Before Nadine Martin utters a single word, her face tells a story shaped over centuries. Three simple lines extend from her lips to the bottom of her chin, one at each corner of her mouth, the third at the center. “Some people call it the one hundred eleven,” says Martin. “When the white people started coming into the valley it looked to them like the number 111.” Martin is a descendant of the Takelma tribe, now one of the Confederated Tribes of the Siletz. And the markings on her face have a long history in Takelma culture. “It’s not a tattoo,” Martin quickly explains. “It’s a moko.” Members of the Māori tribe call it tā moko (rhymes with “cocoa”). The cultural markings were common among the Pacific Rim tribes until the late 1800s when treaties forced the tribes out of their homelands.Get the Story:
The Moko Returns: More Than A Tattoo (Oregon Public Broadcasting 7/24)
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