They were composed of straight lines, angles, and cross-cuts.

Later the hero Mataora taught a more graceful style which dealt in curves, spirals, volutes and scroll-work.

Apart from legend it is a matter of reasonable certitude that the Maoris brought tattooing with them from Polynesia.

Their marking instruments were virtually the same as those of their tropical cousins; both, for instance, before the iron age of the nineteenth century, often used the wing-bones of sea-birds to make their tiny chisels.

Both observed the law of _tapu_ under which the male patients, while undergoing the process of puncturing, were sacred, immensely to their own inconvenience, for they had to dwell apart, and might not even touch food with their hands.