A. There are still debates about the origins of Polynesian culture, but one thing we can ensure is that Polynesia is not a single tribe but a complex one. Polynesians which include Marquesans, Samoans, Niueans, Tongans, Cook Islanders, Hawaiians, Tahitians, and Maori, are genetically linked to indigenous peoples of parts of Southeast Asia. It’s a sub-region of Oceania, comprising of a large grouping of over 1,000 islands scattered over the central and southern Pacific Ocean, within a triangle that has New Zealand, Hawaii and Easter Island as its corners.

B. Polynesian history has fascinated the western world since Pacific cultures were first contacted by European explorers in the late 18th century. The small island of Tikopia, for many people – even for many Solomon Islanders – is so far away that it seems like a mythical land; a place like Narnia, that magical land in C. S. Lewis's classic, ‘The Chronicles of Narnia.’ Maybe because of it – Tikopia, its people, and their cultures have long fascinated scholars, travelers, and casual observers. Like the pioneers' Peter Dillion, Dumont D’Urville and John Coleridge Patterson who visit and write about the island in the 1800s, Raymond Firth is one of those people captured by the alluring attraction of Tikopia. As a result, he had made a number of trips to the island since the 1920s and recorded his experiences, observations, and reflections on Tikopia, its people, cultures and the changes that have occurred.

C. While engaged in the study of the kinship and religious life of the people of Tikopia, Firth made a few observations on their tattooing. Brief though these notes are they may be worth putting on record as an indication of the sociological setting of the practice in this primitive Polynesian community. The origin of the English word tattoo’ actually comes from the Tikopia word ‘tatau’. The word for tattoo marks, in general, is tau, and the operation of tattooing is known as ta tau, ta being the generic term for the act of striking.

D. The technique of tattooing was similar through Polynesia. Traditional tattoo artists create their indelible tattoos using pigment made from the candlenut or kukui nut. First, they burn the nut inside a bowl made of half a coconut shell. They then scrape out the soot and use a pestle to mix it with liquid. Bluing is sometimes added to counteract the reddish hue of the carbon-based pigment. It also makes the outline of the inscribed designs bolder on the dark skin of tattooing subjects.

E. For the instruments used when tattooing, specialists used a range of chisels made from albatross wing bone which were hafted onto a handle which was made from the heart wood of the bush and struck with a mallet. The tattooer began by sketching with charcoal a design on the supine subject, whose skin at that location was stretched taut by one or more apprentices. The tattooer then dipped the appropriate points – eighter a single one or a whole comb – into the ink (usually contained in a coconut-shell cup) and tapped it into the subject’s skin, holding the blade handle in one hand and tapping it with the other. The blood that usually trickled from the punctures was wiped away either by the tattooer or his apprentice, the latter having also inevitably painful – a test of fortitude that tattooers sought to shorten by working as fas as possible. In fact, tattoos nearly always festered and often led to sickness – and in some cases death.

F. In ancient Polynesian society, nearly everyone was tattooed. It was an integral part of ancient culture and was much more than a body ornament. Tattooing indicated ones' genealogy and/or rank in society. It was a sign of wealth, of strength and of the ability to endure pain. Those who went without them were seen as persons of lower social status. As such, chiefs and warriors generally had the most elaborate tattoos. Tattooing was generally begun at adolescence, and would often not be completed for a number of years. Receiving tattoos constituted an important milestone between childhood and adulthood, and was accompanied by many rites and rituals. Apart from signaling status and rank, another reason for the practice in traditional times was to make a person more attractive to the opposite sex.

G. The male facial tattoo is generally divided into eight sections of the face. The center of the forehead designated a person’s general rank. The area around the brows designated his position. The area around the eyes and the nose designated his hapu, or sub-tribe rank. The area around the temples served to details his signature. This signature was once memorized by tribal chief's who used it when buying property, signing deeds, and officiating orders. The cheek area designated the nature of the person’s work. The chin area showed the person’s mana. Lastly, the jaw area designated a person’s birth status.

H. A person’s ancestry is indicated on each side of the face. The left side is generally the father’s side, and the right side was the mother’s. the manutahi design is worked on the men’s back. It consists of two vertical lines drawn down the spine, with short vertical lines between them. When a man had the manutahi on this back, he took pride in himself. At gatherings of the people he could stand forth in their midst and display his tattoo designs with songs. And rows of triangles design on the men’s chest indicate his bravery.

I. Tattoo was a way of delivering information about its owner. It’s also a traditional method to fetch spiritual power, protection and strength. The Polynesians use this as a sign of character, position and levels in a hierarchy. Polynesian people believe that a person’s mana, their spiritual power or life force, is displayed through their tattoo.

