Hawaiian Tattoo Tradition: Kakau and the Art of Identity

The Hawaiian tattoo tradition — known as kakau — is one of the most spiritually layered tattoo cultures in the Pacific. Unlike Samoan tatau, which survived missionary contact largely intact, Hawaiian kakau was nearly extinguished, and the work being done today is part of a deliberate, decades-long revival.

Polynesian voyagers carried tattoo tools to the Hawaiian Islands more than a thousand years ago. By the time European ships reached the archipelago in the late 1700s, kakau had developed its own distinct visual vocabulary — bold geometric work organized around the body's natural lines, with motifs drawn from the ocean, the land, and the spiritual world.

Hawaiian tattoo masters, called kahuna kakau, held the practice in trust. The tools were similar to those used elsewhere in Polynesia — bone combs tapped with a mallet to drive ink made from kukui-nut soot into the skin. The placement, the pattern, and the moment of the tattoo were guided by chant, prayer, and protocol.

Kakau served several overlapping purposes. It marked genealogy and connected the wearer to their aumakua — the family guardian spirit, often an animal such as a shark, an owl, or a sea turtle. It commemorated grief, with mourners often receiving tattoos to mark the death of a beloved ali'i (chief). And it protected: certain motifs were placed to shield the wearer from spiritual harm.

Unlike the all-encompassing Samoan pe'a, Hawaiian kakau tended toward asymmetry — bold bands on one side of the body, a panel across the chest or the side of the face, marks on the tongue for women in mourning. This asymmetric approach is a useful signal when distinguishing Hawaiian work from other Polynesian traditions.

• Honu — sea turtle; long life, navigation, and family.
• Niho mano — shark teeth; protection and the aumakua of many Hawaiian families.
• Nalu — ocean waves; change, journey, and the rhythm of life.
• 'Ie'ie — climbing vine patterns; growth and resilience.
• Mauna — mountain triangles; stability, leadership, and ancestral land.

With the arrival of Christian missionaries in 1820, Hawaiian tattooing was actively suppressed. Within two generations, the public practice of kakau had nearly disappeared. By the early twentieth century, the kahuna kakau lineages had largely been broken — a profound cultural loss.

The revival began in the 1980s, led by artists like Keone Nunes who studied with Samoan tufuga to rebuild the tools and protocols, then re-grounded the work in Hawaiian sources. Today, hand-tapped kakau is once again being practiced in the Hawaiian Islands, and Hawaiian-style machine work has spread throughout the diaspora — including significant Hawaiian communities in Southern California.

Modern Hawaiian tattooing exists in two parallel forms. There is the revived hand-tap practice, performed by a small number of recognized artists and reserved primarily for clients of Hawaiian descent or in close relationship with the community. And there is the broader machine-based Hawaiian-style work — accessible to anyone, drawing on the same motif vocabulary, and welcoming to clients of all backgrounds.

At IslandTAT, our work in the Hawaiian tradition is always designed in close consultation with the client's story and lineage. We treat the motifs as a language, not a clip-art library — and we make space for the asymmetric, ocean-oriented compositional logic that distinguishes Hawaiian work from its Samoan and Marquesan cousins.

That reference point is personal for us. Joshawa Elsas was raised in Hawaiʻi, and the influence shows up in the way many IslandTAT compositions are built — ocean and honu elements, organic flow rather than rigid symmetry, and an emphasis on the tattoo sitting with the body instead of being stamped onto it.

Learn how Hawaiian kākau fits into the broader craft of tribal tattoo designing, and see the distinction we draw in Polynesian vs tribal tattoos. Compare Hawaiian design with the Marquesan and Tahitian traditions that share the Eastern Polynesian design family.