan tattoo. Fig. 3 Su‘a Loli Misitikeri (2005). Pe‘a or male tattoo. [Photo: Sébastien Galliot] Figure 3 shows the construction, or ‘ava‘ega, of a male tattoo, which follows a very rigid plan prescribed by tradition, and within which the expert has a little free- dom to introduce ornamental variations. The ‘ava‘ega usually starts with the va’a motif on the back and it ends with the pute on the navel. In between these motifs, the tufuga is expected to perform a succession of vāega (sections or portions, the sequence is indicated by the numbers) over a period of five to ten days, depend- ing on the expert’s timetable and the tolerance of the ta‘oto (the one laid down). The construction of a female malu is quicker and prone to more variations. However, it also proceeds through a standardized construction and can be con- ceived as a horizontal or vertical arrangement of mamanu (pattern motifs), most of which are extracted from a female iconography (however, some mamanu are common to men and women). The popliteal area, at the back of knees, is always marked with a malu, the lozenge-shaped design which (just like the black trian- gle in the middle of men’s back called pe‘a) entertains a metonymical relationship IN T E R S T IC E S 1 8 44 From ritual efficacy to iconic efficiency: ritual encoding, surface/pattern and global perceptions of Pacific tattoo iconography S U R F A C E / P A T T E R N with the malu as full tattoo. Local informants have various interpretations for it, but the most common one relates to the indigenous division of space in a fale samoa (Samoan house), which is composed of two tala (the rounded end sections of a fale), and two itu (two middle sections of a fale). Although the application of pattern intensified during the twentieth century, the overall structure of the image has remained the same since the first detailed descriptions made by German ethnographers (Luschan 1897, Marquardt 1899) and by the following generation of anthropologists (Handy & Handy 1928, Hiroa 1930). The nomenclature of mamanu and vāega is known by most experts. However, their meaning and possible symbolic content is neither subjected to an elaborate exegesis nor transmitted during the ritual. The ritual, rather, proceeds by a succession of technical actions and physical perception, silent worship- ping (tāpua‘i), and very few speech acts. As far as design meaning is concerned, the participants are kept in the dark. This situation is quite striking, given the remarkable potentiality of the Samoan language and the skill of orators in the fields of metaphor, allegory and esoteric speech. Regarding the degrees of iconic- ity (i.e., likeness between the sign and the object) of vāega and mamanu, Samoan tattooing is very suitable for the elaboration of a poetic or allegoric discourse by the ritual expert. However, this does not happen. In order to understand this rather paradoxical fact, one has to remember that pe’a and malu are not only made for the sake of beautification or cultural pride, but are first and foremost the outcome of a painful ritual that is oriented towards the transformation of the person. This leads me to the question of ritual encoding. Discussing formality in human rituals, Roy Rappaport distinguishes canonical messages, which belong to an in- variant, eternal body of information that is not encoded by the participants but already encoded in the “liturgy”, from self-referential messages, which relate to the current physical, psychic or social state of the participants (1999: 52–53). The Samoan ritual of tattooing is a very silent form of ritual (even though the high volume of a stereo during a tattoo session may suggest the contrary). Images are not explained, no secrets are revealed to the initiates, but both actions and im- ages are strikingly stable and unchanging. This is what can be called the liturgy. By comparison, what the participants understand and interpret for themselves about these immutable components can vary indefinitely, according to their as- piration, background, memories, knowledge, etc. In this particular ritual context, as they are applied to the body surface, pe’a and malu allow attention to be applied to different levels of the image. Tattooing and healing processes directly point at the person undertaking the “journey”. The re- sulting image eventually delivers cues about the value of the wearer, but it also acts, physically and psychologically, on him or her. For example, the completed image reinforces the tattooee’s self-confidence and disposition to serve his or her family, or to get involved in customary tasks, or to display his or her changed physical appearance publicly on some specific occasions. In this respect, the tat- tooed image represents an index for self-referential messages. On the other hand, by repetitively displaying a complex image, which does not depict anything recognizable in the