When Easter Island was visited by Captain Cook the women were barely tattooed. The men, however were covered from head to toe in repeated motifs. The island had been discovered 52 years earlier on Easter Sunday by the Dutchman Jacob Roggeveen. A member of Roggeveen’s expedition wrote: ‘ The inhabitants’ bodies are marked in blue with birds and other animals, each more beautiful than the last. Cook observed mainly geometric patterns, however, so the style must have drastically changed in the interim. Travellers arriving after Cook were hugely impressed by the broad blue bands that followed the flow of the muscles on the light brown skin in such an artistic fashion.

The women of Easter Island began to tattoo their bodies with imitations of the knickerbockers worn by Europeans. Series of thin blue lines led from the waist to just above the knee. They were so finely applied that from a distance it was impossible to distinguish them from real trousers.