Kakau Uhi

The Hawaiian word kakau combines ka, to strike, and kau, to place, describing exactly how an uhi was made by the ancient hand tapping method. Practitioners used a tool called a moli, a wooden handle set with sharpened albatross bone resembling teeth, and the marks recorded genealogy, rank, and the individual's life story.

Because tatau was common among the alii, the Kahuna Ka Uhi held the special honor of being permitted to shed the blood of royalty, an act otherwise kapu and punishable by death. Nearly lost after 19th century missionary suppression, the art has been revived chiefly through Keone Nunes, who was trained by the Samoan tatau master Sua Suluape Paulo, and his successor Kelii Makua, with much of the documentary scholarship owed to anthropologist and tattooist Tricia Allen.