Malu

The Malu 

The Malu is a female tattoo which covers the legs from just below the knee just below the buttocks. It is a fine and delicate design. The malu means to be protected and sheltered. Usually this tattoo is for the chief's daughter to wear the malu and is applied to the young women in the years following puberty. 

Women with the malu are expected to perform key ceremony tasks and represent their families and villages on ceremonial occasions. The daughter of a high chief who is to become the villages TAUPOU.

Over the past years the significance of the malu has shifted. In New Zealand and Australia, the malu is increasingly an important symbol of Samoan cultural identity rather than only a signifier of a person's ability to carry out specific Samoan ceremonial roles

One story of how tatau came to Samoa 

Taema and Tilafaiga were female siamese twins who were joined at the spine. When the twins were grown, they decided to travel away from Ta'u, the island of their birth. As they were swimming, the spar of a canoe struck them and severed the join between them. After several adventures on other islands, the twins reached Fiji where they meet two tatau (tattoo) artists, Tufou and Filelei, who taught them the art of tattooing. They also taught them a song (or a spell according to some sources) to recite when they were tattooing someone. When the twins returned to Samoa, Tilafaiga became a war goddess, while Taema became a tattooist and teacher of the art that she had learned in Fiji.

This is a little history about how the Malu came to Samoa.