There are two common English words that borrow from Polynesian languages: tattoo (tatau) and taboo (tapu or tabu). In many precolonial Pacific cultures, tattoos were a form of familial identification and clothing. Yet when Christian missionaries gained footholds in the region in the 18th and 19th centuries, tattooing, deemed heathen, was highly discouraged and in some instances criminalized. Since then, the female-worn Samoan malu—which stretches from a woman’s knees to the very top of her thighs—has come to incorporate both tatau and tabu; the motif simultaneously marks a girl’s entry into adulthood and is an adornment of female flesh that is never to be shown in public. This implicit agreement to cover what was once considered clothing reflects Samoa’s complex relationship to its colonizers: hiding one’s tattoos allowed the tradition to continue in secret, but through its concealment, the practice absorbed the Victorian notion of a woman’s modesty and shame.