Mark's Pages

"The sailors had been very impressed by their visit to Ra'iatea, and their encounters with the Borabora warriors. They called the male arioi from that island, with their prolific tattoos and their formidable fighting reputation, 'The Knights of Borabora'; and the Resolution's midshipmen decided to call themselves 'The Knights of Tahiti', and had themselves tattooed with a large star on their chests. When the other sailors saw this it became all the rage, and many of the men took this tattoo as a memento of their stay in the Society Islands. Eating dog became another mark of a Polynesian veteran." — Anne Salmond, The Trial of the Cannibal Dog