Tattooing comb
Place: Tahiti & Society Islands
Category: Tools
wood, bone, plant fibre, Tahiti and the Society Islands, l. 10.3 cm (handle), 3 cm (blade), Inv. Oz 439
Forster Register B. 15: ‘2 instruments for tattooing’. Note: presumably one tattooing comb and one tattooing mallet, cf. Oz 441
The handle has a c. 2.5 cm long, obliquely slanting section at the holding end and is thus different in form to the three objects of the Humphrey catalogue, Oz 436-438. The blade, of which the (approximately) ten original teeth are all broken off completely, consists of a piece of bone. The string lashing of blade to handle made of brownish plant fibres (probably coconut fibres) shows no traces of black dye. It must be assumed that the lashing of the blade to the handle was replaced after the instrument was last used and that the comb has not been used since. Gundolf Krüger
Related artefacts
Tattooing comb, Inv. Oz 436
Tattooing comb, Inv. Oz 437
Tattooing comb, Inv. Oz 438
Tattooing mallet, Inv. Oz 441