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When Phil picked me up at 10 am on Thursday, April 20, I discovered that Rangi would be meeting us today to sort out the front design.

After Rangi drew in the front design on Tuesday, April 18, after Phil had inked it in, after I got home, showered and saw it—I was a little concerned about the long horizontal line drawn in around my waist—and Rangi’s idea of belting it with a graphic design of triangles (taniko). I felt that it cut my body in two, that it attracted attention to the broadest part of my body, having always felt my hips were too wide, not narrow enough compared to my shoulders. Concerned that it accentuated my belly and might look like my belly were hanging over a ‘belt’, as commonly happens for older men in the United States

I had a fitful night’s sleep, because I knew that long, inked line could not be erased.

I talked to Phil about it on Wednesday, April 19. I was reluctant to bring it up at all, but Mark said it was my body, and I definitely should speak up.

I told Phil I was concerned about the horizontal line and my reasons why. Also that most puhoro designs are open at the top (not closed off with a line), and are dominantly vertical. I made it very clear that I was very happy with everything, but had concerns about that line.

I also told Phil that when Rangi and he are sketching and drawing on my body, it’s hard for me to know exactly what they’re doing, which is also true when Phil is inking. I hear their conversation, which I mostly get, although they have a short-hand way of relating to each other and use Maori terms for design elements.

I also said that although I wasn’t invited to have input, and that although I was generally too happy, perhaps, to defer to Rangi as the artist and designer, I could have spoken up myself to talk about what I wanted. But the learned passivity from my childhood experience is a hard thing to overcome.

Phil wasn’t in the least bit offended, just looked at my body while I stood in my g-string, started sketching out ways on my body to solve the problem. Sketching and erasing. He came up with a solution I thought was pretty good, particularly how he dealt with the horizontal line, and how he figured out a way to make the design look open at the top.

Then we got on with the goal of the day: to begin the shading, drawing in short, horizontal pakati lines on my right leg, since there was no more inking of outlines to do, until Rangi drew the next piece of the design.

Phil said he would talk to Rangi about the front. And I said, that we had three options: to go with what Phil had drawn up, to go with Rangi’s original plan, which also involved a belt of triangular geometric pattern, the taniko which really worried me, or to go with a new design Rangi came up with.

When Rangi came by on Thursday, April 20, to resolve the front design, he was like, “Man, you have a great body, nothing wrong with your shape. Your belly is nothing compared to a lot of people” And Phil chimed in, “And your butt is better than many people I’ve worked on, impressive for your age.

A reality check on my body dysmorphia!

Rangi liked the solution Phil had drawn on my body, made a few suggestions for changes to improve it. I had earlier told Phil that I though it was a little busy, and wondered if we couldn’t just put in mango pare (an abstract oval pattern that invokes a hammer head shark—known for being ferocious) on each side of the already-inked central medallion, at about 45 degree angles. Rangi like that idea, and immediately began drawing it in.

Phil later told me that he was glad that I’d spoken up, that I had a great idea and that I’d gotten what I wanted on my body. “It’s your body, man, and you’re claiming it for yourself.”

When Rangi finished sketching the mango pare over the drawing that Phil had done on the right side, Phil began drawing it in in detail and adding the all-important heke lines to establish the shapes that will be shaded in with pakati lines later. He asked Rangi to sketch the mango pare on the left side.

With Rangi sketching to one side of my junk, and Phil drawing on the other side, both of them lifting my g-string this way and that as they drew, I felt like I had more hands on my body than a cute go-go dancer, gyrating for dollar bills tucked into his g-string.

It was like that, too, when Phil was inking in his drawing from Rangi’s design, pulling my g-string pouch and straps to have the access he needed as he inked. But totally cool and comfortable.

When the first side was done, and Phil was getting it ready for me to compress it, I caught a glimpse of the beautiful design in the mirror.

But it wasn’t until after the second side was done, after it was compressed, cleaned and dressed, after I got out of the shower at home, that I saw the whole design.

So beautiful, so powerful, so perfect!

It takes a village. All three of us had contributed to this outcome.

Rangi and I chatted while Phil drew and inked on my body—a conversation that still haunts me.

Rangi’s great uncle—his great-grandmother’s brother—is being honored next week by the New Zealand Armed Forces. They even commissioned a portrait that will be dedicated here in Taranaki, here in Waitara, the very place of resistance, the very place the land wars in all of New Zealand began in 1860, with the passive resistance of Rangi’s hapu.

His great uncle was a Spitfire pilot, the only Maori man of anywhere near that rank at the time in the military. He fought during WW II in the Pacific, shot down a much larger Japanese plane from his Spitfire.

I began to think about all the small steps that had to have happened for Rangi’s immediate ancestors in order to make it possible for Rangi to be the first member of his family to go to university.

When I asked about this, Rangi told me that Waitara had a large “meat works,” even before refrigeration. They slaughtered and dressed the lambs, loaded them on off-shore refrigeration ships, which took the meat to Britain. It was the only path forward in Waitara. And even back them, it paid 40 NZD an hour, a very high wage, because of a strong union.

But Waitara was a rough, violent town, rife with domestic abuse. Rangi knew he had to get out. His father was a respected builder, so he too, and found another way. Rangi said, “I knew I had to find another way, too.” And his parents also wanted more for him.

He went to University, a totally alien world, and he got there late, so the only course of studies that had room for more students was Social Sciences. And he loved it. He was a gifted artist, and would would get an education in art. But Social Sciences allowed him to understand power and oppression, gave him a framework to understand the history of his people. What that program had to offer fell on very fertile ground with Rangi. It framed his life’s purpose of bringing back traditional Maori culture thought art and moko.

Rangi said that despite the total dispossession of Maori land and culture, he always walked with his head held up, with his shoulders thrown back, chest high. I had rangatiratanaga. Then he struggled to find the translation of that Maori word. “Dignity?” he said, not satisfied. “Phil, how do you translate rangatiratanga into English?” “Pride,” Phil offered. “Honor,” I suggested, blindly.

Rangi continued to think, finally got it: Body integrity. Possession of one’s own body. No matter how much has been taken from you, you still control your own body. You can still choose to walk tall.

So maybe, rangatiratanga is self-possession.

And I thought to myself, “I was dispossessed of my own body as a child, I did not have it for most of my life. My head bent down, shoulders slumped forward. I did not stand tall.

But with this moko, I am claiming my body for myself.

And I spoke up, and contributed to a front design that I love.

Here’s an x-rated photo of the front, but the only way you can see it clearly.

Note how the puhoro is broadly symmetrical, the right and left sides mirror images of each other, consistent with the bilateral symmetry of the human body. But there are lots of minor variations on each side, for instance the two mango pare that Rangi sketched in on each side of his distinctly asymmetrical central medallion, also not common.

You can also see the shading on my lower right leg—the regular, short, horizontal pakati lines that Phil drew in on Friday, April 21—which highlight the un-inked swooping puhoro curves..