BOOK REVIEWS 73

essay makes a solid contribution to literature onLakota culture and is definitely worth reading.

Kopp and Herbst's essay is titled The Grandfather'sFlag," and like Bad Hand's contribution, stresses theLakota, although it also discusses the Navajo andseveral other groups toward the end. In contrast tothe previous writer, these two authors focus, for themost part, on the period between 1880 and 1920.Addressing the same question as Bad Hand, theypropose interesting parallels between the flag-be-decked Fourth of July celebrations and the older andmore sacred Sun Dance. They postulate that flags alsofunctioned as symbols of both oppression and protec-tion by the United States government, as well as ofchiefly stature, a connection that developed whenUnited States officials began to present the nationalstandard to Plains leaders in the 1800s. Native people,they go on to say, used the red, white, and blue tomake traditional practices look more acceptable towhite people and sometimes regarded the banners asmedicine objects endowed with the power of the(United States) enemy. The authors suggest, however,that flags became true symbols of patriotism in thehands of tribal police or other government workersand demonstrated the allegiance these people felttoward their new employers.

I am intrigued by the relationship between this listand the arguments of Howard Bad Hand. Herbst andKopp have analyzed a complex and sensitive issue bydrawing primarily upon their own ideas and those ofother Western scholars, while Bad Hand, as has beenpointed out, has asked precisely the same questionfrom a Lakota perspective. Not surprisingly, the con-clusions of Herbst and Kopp center upon Lakota-Euroamerican relations, while Bad Hand, at afundamental level, bypasses the Euroamericans andreturns directly to important Lakota military values.This results in an excellent and timely pairing, be-cause those of us who bring an outsider's perspectiveto indigenous subjects are thinking hard about theways we effect meanings. Such self-awareness doesnot come easily, but these authors have provided aninteresting comparison upon which we can build.

At the same time, I am uncomfortable with thesmall amount of credit this essay gives to RichardPohrt. Herbst and Kopp have repeatedly paraphrasedor expanded upon the ideas of this earlier scholar andyet only mention his name in the one instance wherethey quote the 1974 catalogue directly. I wish theyhad acknowledged their debt more thoroughly.

The longest and most luxurious part of the publi-

cation is the plates. All 121 objects have been repro-duced in clear, color images, and each is accompaniedby brief commentary from Herbst and Kopp. Theseshort texts occasionally include Europeanized infor-mation that I question. For example, the authorsspeculate that the five-pointed, European-style starson a Cheyenne feather bonnet (plate 110) referenceWesternized events and that a beaded Plateau bag(plate 54) was made for a man rather than a womanbecause it is decorated with eagles, elk, and awoman's leg. Such conclusions make more sense froma Western perspective than from either a Cheyenne orPlateau perspective. Otherwise, however, the captionsoffer useful information particularly helpful to new-comers to the subject of Native American art.

I finished this publication with a wish-list of issuesthat seem to me to beg for more study. What moremight we learn, for instance, by understanding hu-man response to oppression more thoroughly or byexamining the attitudes immigrant Americans arebringing to this subject of flags and flag art? Finally,my curiosity was peaked by Bad Hand's decidedlymasculine interpretation, leaving me to ponder whata Lakota woman might say in a similar discussion.

This exhibition will be at the Museum of OurNational Heritage in Lexington, Massachusettsthrough February, 1995, and may travel in abbrevi-ated form later. The entire Thaw collection, whichincludes 550 pieces from several parts of North Amer-ica, will be housed at the New York State HistoricalSociety, in Cooperstown, in a new wing scheduled toopen in July of 1995. A catalogue of the completecollection will be available then. •

Wrapping in Images: Tattooing in Polynesia.ALFRED GELL. Oxford Studies in Social andCultural Anthropology. Oxford: Clarendon Press,1993. xi + 347pp. 35 b/w illustrations, bibliog-raphy, index. $49.95 (cloth).

KAREN STEVENSON

University of California, Los Angeles

The practice of tattoo as an art form and culturalcomplex was intricately woven into Polynesian soci-ety. The extent of its significance was apparent to the

74 MUSEUM ANTHROPOLOGY VOLUME 18 NUMBER 3

explorers of the eighteenth century, yet its meaningescaped them. Early twentieth-century ethnographerswere similarly convinced of the importance of tattoo,though by then the prohibition established by nine-teenth-century missionaries, on many islands, had allbut eliminated the practice. This prohibition resultedin a loss of information regarding the meaning oftattoo. Why did people undergo such an operation?It is this question that Alfred Gell attempts to answer.

