Been meaning to make a thread on this stuff for a while, because I always get tauiwi asking me anytime I shitpost about Ta Moko popping up in video-games as a cosmetic character option, i.e in the new Tony Hawk game, so I'm gonna go quickly over the basics on why this sucks 1/14

So for the uninitiated Ta Moko/Moko refers to the traditional practice of Māori tattooing, some people mistakenly think it just means facial tattoos but it actually refers to any act where one Māori makes permanent markings on another Māori which reference their whakapapa 2/14

Whakapapa is a core part of Māori identity, it's kind of like a record of your ancestry which details your connections to your tribe (iwi), sub-tribe (hapu) and extended family (whanau), so when you look at a persons moko, you can read a bit about who they are 3/14

Which is why it's always been considered a grave insult to duplicate or emulate the moko of another person, not just because you're disrespecting that person, but you're also disrespecting your own whakapapa and ancestors by not honouring them in your markings instead 4/14

So because all of these markings have meaning, what do you think happens when someone who doesn't understand them draws one?
It's kind of like when you see people make up racist fake "Asian" lettering, like you know what they're trying to do but it just doesn't make sense 5/14

On top of that, due to the personalized nature of ta moko, particularly on important spots like the face, even the act of having it as a "set" option that you can pick from a catalogue is considered disrespectful, because it's the antithesis of the core kaupapa of moko 6/14

Finally, moko was almost entirely wiped out by force. Practitioners were punished and had their tools destroyed, some even targeted under the tohunga suppresion act. If it hadn't been for the old women who kept the patterns alive and the biker gangs that later preserved them 7/14

there wouldn't be too much left. We've been able to hold on to a lot but we don't really know how much we lost either. It's worth noting that a lot of the reconstruction of the art is based on the records kept by pakeha observers too, like Robley, Goldie and Lindauer 8/14

And that these dudes, particularly G & L were picking subjects based on their western perception of what would make a good painting, or appeal to european buyers. So even though they're a decent record, they're not the full picture. 9/14

Just as there are sketches and drawings of moko in Robley's journals that don't appear at all in the paintings of Goldie and Lindauer, there are written and oral records of far more that Robley never managed to record (probably too busy selling heads or being racist) 10/14

This suppression basically guaranteed that the eventual resurgence would become intrinsically linked to Māori decolonisation movements, moko, particularly moko kanohi (facial moko) is about as bold a statement against pakeha occupation as you can get (book by @tinangata) 11/14

Which makes it all the more offensive because this adoption of our art purely for aesthetics is just another act of cultural colonisation, something not meant to be sold once again commodified by people that don't understand, just because it "looks cool" or exotic 12/14

Even the non-traditional "tribal" tattoo style that people without tribes love all comes from the exotification of legit tribal tattooing and the perception of our cultures through a foreign lense, but that's a talk for another day 13/14

Anyway, that's a rough rundown on why I always make posts dunking on games that pull this shit, shout out to @aufhebunghole for the screenshots. Tihei mauri ora my kuri 14/14