August 10, 2006 - 2:34PM
Maori leaders are trying to block the sale of facial tattoo kits by an American store which they say are insulting to their culture.
The Los Angeles store Halloween Town, which specialises in horror costumes and accessories, is selling the Maori Face Tattoo Kit for $US10 ($A13).
The product page on its website features a photo of a young Maori man with a full facial tattoo.
Rotorua academic Ngahihi o te ra Bidois, who sports a facial tattoo, has emailed the US store asking for the kits to be withdrawn from sale.
"It is insulting ... what they are doing is not portraying Maori correctly," Bidois told Rotorua's The Daily Post newspaper.
He is also considering raising the issue with New Zealand's Human Rights Commission and the body which manages Maori intellectual property rights.
But another Maori academic said not much could be done to stop the kits being sold.
"No one likes to see their culture being denigrated but we are aware that the moko is in the public domain," Aroha Mead of Wellington's Victoria University told NZPA.
"This comes down to being respectful of other cultures so you don't cut and paste, pick and choose."
Indigenous MP Te Ururoa Flavell told the newspaper: "We are not about to have pumpkins or people decorated with our traditional symbols, all for the purposes of a trick or a treat".
"A moko comes with a story and a past, and you have to know that."
Traditionally, high-ranking Maori men had facial moko and the more intricate the tattoo the higher his status.
Maori complaints about denigration of their culture overseas have succeeded before.
A US tobacco company this year withdrew the sale of Maori Mix brand cigarettes in Israel after receiving complaints from New Zealand.
Maori were less successful in objecting last month to an Italian car advertisement which featured European women performing a haka chant which is culturally restricted to men.
New Zealand Māori leaders have said that they will try to get a Maori temporary tattoo kit from the Los Angeles store Halloween Town withdrawn from sale, as they find it insulting to the Māori culture. 

The Halloween Town, a store that specializes in Halloween costumes and accessories, is selling the tattoo kit for NZ$16. The store's website features a photograph of a full facial Tā moko (Māori tattoo) instead of their usual caricatures. 

Aroha Mead, Victoria University of Wellington Māori business lecturer said that the Tā moko is not frightening, "And he doesn't look scary to me – he looks quite handsome,", but added "There didn't appear to be much that Māori could do. No-one likes to see their culture being denigrated but we are aware that the moko is in the public domain."

Rotorua acedmic Ngahihi o te ra Bidois, who has a full facial moko, has asked the Halloween Town store to remove the tattoo kits. "It is insulting ... what they are doing is not portraying Māori correctly," Bidois said.

A full-face moko is traditionally restricted to male Māori and is used to represent mana (prestige).