phenomenal world, pe‘a and malu are the central element of a non-verbal, aniconic ritual, but still they are conventional signs representing canonical, prototypical and, dare we say, transcendental images. IN T E R S T IC E S 1 8 45 From ritual efficacy to iconic efficiency: ritual encoding, surface/pattern and global perceptions of Pacific tattoo iconography S U R F A C E / P A T T E R N I would like to add a few words about this statement. A tatau or a malu, as a whole, does not refer to anything outside itself. Rather, it is the outcome of the repetition of a prototype which is stored as a mental image in the tufuga’s mind (his māfaufau) and exists temporarily on a body surface. Thus, tatau and malu belong to a category of images for which there are no referents. Local discourse can sometimes associate the shapes broadly to a flying fox (Wendt, 1996) or the sections of a Samoan house. There is clearly no unified cultural perspective, though, on the resemblance between the tattooed image pe‘a and the animal species flying fox, or between the malu and an actual Samoan house. However, a closer look at the smaller units that constitute the overall images seems to in- crease their degree of iconicity. The mamanu do have names and shapes that suggest a closer likeness with the material and natural environment. In Figure 3, va‘a (1), pe‘a (3) and ulumanu (an- imal’s head, 17), as well as fa‘amuliali‘ao (end of a Trochus shell, figure 4), gogo (frigate bird, figure 5), alu alu (jellyfish, figure 6), atualoa (centipede, figure 7) and anufe (caterpillar, figure 8) do have an existence outside the tattooed image, and their shapes as tattoo motifs recall the shapes of the natural objects they stand for. Exploring an image in detail, one notes that, even in the same context of recep- tion, it can display a different semiotic status at different levels: the status of index (of a prototype, of a successful ritual, of good relationship between the ritual par- ticipants, of the morality of the wearer), as well as the status of icon (by virtue of the likeness of its patterns with Samoan material culture, fauna and flora). Although obviously different in their visual properties and thematic orienta- tion, male and female iconographies seem to be guided by a similar figurative technique. While the male tattoo presents itself as a combination of artefacts, an- imals and plants, the female one is more oriented towards celestial bodies (stars) and animals (caterpillar, jellyfish, frigate bird). However, they both visually re- store a large amount of what makes up the environment, without grammar but with the idea of using the surface of the human body to make visible a dense net- work of entities. The quasi-systematic repetition of patterns produces a dynamic effect in the way different items are ordered. This, in turns, leads the anthropo- logical analysis of this visual strategy towards what Philippe Descola has called Fig. 4 Fa‘amuliali’ao Fig. 5 Gogo Fig. 6 Alualu Fig. 7 Atualoa Fig. 8 Anufe IN T E R S T IC E S 1 8 46 From ritual efficacy to iconic efficiency: ritual encoding, surface/pattern and global perceptions of Pacific tattoo iconography S U R F A C E / P A T T E R N an analogical figuration. An analogical figuration contrasts with animist, totemic and naturalist ontologies insofar as each entity in an analogical regime (visible or invisible) is conceived as singular and separated. In this ontology, the goal would be to “make present an encompassing relation that condenses disparate relations” (Descola, 2009: 10). In other words, the visual strategy that presides over the construction of a tattoo is directed toward the restoration of relations between things that are traditionally thought as separate entities endowed with a certain kind of amio (behaviour) and agency. If one tries to relink this theoretical proposition with Samoan pre-Christian religiosity, the Samoan male and female tattoo seem to encode an iconic repertoire, i.e. pictograms that have a likeness with their referents, in order to express the invisible “correspondence between human qualities and cosmos properties” (2009: 11), or the broad idea of an inter- specific generative relationship. The ritual mode of action and the relational background of the image The Samoan tattooing ritual proceeds by a combined presence of distinct modes of participation or a dual mode of action (agent/patient), where the poles of agen- cy are distributed as follows: the tufuga and his assistants occupy the pole of fai (making), and the supporters occupy the pole of tapua‘i (silent prayer). (The re- cipient is the only participant with no specific task, which is why one can call him a patient. An indigenous justification of that term is the frequent acknowledge- ment of his patience through the phrase, Malo le onos‘ai!). My own participation in several tattooing rituals in Samoa and in New Zealand