New Zealand Military Approves Full Facial Tattoo for Maori Servicemember
I have met people of Maori descent who serve in the US military. I wonder what the Pentagon’s reaction would be to someone of Maori heritage wanting a facial tattoo for cultural reasons?:
After serving 20 years in the Navy a combat specialist has become the first to be allowed a full facial Maori tattoo.
Rawiri Barriball was granted clearance in December to wear the moko after having to apply for it under navy law, NZME reported.
“I’ve always felt I was gonna get it, I just wanted to achieve a few things first and one of them was doing 20 years’ [service],” he told NewsHub. [Stuff.co.nz]
You can read more at the link, but I have spent quite a bit of time in New Zealand and it is not uncommon to see Maori with a facial tattoo. However, I saw very few Maori have facial tattoos as large as Mr. Barriball.
He is either a traditionalist or simply playing the system.
If he is playing the system and using race to avoid the standards others must follow, he should be kicked out.
If he is a true Maori traditionalist, he should be put in jail… as he likely exhumes and eats dead bodies as was (is?) their custom.
…and if he is not following all Maori traditions, he is simply a poser… grasping at some sort of false cultural identity through tiny acts of social deviance to set himself apart from other… a terrible thing to let happen in the “uniform” service.
When will society let me get by with some of the crazy shyt my ancestors practiced?
I swear you guys are like old people getting riled up over the dumbest 5h1t.
I DONT WEAR IT TO PLEASE OR RUFFLE ANY FEATHERS DICKHEAD, I WEAR IT LIKE A PERSON WEARS A UNIFORM, WE HAVE BEEN WEARING MOKO FOR YEARS, WHATS THE DIFFERANCE BETWEEN TATTOOS OF NAKED LADIES,MERMAIDS,,,,,,,,,DO THOSE TYPES OF TATTOOS,SHOW CULTURE…..NO THEY SHOW DRUNKEN FOOLS THAT HAVE NO CULTURE DICKHEAD.
Maybe I’m being too pedantic, but
Uniform= Uni-form.
The purpose of the uniform is group cohesion.
A tattoo over your entire face kind of sets you apart from the group (exception the Maori group…which is probably one of the intentions of the tattoo as a custom).
They didn’t allow tattoos that showed in the USAF until this year.
It was considered unprofessional to have “sleeves”. They changed the policy because they needed people (and tattoos are really in vogue now…so excluding any forearm tattoos can seriously limit the application pool). Of course, now that it’s officially okay a lot of people are getting those forearm tattoos they’d been waiting to get upon discharge/retirement.
If you’re really asking what the difference is between tattoos of naked ladies, mermaids, ect…I’d say the difference is one doesn’t show in uniform. No one should ever have a naked lady tattoo on display on their body while wearing the uniform.
That said, it’s New Zealand and not here. It definitely makes you look scary so if you’re in a profession where that is an asset it might be a good thing. Medical field…not so much.
Rawiri Barriball,
Come on. Settle down, buddy, Don’t get your kahu huruhuru in a ruffle.
Anyway, I have no idea why you would bring up crappy tattoos of naked ladies and mermaids… as one has yet to be seen scribbled all over someone’s face… so it is a bit of an apples to oranges comparison… or would that be a kumara to taro comparison in your case?
As for “THEY SHOW DRUNKEN FOOLS THAT HAVE NO CULTURE DICKHEAD”… that is a shamefully judgemental statement… especially coming from someone so angry at being judged for their tattoo choices. Shame, shame, shame.
Someone with a naked mermaid tattoo might WRITE YOU AN ANGRY RESPONSE IN ALL CAPS AT ACCUSATIONS THEY HAVE NO CULTURE.
But let’s see if it is true.
As you likely know, sailors have been getting mermaid tattoos for a couple hundred years… certainly enough time to classify as “culture”. Come to think of it, western sailors (the ones not cannibalized) seemed to have picked up tattooing from Maori… so make fun of them and their tattoo habits at your own peril… their culture has a basis in yours.
Oh… and those would be the same Maori who, just a few hundred years before that, were living the roughest and most primitive lifestyle with most dying in their 20s… not exactly grounds for some sort of elitist cultural monopoly on the fine art of tattooing.
Come to think of it, Europeans were getting tattoos a couple thousand years before the earliest human settlements in western Polynesia… and the Maori were really the last group to that party.. giving a 4000+ year gap between documented European tattoos and the first pathetic skeletons of stunted undernourished Maori dug up at Wairau Bar… which may or may not have had tattoos because, well, they had no skin when found… so who knows?
But all this is really beside the point. The real question is if the uniformity of military culture should be so obviously diluted. Some people think this is not correct.
