When Captain Cook reached New Zealand he was less than warmly received. From a safe distance, he beheld the fierce Maori warriors perform their wild war dance, the hakas, which filled their enemies’ hearts with fear. After contact was made a number of Maori came aboard and they were extensively described and portrayed by Cook's travelling companions. ‘Their lips were stained with something put under the skin (as in the Otahite [Tahitian] tattow), and their faces marked with deeply engraved furrows, also coloured black, and formed in regular spirals’.

Like their war dances, the deep grooves in Maori faces were intended to instil fear in their enemies. The moko, as these facial tattoos were called in New Zealand, were so specific to each bearer that in order to seal a contract with a Maori chieftain, the English would require a drawing of his facial tattoo as a signature.