Nearly fifteen years ago I was browsing through a box of “free” photographic prints at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Anthropological Archives. At that time, I was employed as an archaeologist at the National Museum of Natural History’s Repatriation Office, facilitating the repatriation of human remains and funerary objects to Tribal Nations.
As I thumbed through the prints, two black and white images immediately caught my attention – one was a facial portrait of a well-dressed Rapa Nui man and the other depicted an elderly man leaning against a rock wall displaying his bare legs and back.
Because I had written somewhat extensively about the tattooing traditions of the Rapa Nui (Krutak 2005, 2007 [2025]), I immediately began to scan these photos for tattoos. To my trained eye it was clear that both men possessed very faint tattoos but until today I have not shared the results of this research. The reason being is that I wanted to connect a few more dots and, if possible, to learn more about the biographies of these men.
“KAITAE”
As I dug a little deeper, I learned the images were taken in 1886 by a member of the Smithsonian’s expedition to Rapa Nui (Easter Island). The purpose of the visit follows:
“In late 1886, under the auspices of the US Navy, the warship USS Mohican was sent on a scientific expedition to Easter Island to collect specimens for the Smithsonian Institution. The expedition took place from December 18-31, 1886, and began with the Mohican’s arrival in Hanga Roa Bay, Rapa Nui on December 18. A small group from the crew…formed the main investigators of the island. Island resident Alexander P. Salmon, a Tahitian living on Easter Island, served as the expedition’s translator. Among the main goals of the mission were to document Easter Island and its inhabitants, as well as to return with a complete specimen of one of its stone figures [moai] as an addition to the Smithsonian collections.”
A published report of this trip later appeared in 1891 entitled Te Pito te Henua or, Easter Island. Therein, an illustration of the elder seen in the aforementioned photo portrait appeared as Fig. 2 (p. 461). It was entitled KAITAE, NEAREST DESCENDANT OF THE LAST KING OF EASTER ISLAND. No other information about this man was recorded except for a small blurb towards the end of the account (p. 516): “The last king was kidnaped by the Peruvians [slaver traders] and died in captivity, but his nearest descendant is a sturdy old fellow (Fig. 2) called Kaitae….who claims relationship to the last king [‘ariki], Maurata,” who ruled between 1859–1862.
Over the years these images and the story behind them sat idle in my tattoo archive for more than a decade. But in 2021 an important Masters’ thesis was published by Jimena Ramirez Gonzalez, which I did not discover until 2025. This work focuses on historic Rapa Nui photography joined to the voices of Island elders who provided genealogical information about the individuals featured in the photographs. Therein, appears the historic portrait of “Kaitae,” but this time his proper name is given – Naporene Kaituoe (c. 1805-1887). He was more than eighty years old at the time of his photograph and passed away within one year of it being taken.
From additional research, I learned that Kaituoe was a member of the noble Miru clan which the ‘ariki mau or traditional rulers of Easter Island belonged. The Miru kin group was named after the second son of Rapa Nui’s founding ancestor and paramount chief Hotu Matu’a, who is believed to have arrived on the Island more than one thousand years ago (Kaeppler and Van Tilburg 2018:5). By virtue of their social class, Miru members were allowed to bear specific tattoos that were associated with their status, including facial, body, and other markings. I firmly believe that Kaituoe also bore these kinds of tattoos and especially the frigate bird on his neck (zoom in on photo below).
The best-known male tattoos have, for more than one-hundred years, been associated with another Miru nobleman named “Tepano,” who was photographed in the late nineteenth century and illustrated by Swedish explorer Hjalmar Stolpe in a 1899 work.
“TEPANO” & THE RAPA NUI TATTOO
The carte de visite of Tepano was produced in the studio of Madame Hoare in Tahiti ca. 1871-72 while he worked there as a longshoreman in Pape’ete. Because Rapa Nui tattooing was prone to fading, Hoare overpainted his tattoos to make them more visible in the iconic portrait.
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“Tepano” is the subject of the 2018 book The Iconic Tattooed Man of Easter Island but neither Kaituoe nor the other unnamed elder with faint leg tattoos is mentioned.
That being said, Tepano’s skin markings align with those appearing on the neck and throat of Kaituoe. Previously (Krutak 2005, 2007 [2025]), I had written about the iconography and meaning behind these tattoos which were, as noted, associated with the noble class and perhaps the Miru clan themselves.
Tepano’s forehead tattoos (retu, “to stand”) consisted of six to ten solid vertical stripes. The parallel lines across the forehead and the fringe of dots were the first motifs tattooed on the face. This pattern was the most general, since it was the one commonly recorded by early European voyagers.
But of considerable interest are the tattoos that you cannot see. Beneath Tepano’s chin and beard (on the throat) is a stylized bird with head turned down, elongated body and wings reduced to four small tattoo lines. This motif is that of the frigate bird. The frigate, a predatory bird that flies swiftly and cunningly, is widely associated with the tattoo traditions of several Indigenous peoples of Polynesia, Melanesia and Indonesia, and is symbolic of warfare and headhunting (Krutak 2024).