“WE HAVE BEEN WEARING MOKO FOR YEARS” is a fine decoration if you want to grab a tewhatewha and go hunt the Moa to extinction… but it really isn’t part of any culture of uniformity shared by modern global militaries WHICH THEY HAVE BEEN PRACTICING FOR MANY YEARS… so appeals to tradition, or an idealized memory of tradition, are not getting much traction… as there are a lot of traditions which can be dredged up to satisfy the whims of individuals… and, APART FROM YELLING ABOUT DICKHEADS, you have not made a good case for what makes you special.
Whatever the case, your MY TATTOOS ARE GREAT CULTURE BUT YOURS SUCK is not the best attitude to win friends and influence people… or spread the wonders of Maori tattoo culture.
On a final note…
You certainly have some beautiful smooth skin. That’s not meant in a gay way… just an observation… though, again, you are one fine looking man. That’s strange, because for a guy so interested in tradition, one wonders why your moko was not done traditionally… you know… with a traditional chisel rather than a modern culturally-appropriated tattoo gun. It just seems there is a bit of selective passion here.
And one more thing…
One must admire the… uh… complete representation of the… uh… male member and its accessories on your nose… a bold and assertive move that must have slipped by the military censors when you submitted the design for approval… but something which you should be congratulated on… as, when you stand out from the crowd, no reason to do it in a shy way.
But that pales in comparison to the most elegant aspect of the entire presentation which is the cleverly hidden ⊂⋃∩Ⴀ within the design. That deserves applause.
So who are we to judge? Even if we disagree with the deviation from military uniformity, we can admire your subversive sense of humor about the whole thing.
In the end, if resurrection of traditions becomes a fad,you can make a fine addition to someone’s mokomokai collection.
I think the moko for the New Zealand military is not an issue if it doesn’t affect the servicemembers job. However, when I was in Afghanistan there were a few Kiwis there and it would have been interesting to see what the local Afghan reaction to someone with a full moko would be.
You mean the person a with limited vocabulary and no understanding of upper and lower case or punctuation? No one else seems upset.
Good to know about this.
I support indigenous peoples practicing what survives of their culture to its full extent as long as they are not hurting others. Why white people seem to be so constantly concerned with imposing their views on others is beyond logic.
That’s nothing US national guard can now unionize… https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2022/05/18/feds-national-guard-members-on-state-duty-can-join-unions/
I’m pretty sure that has been the case for a long while, flyingsword.
“The Department of Justice has given the green light to National Guard members on active duty for their states to join labor unions”
The article is poorly worded, but I think “active duty for the state” is not active duty as the US government would recognize it. I think they would be state employees under that capacity.
This was (and still is, I’m sure) a serious problem with Reservists.
There are different tiers so some of the pilots/maintainers were considered civilians working for the state unless and until they were on active duty orders. Traditional reservists needed active duty orders (this became a special challenge with sequestration) but could not form unions. ARTs were all in the union.
It became very difficult with training schedules, and a lot of other things.
The Reserves used to be a pretty sweet deal, but with the reductions in forces and the integration of guard/reserves/active duty forces to save money it isn’t so great anymore.
It would be okay if it were real Moko, which was the use of a chisel to deeply open the skin then a plant-based green black dye was rubbed into the wound and left to heal, leaving Ta Moko. Much like Samoans still do now. Maori seem to pop down to a tattooist nowadays that uses a tattoo machine.
“I support indigenous peoples practicing what survives of their culture to its full extent as long as they are not hurting others. Why white people seem to be so constantly concerned with imposing their views on others is beyond logic”
As People of Color are quick to remind me at every chance, it is a White People’s world.
Of course this is complete nonsense.
The reality is that the world does not belong to “white people”. It belongs to a subset of white people who earned their position though a combination of traits that breed success rather than failure.
They have abandoned self-destructive practices of what “survives of their culture” and created a new culture of success.
It isn’t so much they want to “impose their views” but more of an “adopt my views if you want to participate in my world and enjoy its benefits”.
There are plenty of third world shìtholes proudly doing their own thing without adopting white people’s culture.
Go, indiginious people!
If you really believe it is a white man’s world, go to a trailer park in the Deep South and discuss with the inhabitants the wonders of their culture.
“Well grandpappy didn’t need none of that book learnin’ so can’t see why my kids need to be sittin’ in no classroom when there are hogs that need to be slopped.”
You also might consider that it is somewhat an northern yellow Asian World if you look closely.
Of course the Asians wisely don’t complain like white people at funny looking brown people who want to look funnier. The clever Asians just quietly exclude them from society and everybody pretends not to notice.
White people make the mistake of trying to embrace and civilize the browns while the northern Asians just keep them out entirely and build work camps for any they find who want to look and act and think funny.
But the h8ers gotta h8.