methodCut
กรีด
An incision, and pigment rubbed into it
What it is
The skin is cut or chiselled and pigment is rubbed into the cut, so the mark has a texture as well as a colour.
The long version
Māori tā moko is the clearest case: the uhi, a hafted chisel of albatross bone, is struck with a mallet and the skin keeps a groove. A moko made this way catches light. A moko made with a needle does not, which is exactly what changed when steel arrived — and why some practitioners have taken the chisel up again.
The Ainu word anchi-piri names obsidian and a cut. Among the Lumad and Negrito peoples of the Philippines a hafted chisel incises the skin in short dashes, and the result is partly scarification.
Notes
Cutting shades into scarification, which is a different practice with a different point. The test used here: if pigment is put into the wound to be seen afterwards, it is on this site.
Connected to
Named here by
- Ainu anchi-piri The method — a cut rubbed with pigment, not a puncture.
- Tā moko The method.
- Uhi The method.
- What counts as hand-poked Four.
Where each claim comes from
| Field | Tier | Source | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| default | cited | Tā moko — Wikipedia (en) | |
| text_th | inference | written in Thai by this project, not machine-translated |
Sources
- Tā moko — Wikipedia (en)
- Batok — Wikipedia (en)
- Scarification — Wikipedia (en)
cited Cited — a named source, linked · harvested Harvested — fetched from an open dataset, with its licence · tradition Tradition — general knowledge of the tradition, hedged · inference Inference — this project's own reasoning from the above · field Field — someone stood there