Current scholarship has often placed the complexof tattoo into a category of art/culture subordinate totraditional Western art forms. The Euro-Americanpoint of view typically maintains that the art of thebody does not hold the same value as, say, architec-ture or sculpture. Yet the subtleties of body arts doplay significant roles within the social and politicalsystems of Polynesia. It is necessary, then to reach anunderstanding of the consequences of tattoo with itsmyriad interpretations if one is to fully appreciate thepeoples and cultures of Polynesia.

Wrapping in Images: Tattooing in Polynesia prom-ised to be that long-awaited treatise which wouldaddress and analyze the complexities of tattoo inPolynesia. My expectations were high, hoping thatAlfred Gell had found these answers that so manyhave sought, namely the meanings behind the processand product of tattoo. Gell's approach to this topiccombines current psychoanalytical and deconstruc-tion theories. His psychoanalytical perspective drawsheavily upon Anzieu's theory of the skin-ego (1989);his references to post-modernism help in his decon-struction of the myths and languages of Polynesia.

Wrapping in Images begins and ends with theory.The focus of the book, however, is broken into threesections (five chapters) on Western Polynesia and Fiji;French Polynesia; and the edges of the triangle EasterIsland, New Zealand, and Hawaii. Within this format,Gell structures his argument around Fiji, Tonga, andSamoa and thereafter compares Polynesian tattooingto this complex. The gist of Gell's argument relies onAnzieu, and thereby Gell suggests that tattooing is"one means of creating a culturally distinct 'extraskin'" (p. 89). After looking at language and myth,Gell concludes "tattooing was a form of passive hero-ism . . . ,but at the same time a mark of subordination"(P- 121).

Much of his argument is based on language andthe interpretation of motifs and motif names. Draw-ing from Kraemer (1902), Gell talks of Samoan im-agery, zoning, and the terms associated with differingtattoo motifs. This is quite a convincing section of thetext wherein Gell demonstrates that the pe'a or flying

fox motif is appropriate since "the flying fox, wrappedin its wings, [can] metaphorically be associated withthe wrapping (pulupulu) of the body with a tattoo{tapuluY (p. 97). This argument also reflects Kaep-pler's work on Hawaiian tattoo (1982, 1988) whereshe suggests that protection and genealogy are em-bedded in the tattoo complex.

Drawing upon ethnographic sources of the twenti-eth century Gell concludes his discussion on WesternPolynesia and Fiji stating (p. 121):

I see the function of tattooing partly as a means ofcreating and marking social differentials and estab-lishing social identities, and partly as a means ofinculcating, by means of a climactic, painful experi-ence (which left permanent physical traces on thebody) of a type of subjectivity adapted to the overallprocess of social reproduction...

The notion of tattoo marking subjugation or theremoval of sacred status (pp. 138-41) brings newinsight into this topic. He has gone beyond the usual,simple argument that tattoo was a mark of one'sendurance or a willingness to participate in adultsociety.

However, Wrapping in Images is not without flaws.Gell's terse theoretical writing is almost impenetrable.His desire to reinterpret existing ethnographic textsdemonstrates a seeming arrogance and a lack of sen-sitivity to his subject matter. One such example isGell's treatment of a Samoan ceremony witnessed byStair (1897).

. . . it is now perfectly obvious that a ceremony suchas the one Stair describes combined a political dem-onstration with a radical attempt at psychologicalconditioning, but such an insight was clearly notaccessible to Stair. . . . Thus Stair indicates that thereason cited by Samoans for becoming tattooed wasfear of ridicule, especially from women who de-spised a man lacking a tattoo. We do not really knowwhat women thought about this matter, thoughthere is no particular reason to doubt Stair's word.However, as an account of the cultural rationale fortattooing in Samoa, it is inadequate. Such elaborateceremonies suggest more deep seated reasons thanthe desire to indulge feminine prejudices, (pp. 54-55)

"Such an insight was clearly not accesible to Stair"is incredibly arrogant. Equally unsettling are his pa-triarchical and simplistic interpretations (mis-inter-pretations) of the role women played (vis-a-vistattoo) in Samoan society.

BOOK REVIEWS 75

Although Gell admits to not being a Polynesianistof long standing, he bases this book on Polynesianlanguage and belief systems that are intricate andelaborate. Referring to the body of Melanesian litera-ture with which he is more familiar, Gell writes thatthe skin is "a basic focus of elaboration" and thesubject "raises many issues which require detailedethnographic exposition" (p. 23). It is unfortunatethat Gell does not give the same credence to thepeoples and institutions of Polynesia. Here I referspecifically to the chapter on the Society Islands.

