Fiji · Western Polynesia / Melanesia border

Fijian tattoos

Veiqia

Tradition · Veiqia (women's tattoo) & qia gusu (mouth marks)

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History

Veiqia was applied to Fijian girls at puberty by dauveiqia (women tattooists), covering the thighs, buttocks and lower abdomen with fine curvilinear designs. It was accompanied by qia gusu — mouth-line tattoos at the corners of the lips. Wesleyan missionaries arriving from 1835 campaigned aggressively against veiqia, and Fijian conversion to Methodism was made contingent on abandoning the practice. Within one generation, the living tradition was effectively gone. Fiji sits on the Melanesian–Polynesian boundary and its tattooing shared roots with both regions, but veiqia's tool geometry, placement rules and gendered exclusivity are distinctly Fijian.

Typical placements

Thighs, buttocks and lower abdomen (veiqia); corners of the mouth (qia gusu). Contemporary revival work honors these placements for Fijian women reconnecting with tradition.

Signature motifs

Veiqia curls — dense curvilinear thigh bands
Qia gusu — fine line at the corner of the mouth
Vonu — sea turtle motif for longevity and navigation
Tanoa — kava-bowl focal motif for ceremony
Bure roof — thatched-roof triangle for home and gathering

Sources

Deeper history

The women who carried veiqia

Veiqia was carried and applied entirely by women. Dauveiqia — the women tattooists — were senior members of the community whose role combined the technical mastery of the mark-maker with the ceremonial authority of the coming-of-age ritual leader. Girls received their veiqia between puberty and marriage across multiple sessions, and the process included seclusion, feasting and specific ritual songs. The completed veiqia was the mark that a girl had become a woman ready for marriage and eligible for the full social life of the community.

Missionary suppression, 1830s–1860s

Fiji's conversion to Wesleyan Methodism from the 1830s onward was accompanied by an explicit campaign against veiqia. Missionaries taught that the practice was heathen; converted chiefs made abandoning it a condition of continued rank; by the 1860s, dauveiqia were being publicly shamed and their tools destroyed. The last generation of traditionally-marked Fijian women died in the early 20th century. Unlike Samoa's tatau, veiqia had no matai-equivalent political structure that could shield it, and unlike Māori tā moko, it was gender-restricted in a way that Christian missionaries found particularly easy to target.

The 21st-century revival

The Veiqia Project, founded in 2015 by a collective of iTaukei women including tattooists, artists, curators and academics, is the primary vehicle of the modern revival. Its work rebuilds veiqia from museum collections (Fiji Museum, the British Museum, MAA Cambridge), oral history from communities where family memory of the practice survived, and comparative study with related Polynesian and Melanesian traditions. Today Fijian women again receive veiqia — for their own cultural reconnection, not commercial commission — using both traditional bone-comb tools and modern equivalents. Because the tradition is women's cultural property and is being actively rebuilt, veiqia patterns should not be worn by non-Fijian people.

Motifs and the surviving visual record

The Fiji Museum, the British Museum's Pacific collections, and the Cambridge Museum of Archaeology & Anthropology hold the surviving photographic and object record — including the 1875 Laniana photograph and the Ra Enge and Nundua plates from the late 19th century. Veiqia designs are distinctively curvilinear where Samoan tatau is angular — dense flowing patterns wrapping the thighs, with radial arrangements over the buttocks and a specific vocabulary of motifs that survives in ngatu (bark-cloth) design across the region.

Tools, techniques & ceremonies

Documented from published ethnography and museum records.

The daubati (tattooist ) painted guidelines on each girl’s body before tapping the desired weniqia (patterns) into the flesh using iqia (tattooing tool) dipped in soot.
Source: The Veiqia Project, "Veiqia: na iVolavosa Vakaviti", The Veiqia Project, Unknown.
Tools included pigment typically made from dakua gum soot mixed with a little water, damp barkcloth rugs to wipe up the blood, beater sticks, and tattooing picks, each consisting of gasau reed or duruka cane handle with bone or thorn teeth set at one end at right angles to the shaft. Bone blades were typically cut into sawtoothed edge.
Source: The Veiqia Project, "Veiqia: na iVolavosa Vakaviti", The Veiqia Project, Unknown.
For chiefly girls the soot was obtained by charring shelled lauci or sikeci candlenuts over a fire, catching the sooty smoke in an overturned pot, the nuts being strung on a sasa coconut leaf midrib for the purpose. The soot was then scraped free and mixed with candlenut oil. For commoners the soot was generally that obtained by burning the makadre resin from the dakua tree. In some hill districts dye was obtained from the gumu tree.
Source: The Veiqia Project, "Veiqia: na iVolavosa Vakaviti", The Veiqia Project, Unknown.
Girls were tattooed at puberty; the ceremony initiated them as women and signified their eligibility for marriage.
Source: The Veiqia Project, "Veiqia: na iVolavosa Vakaviti", The Veiqia Project, Unknown.