involved both posi- tions. What struck me about this ritual was the contrast between the apparent routinization of the expert’s actions and the constant care expressed concerning the well-being of the expert by the patient’s family. The goal here is to provide the tufuga with respectful attention and gifts until he finishes the work, in order to maintain his motivation and express the family’s ability to end the ritual with a great retribution. I cannot enter into a more detailed discussion here, but suffice it to say that the Samoan tattooing ritual seems to be more focused on the rela- tions between the two parties and on the technical process of marking the body than on the actual artefact—its shape is known in detail by heart, but its imple- mentation has to be carried to the end and heal properly. The maintenance of good relationships is more important to the ritual than the visual quality of the finished work. In this sense, every finished pe‘a or malu, whatever the intricateness of its design, or its symmetry, is actually mānaia (at- tractive and beautiful). However, in the current context of the appropriation of Samoan iconography by tattooers and tattooees of multiple origins, and its re- combination for customized body projects in a very competitive globalised market, virtuosity and hygienic conditions have come to occupy an increasingly important place in the evaluation of finished work. While they have been applied more or less rigouroulsy, these norms have been imported by the tufuga within their activities as ritual specialists. This had, in turn, the effect of neutralizing the risk and the ritual power of the image, to the advantage of a more imagistic one, which I now call iconic efficiency, and this applies to the tattooing ritual itself in Samoa, in the diaspora or to the tattooing of German or a French tourist in Apia. In an interview conducted in Apia, August 2013, practitioner Su’a Sulu’ape Alaiva’a described the changes resulting from the replacement of materials for IN T E R S T IC E S 1 8 47 From ritual efficacy to iconic efficiency: ritual encoding, surface/pattern and global perceptions of Pacific tattoo iconography S U R F A C E / P A T T E R N more hygienic ones—i.e. the replacement of boars’ tusks by steel needles and tra- ditional candlenut soot by sterile tattooing ink—as follows. Sébastien Galliot: Does the use of aunila (Samoan tools made out of steel needles) affect in anyway the power of the ritual ? Su’a Sulu’ape Alaiva’a: It does, it does. But we can’t do anything about it. It is time that we […] make a change: an appropriate change that will benefit everybody. But I know deep in my heart that the mana is still in the nifo pua’a [boar’s tusk], and even the traditional ink. So I still keep those things and I told my sons and my family: “Keep the plant alive! Plant more lama [candlenut trees]!” In the concluding comments of his book Wrapping in Images. Tattooing in Polynesia (1993), Alfred Gell made a fruitful distinction between three kinds of technical schemata of tattooing which give rise to divergent symbolic practic- es ultimately related to social configurations. In the universal process involved in the acquisition of tattoo marks, (1) wounding, 2) scab formation/healing, 3) permanent mark, Gell tends to attribute more importance to phase (2) when it comes to Samoan ritual. Since “Samoan tattoo is more traumatic and places a greater emphasis on the qualities of heroism and endurance” than, for example, that in the Society islands, “the key to this ritual would be the notion of sealing the person of the young warrior, who was subjected to an assault from which he emerged stronger than before, i.e. healed in a marked way” (1993: 308). On the other hand, by virtue of its material form, tattooing contributes to the production of political, and social subjection—to what Gell called “passive heroism” (53–8). In this way, the complex structure of the image acts as the index of a strength- ened integument, which reflects a male preoccupation. One could add that local interpretations of several contemporary cases of infections and flesh eating bac- teria, attributed as they were to the behaviour and the supposed moral (and/or sexual) conduct of the wearer, also lead to an understanding of the tattooed im- age as communicating something else than the patterns inscribed on the surface of the skin. Here, the pe‘a is similar to a revelatory device pointing to the internal component of the social person (his amio or behaviour and his aga or disposi- tion), iconic in Bartmański and Alexander’s sense, but indexical in Peirce’s. In the context of a growing popularity of indigenous tattoo design at a global lev- el, we need to consider how such iconography, naturalized as it is in its primal inscription on the skin surface, has become a valued transcultural body orna- ment—while still keeping its efficiency to