Gell gives primary credit to Douglas Oliver (1974)for the historical and ethnographic material he cites.Gell states (p.122) the Pomare family originated fromPoraPora (Bora Bora) whereas their genealogy sug-gests Ra'iatea and the Tuamotu Islands (Stevenson1981). Also, it was not Pomare I who accepted Chris-tianity (p. 123) but Pomare II in 1815 (Stevenson1988). Gell also suggests that images of Tahitiantattoo are few whereas there are numerous images tobe found (Stevenson 1988). He talks of "ghostmasquers" instead of "mourners" (see Oliver 1974,Rose 1971, Stevenson 1988), and he bases much ofhis argument on Siamese figures (ri"i) which unfortu-nately come from the Austral Islands not Tahiti (Rose1978).

Furthermore, Gell defines indigenous words with-out any scholarly reference. Some words are mis-spelled and definitions (differing from twowidely-used Tahitian dictionaries) were either wrongor manipulated to serve his point. For example, Gellstates that abu means shell. The Tahitian word is ahuwhich means clothing (Lemaitre 1973). Another ex-ample of misspelling is Gell's wordMoahi. The correctspelling is Ma'ohi. At first I took this for a consistenttypographical error, but the historical, ethnographic,and lexical errors in this section, suggest both a lackof knowledge and poor scholarship. I found myselfwondering if Gell's Samoan data was equally flawed.

Also bothersome is Gell's own language. "Pagan" isthe term he frequently uses to describe the Tahitiansand their rituals, and this is a term widely reviled. Herefers to their tattooing as "degenerate." And, as theydo not share some of the cultural complexes found inSamoa/Tonga, he generally deals with Tahiti as beingless worthy of study. This implication of the supe-riority of Western Polynesia continues and is apparentby the fact that tattoo in both Hawaii— "it must besaid at the outset that Hawaiian tattoo does not seemever to have amounted to very much" (p. 275)-^andNew Zealand— "here we seem to be confronted by an

art which is nothing but art" (p. 237)—are givensecondary status at best.

Truly, the focus of this book is on Samoa and thecomplex found in the Samoa/Tonga/Fiji relationship.Perhaps Gell should have left it at that. However,because he attempts to include all of Polynesia, itwould have been worthwhile for him to have lookedat tattoo in terms of its transformation once it movedfrom the core. Perhaps the multiplicity of voices andthe sophistication of tattoo outside the core would notfit neatly into his imposed framework.

Nonetheless, Wrapping in Images adds to the dia-logue concerning Polynesian tattoo. As a resource itdoes offer new insights and theories about the rela-tionship of tattoo and status. The chapter on Sa-moa/Tonga/Fiji is strong, and perhaps its weaknesseswill encourage further investigation into the body oftattoo. *

References

Anzieu, Didier1989 The Skin Ego. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Kaeppler, Adrienne1982 Genealogy and Disrespect: A Study of Symbolism in

Hawaiian Images. RES 3:82-107.1988 Hawaiian Tattoo: A Conjunction of Genealogy and

Aesthetics. In Marks of Civilization: Artistic Transformationsof the Human Body. Arnold Rubin, ed. Pp. 157-70. Los Ange-les: Museum of Cultural History.

Kraemer, Augustus1902 Die Samoa-Inseln. 2 vols. Stuttgart: Schweizerbart-

sche.Lemaitre, Yves

1973 Lexique du Tahitien Contemporain. Paris: Office de laRecherche Scientifique et Technique Outre-Mer.

Oliver, Douglas1974 Ancient Tahitian Society. 3 vols. Honolulu: The Uni-

versity of Hawaii Press.Rose, Roger G.

1971 The Material Culture of Ancient Tahiti. UnpublishedPh.D. Dissertation, Department of Anthropology, HarvardUniversity.

1978 On the Origin and Diversity of "Tahitian" JaniformFlywhisks. In Exploring the Visual Art of Oceania. Sidney M.Mead, ed. Pp. 202-13. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.

Stair, John B.1897 Old Samoa. London: Religious Tract Society.

Stevenson, Karen1981 Artifacts of the Pomare Family. Honolulu: University

of Hawaii Art Gallery.1988 Dispelling the Myth: Tahitian Adornment and the

Maintenance of a Traditional Culture, 1767-1819. Unpub-lished Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Art History, Univer-sity of California, Los Angeles.