A Pouring water into the sea sounds harmless enough. But in Florida Bay, a large and shallow section of the Gulf of Mexico that lies between the southern end of the Everglades and the Florida Keys, it is proving highly controversial. That is because researchers are divided over whether it will help or hinder the plants and animals that live in the bay.

B What is at risk is the future of the bay’s extensive beds of seagrasses. These grow on the bay’s muddy floor and act as nurseries for the larvae of shrimps, lobsters and fish – many of the important sport and commercial-fishing species. Also in danger is an impressive range of coral reefs that run the length of the Florida Keys and form the third-largest barrier reef in the world. Since the 1980s, coral cover has dropped by 40%, and a third of the coral species have gone. This has had a damaging effect on the animals that depend on the reef, such as crabs, turtles and nearly 600 species of fish.

C What is causing such ecological change is a matter of much debate. And the answer is of no small consequence. This is because the American government is planning to devote $8 billion over the next 30 years to revitalise the Everglades. Seasonal freshwater flows into the Everglades are to be restored in order to improve the region’s health. But they will then run off into the bay.

D Joseph Zieman, a marine ecologist at the University of Virginia, thinks this is a good idea. He believes that a lack of fresh water in the bay is its main problem. The blame, he says, lies with a century of drainage in the Everglades aimed at turning the marshes into farmland and areas for development. This has caused the flow of fresh water into Florida Bay to dwindle, making the water in the bay, overall, more saline. This, he argues, kills the seagrasses, and as these rots, nutrients are released that feed the microscopic plants and animals that live in the water. This, he says, is why the bay’s once crystal-clear waters often resemble pea soup. And in a vicious circle, these turbid blooms block out sunlight, causing more seagrasses to die and yet more turbidity.

E Brian Lapointe, a marine scientist at the Harbour Branch Oceanographic Institution at Fort Pierce in Florida, disagrees. He thinks seagrasses can tolerate much higher levels of salinity than the bay actually displays. Furthermore, he notes that when freshwater flows through the Everglades were increased experimentally in the 1990s, it led to massive plankton blooms. Freshwater running off from well-fertilised farmlands, he says, caused a fivefold rise in nitrogen levels in the bay. This was like pouring fuel on a fire. The result was mass mortality of seagrasses because of increased turbidity from the plankton. Dr Lapointe adds that, because corals thrive only in waters where nutrient levels are low, restoring freshwater rich in nitrogen will do more damage to the reef.

F It is a plausible theory. The water flowing off crops that are grown on the750,000 acres of heavily fertilised farmland on the northern edge of the Everglades is rich in nitrogen, half of which ends up in the bay. But Bill Kruczynski, of America’s Environmental Protection Agency, is convinced that nitrogen from farmlands is not the chief problem. Some coral reefs well away from any nitrogen pollution are dying and, curiously, a few are thriving. Dr Kruczynski thinks that increased nutrients arriving from local sewage discharges from the thousands of cesspits along the Florida Keys are part of the problem.

G Such claims and counterclaims make the impact of the restoration plan difficult to predict. If increased salinity is the main problem, the bay’s ecology will benefit from the Everglades restoration project. If, however, nitrogen is the problem, increasing the flow of freshwater could mate matters much worse.

H If this second hypothesis proves correct, the cure is to remove nitrogen from farmland or sewage discharges, or perhaps both. Neither will be easy. Man-made wetlands, at present, being built to reduce phosphate runoff into the bay—also from fertilisers—would need an algal culture (a sort of contained algal bloom) added to them to deal with discharges from farmlands. That would be costly. So too would be the replacement of cesspits with proper sewerage—one estimate puts the cost at $650m. Either way, it is clear that when, on December 1st, 3,000 square miles of sea around the reef are designated as a “protective zone” by the deputy secretary of commerce, Sam Bodman, this will do nothing to protect the reef from pollution.

I Some argue, though, that there is a more fundamental flaw in the plans for the bay: the very idea of returning it to a Utopian ideal before man wrought his damage. Nobody knows what Florida Bay was like before the 1950s when engineers cut the largest canals in the Everglades and took most of the water away. Dr Kruczynski suspects it was more like an estuary. The bay that many people wish to re-create could have been nothing more than a changing phase in the bay’s history.

J These arguments do not merely threaten to create ecological problems but economic ones as well. The economy of the Florida Keys depends on tourism—the local tourist industry has an annual turnover of $2.5 billion. People come for fishing-boat trips, for manatee watching, or for scuba diving and snorkeling to view the exotically coloured corals. If the plan to restore the Everglades makes problems in the bay and the reef worse, it could prove a very expensive mistake.