epitomize cultural value and localness and remaining ritually efficacious. How does this very cultural mark gain pres- tige outside its community of origin, still maintaining its ability to carry a sense of ethnic pride and identity? Might there be a conflict in the mode of interpreta- tion and use of this iconography? My hypothesis, which is linked to my earlier remark about the change in semiotic status, is that the growing popularity of Samoan tattooing outside a strictly ritual context has lead Samoans themselves, and especially those experiencing life in the diaspora, to reconsider the meaning of being tattooed. In this, they may apply a somewhat westernized gaze, which automatically regards tattooed images as symbols of identity. Thus, the interpre- tation of Samoan iconography has not simply been westernized but has, rather, become multimodal and context dependent, delivering various layers of infor- mation depending on the context of production and recipient’s knowledge. IN T E R S T IC E S 1 8 48 From ritual efficacy to iconic efficiency: ritual encoding, surface/pattern and global perceptions of Pacific tattoo iconography S U R F A C E / P A T T E R N Conclusion: Contemporary global applications I will conclude with a few words about semiotic status by complementing my earlier questions by the following: what happens to the semiotic status of tattoo iconography when it is recombined for other media, such as advertising? A large part of this paper dealt with the explanation of what we might consider the performative role of the image, that is, the way it participates in affective and ritual efficacy. Now, I will briefly comment on a few cases of its contemporary mobilizations. First, these images, together with a limited number of artefacts —such as fale tele (ceremonial house), va‘a, fue (orator fly whisk), to‘oto‘o (orator wooden staff ), tanoa (kava bowl)—have become ‘iconic’ insofar as they were re- peated as a common visual repertoire in various media. In that way, they ended up representing ancient Samoan traditions, epitomizing Samoan-ness and (at least to those who know about Samoa) a commitment to a shared body of values that are summed up by the term fa‘asāmoa (the Samoan way). Samoan tattoo designs, but also Marquesan and Māori designs, are nowadays used in marketing strategies for a great variety of products (beer bottles, cloth- ing, and even on the engines of aircrafts) in order to enhance their attractiveness, as well as for the marking of territorial origin. Although arranged in a new shape, or even fragmented as in the Taula beer bottle, the tattoo motifs keep their iconic evocative power though they remain beyond readability. If several commercial items, such as fabrics, Tatau brand, Vailima pure and the Taula beer, or even the Virgin Samoa engines, are decorat- ed with tattoo designs, this is certainly so because the iconography is mobilized for its ability to effect cultural anchoring in a very direct way. Without precise meaning, the images nonetheless contain an iconic power, or iconic efficiency. In Roland Barthes terms, and in opposition to his understanding of the term denotation (which refers to the external objects represented by signs), these frag- mentary tattoo designs have a connotation which refers to all the surplus values carried by the signs. They rely on an affective language, and they fall within the scope of an aesthetic appreciation in Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten’s sense: the message is both perceptual and cultural. The perceptual properties affect the viewer according to their visual arrangements. The connoted cultural message conveys the idea of authenticity. This is a wide spread but unreflected notion in marketing strategies; it also implies the disturbing idea of ethnic purity. The same applies to Māori, Marquesan or Kalinga tattoo iconography and, more gen- erally, to other forms of indigenous heritage. 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Endnotes 1 McGavin has coined this term to signify pan-Pacific Islander ethnicity (2014 : 127). 2 This status is usually determined by whether or not they were recorded or collected during a remote period by early ethnographers or explorers. 3 As Peirce began to suspect in his 1903 Harvard lectures, icons and indices are always partly symbolic or conventional and the icon/index/symbol trichotomy is an abstraction. He realised that any sign may have a combination of iconic, indexical and symbolic characteristics (Atkin, 2013). In the present case, indexical or iconic aspects dominate, depending on the contextual relationships between sign, object and interpretant. 4 This is a generalised statement. In fact, many pula‘ū (un-tattooed men) often have their navel blackened for the sake of experimenting the pain of the ritual as well as covering this anatomical part which grown men usually avoid displaying.