Colonial suppression & modern revival

Historical timeline with citations.

The arrival of Christian missionaries in the 1830s led to a significant decline in veiqia, and by the early 20th century, it was a rare sight.
Source: Fiji Travel Pro, "Learn About Fijian Tattoo Culture", Fiji Travel Pro, 2026.
Colonial administrations imposed Western gender roles onto local communities, leading to the suppression of veiqia and its sacred rituals.
Source: Holly Otto, "Faces of Resistance: The Revival of Female Tattoos in Melanesia", Young Australians in International Affairs, 2025.
Missionaries frequently equated European clothing with notions of modesty and dignity, implicitly or explicitly devaluing traditional adornments like veiqia. Women who bore these sacred markings were sometimes made to feel ashamed, leading them to hide their tattoos.
Source: Fiji Travel Pro, "Learn About Fijian Tattoo Culture", Fiji Travel Pro, 2026.
The Veiqia Project, a collective of artists with Fijian heritage, has been instrumental in the modern revival of veiqia. They have researched museum collections and spoken with community elders to deepen their understanding and share this heritage.
Source: Fiji Travel Pro, "Learn About Fijian Tattoo Culture", Fiji Travel Pro, 2026.
The Veiqia Project started as a creative research project in 2015, leading to an exhibition in March 2016, and continues to work towards the revitalization of veiqia.
Source: The Veiqia Project, "About", The Veiqia Project, Unknown.
Tattoo artist Julia Mage’au Gray is credited with helping to revive these traditions in both PNG and Fiji, inspiring a generation of women to explore their connections to the unique designs of their villages and cultures.
Source: Holly Otto, "Faces of Resistance: The Revival of Female Tattoos in Melanesia", Young Australians in International Affairs, 2025.

Full cross-tradition reference: open the sourced reference guide.

Glossary terms

Veiqia

Definitions live in the design glossary.

Fijian gallery7 photos

Wikimedia Commons imagery filtered to Fijian.

Open the full gallery →

Laniana and a map of her back tattoos, 1875–1876 — Fijian back tattoo — Laniana and a map of her back tattoos, 1875–1876
By Unknown (Fiji Museum collection) · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

Nundua, Fijian widow tattooed with veqia and qia gusu — Fijian historical tattoo illustration — Nundua, Fijian widow tattooed with veqia and qia gusu
By Unknown (Fiji Museum collection) · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

Ra Enge, Fijian noblewoman tattooed with veiqia and qia gusu — Fijian historical tattoo illustration — Ra Enge, Fijian noblewoman tattooed with veiqia and qia gusu
By Unknown (Fiji Museum collection) · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

Veiqia — female tattooing in Fiji — Fijian historical tattoo illustration — Veiqia — female tattooing in Fiji
By Unknown (Fiji Museum collection) · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

Unknown Fijian woman with qia gusu (mouth tattoos), Vanua Levu, 1910–12 — Fijian facial tattoo — Unknown Fijian woman with qia gusu (mouth tattoos), Vanua Levu, 1910–12
By Unknown (Fiji Museum collection) · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

Veiqia design — Fijian historical tattoo illustration by Not definitely known, but from the collection of Anatole von Hügel — Veiqia design
By Not definitely known, but from the collection of Anatole von Hügel · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

Veiqia design (complete) — Fijian historical tattoo illustration by Not definitely known, but from the collection of Anatole von Hügel — Veiqia design (complete)
By Not definitely known, but from the collection of Anatole von Hügel · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

Frequently asked questions

What is a Fijian tattoo?+

Veiqia was Fiji's traditional women's tattoo — dense, curvilinear thigh and buttock work applied at puberty as the central marker of womanhood in iTaukei culture. It has been undergoing a formal revival since 2015. The tradition is known as Veiqia and comes from Fiji · Western Polynesia / Melanesia border.

What are the signature motifs of Fijian tattoos?+

Signature Fijian motifs include: Veiqia curls — dense curvilinear thigh bands; Qia gusu — fine line at the corner of the mouth; Vonu — sea turtle motif for longevity and navigation; Tanoa — kava-bowl focal motif for ceremony; Bure roof — thatched-roof triangle for home and gathering.

Where on the body are Fijian tattoos traditionally placed?+

Thighs, buttocks and lower abdomen (veiqia); corners of the mouth (qia gusu). Contemporary revival work honors these placements for Fijian women reconnecting with tradition.

Go deeper on Fijian tattoos

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