Chile— Tattoo scenes & cities

On Easter Island (Rapa Nui), part of Chile, tattooing had a spiritual and social meaning: priests, warriors and chiefs were more tattooed than others. The tattooist used a comb of bird or fish bone, the uhi, struck with a wooden mallet, and an ink made of burnt ti leaves and sugar cane.

The motifs mixed the mask of the god Make-Make, the komari, a symbol of female fertility, birds and fish. The art declined in the 19th century: Peruvian ships took islanders to work the guano in 1862, Catholic missionaries arrived in 1864, and in 1886 a visitor noted that tattooing was no longer practised.