On each side of the swooping frigate bird on the neck are seen four pairs of broad and wavy stripes that are attached to small bird heads seen in profile. Also appearing on large stone moai around the island, these tattoos look like bird feathers and combine with other tattoos – like those on Tepano’s spine and lower back – to transform the wearer into a “Birdman.”
As early as the fifteenth century, a series of annual religious ceremonies developed on Rapa Nui that centered on the creator god Makemake, whose earthly manifestation was the tangata manu or Birdman (Krutak 2007 [2025]). Born from a floating skull that was washed from a temple into the sea, Makemake created the first humans and with his companion, the goddess Haua, brought the first flocks of migratory seabirds to the island.
But these tattoos were not reserved for humans. They also appear on manu uru – rare anthropomorphic male figures made of white mahute (barkcloth, Broussonetia papyrifera) exteriors overlain on reed, wood and other plant material frames (Kjellgren 2001). The barkcloth was sewn with bird or human bone needles. Only three of these barkcloth figures are known to exist in museum collections, and because each wears distinctive tattoos they likely portray specific individuals, who were venerated ancestors and/or Birdmen. Scholars suggest that manu uru, as the receptacles of ancestral spirits, were used during Birdman rituals and other important ceremonial occasions on Rapa Nui (Kaeppler 2003).
On Rapa Nui ta kona (tattoo instruments) were similar to those found elsewhere in Polynesia: a comb of bird bone lashed at a right angle to a wood handle (Krutak 2007 [2025]). The comb was dipped in a prepared pigment of charred ti leaves (Cordyline terminalis) mixed with black nightshade (Solanum nigrum) juice and struck with a mallet into the skin.
Perhaps the best-known Rapa Nui tattooing kit was collected in 1882 by William Geiseler, a lieutenant-captain in the German Imperial Navy. One of the tools in this kit was a unique knob-shaped mallet. Tattoo technology expert Benoît Robitaille suggested to me that the knob itself was not the striking end of the mallet, rather it was the handle. “I think the enlarged [knobbed] grip end served to improve leverage and amplify the wrist motion,” he said (pers. communication, 12/30/25). Today, these objects are housed in the Weltmuseum in Vienna, Austria.
Members of the 1886 Smithsonian expedition to Rapa Nui also collected a tattooing tool. The object inventory states: “Tattooing implements.—Called Ta Kona. Tools used for puncturing the skin. Made of bird bones (Thomson 1891:538).” However, upon review of the original accession ledger book associated with this collection the tattooing tool is not listed, nor has it been found in the collections of the National Museum of Natural History. When I was employed with the museum (2010-2014), I searched the ethnological collections quite extensively but alas nothing was found.
To this day, the identity of the second tattooed elder photographed by members of the 1886 Smithsonian expedition remains a mystery. Upon very close inspection of his legs and buttocks faint traces of tattooing (i.e., zigzagging bands of vertical lines) can be seen, especially when placed side by side with an early lithograph (after an original drawing) produced by artist Louis Choris, who visited Rapa Nui in 1815 as a member of the Russian-sponsored Otto von Kotzebue expedition, and later drawings by Pierre Loti (1872). This man was heavily tattooed with bold geometric lines across the surfaces of his body and especially his legs – leg tattoos that closely resemble those of the unidentified man. The latter was purposefully posed leaning on a rock wall to illustrate his extensive tattooing.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Jimena Ramírez Gonzalez, MAPSE Museo Rapa Nui, for sharing her Master’s thesis and associated photo annexes with me. These resources were invaluable as I prepared this article. Also, I extend my gratitude to Tu’u Kura Tuki Aránguiz, MAPSE Museo Rapa Nui, who assisted me with contacts and other information as well as to Benoît Robitaille for his technological insights.
References Cited
Jimena Ramírez González (2021). Rapa Nui Historic Photography and the Role of the Museum: An Opportunity for Socio-cultural Activation and (Re)connection with Its Legacy. Unpublished Master’s Thesis in Museum Studies, University of Queensland.
Adrienne L. Kaeppler (2003). “Sculptures of Barkcloth and Wood from Rapa Nui.” Res 44: 10-69.
Adrienne L. Kaeppler and Jo Anne Van Tilburg (2018). The Iconic Tattooed Man of Easter Island. Mana Press.
Eric Kjellgren (2001). Splendid Isolation: Art of Easter Island. New York and New Haven: The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Yale University Press.
Lars Krutak (2005). Sacred Skin: Easter Island Ink.
Lars Krutak (2007 [2025]). The Tattooing Arts of Tribal Women. London: Bennett & Bloom. Reprinted and revised.
Lars Krutak (2024). Tattoo Traditions of Asia. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press.
Hjalmar Stolpe (1899). “Über die Tätowirung der Oster-Insulaner.” Abhandlungen und Berichte des Königlischen, Zoologischen und Antropologisch-Ethnographischen Museums zu Dresden 8, no. 6.
William J. Thomson (1891). Te Pito Te Henua, or Easter Island. Pp. 447-552 in United States National Museum, Annual Report for the Year Ending 30 June, 1889. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution.
Jo Anne Van Tilburg (2001). “Changing Faces: Rapa Nui Statues in the Social Landscape.” Pp. 24-31 in Splendid Isolation: Art of Easter Island. New York and New Haven: The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Yale University Press.