Puuhoro and the return of moko

Moko is not ornament. It is declaration.

To mau moko is to place one’s whakapapa on the surface of the tinana, visible, undeniable, a breathing manuscript that speaks to whakapapa and identity. For too long, Māori skin was policed into silence. The ink that once proclaimed belonging was shamed, forbidden, nearly erased. And yet, it lives.

The pūhoro, stretching across the thighs and down the legs, is one of the most dynamic expressions of tā moko. Historically, it marked the speed and agility of toa, warriors whose bodies moved like rivers, swift and unyielding. Today, its meaning has evolved, but not diminished. To wear a pūhoro is to situate oneself in a continuum, not only of strength, but of survival.

What we see now is revival in motion. Moko is returning to skin, to communities, to the eyes of the world, as an act of reclamation. Each line inked today is both homage and assertion, the stories once silenced are spoken aloud, carried forward into the present with pride and purpose.

When I photographed this tāne, I found myself reflecting on how much meaning skin can hold. We tend to think of the body as temporary, fragile, endlessly vulnerable. But moko insists otherwise. It transforms the body into a text, a site of permanence, an assertion that one’s story will not be rubbed away by time.

In a world obsessed with the temporary, trends, filters, disappearing stories, moko is the opposite. It is not for the algorithm. It does not perform for mass approval. It lives outside of ephemera, inside of whakapapa.

And perhaps that is why moko unsettles. It asks us to look beyond aesthetics, beyond “fashion,” and to sit with something older, heavier, more enduring. When lines become whakapapa, they no longer decorate; they declare.