In ancient Polynesia the art of tattoo was (and still is) male dominated. Men were the practitioners and wore the most extensive bodily coverage. This Polynesian cultural complex originates in Samoa where legends tell of Taema and Tilafaiga, two goddesses that brought the tools of the trade from Fiji to the Samoan chain. As they swam the great distance, they chanted, “Tattoo the women, not the men”.  In some versions of the story they are Siamese twins that are separated by a storm at sea, causing them to become confused. In another version we are told that a huge pearl at the bottom of the ocean distracts them.  Regardless of the source of their confusion, the chant was reversed and became “tattoo the men, and not the women”.  Although this seems to be a whimsical myth, it does correspond with an actual change in the tattooing practices of the Pacific islands as evidenced by ethnohistoric accounts and their numerous illustrations. In the majority of proto-Polynesian cultures, that is the island chains west of the Samoa, it was predominately women that were the practitioners of the art. Illustrations show that women, in the western Pacific, were at least as heavily adorned as men, if not more so.  Certain women's tattoos seem to have been part of an ancient ancestral complex, and may have had to do with the balance between the sacred and the secular, or the management of kapu.