Veiqia is a female tattooing practice in Fiji. The term refers to both the practice and to the tattoos. Women or adolescent girls who have reached puberty may be tattooed in the groin and buttocks area by older female tattooing specialists called dauveiqia or daubati. The practice was common prior to the arrival in the 1830s of Christian missionaries who discouraged it, but it was revived in the twenty-first century. In Fijian culture, the tattoos were considered to heighten a woman's beauty and could be an important factor that enabled her to marry. Receiving veiqia was highly ritualised, with many regional variations. Preparation for the process could include abstinence from food or from sexual relations, or inducing vomiting to purge the body. The process of tattooing was closely associated with the gift of a young woman's first fringed skirt to wear once her veiqia was complete. Motifs for tattoos included turtles, wandering tattlers, pottery and basketwork.

Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veiqia

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1938:

During an exercise to demonstrate air power, United States Army Air Corps bomber aircraft intercepted the Italian ocean liner SS Rex 620 nautical miles (1,100 km) off the US Atlantic coast. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interception_of_the_Rex

1948:

The United Kingdom publicly announced that it was independently developing nuclear weapons, after the US Atomic Energy Act of 1946 ended cooperation on the matter. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Explosive_Research

1968:

Vietnam War: The 1st Australian Task Force began the defence of Fire Support Base Coral in the largest unit-level action of the war for the Australian Army. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Coral%E2%80%93Balmoral

1998:

Four students were shot and killed by Indonesian soldiers at Trisakti University in Jakarta, which led to widespread riots and the resignation of President Suharto nine days later. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trisakti_shootings

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

musth: (also attributive, uncountable) Chiefly preceded by in or on: the state each year during which a male animal (usually a camel or an elephant) exhibits increased aggressiveness and sexual activity due to a high level of testosterone; (countable) an instance of this. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/musth

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

Law is the continuous manifestation of God's presence — not reason for believing him absent. Great confusion arises from our using the same word law in two totally distinct senses … as the cause and the effect. It is said that to "explain away" everything by law is to enable us to do without God. But law is no explanation of anything; law is simply a generalization, a category of facts. Law is neither a cause, nor a reason, nor a power, nor a coercive force. It is nothing but a general formula, a statistical table. Law brings us continually back to God instead of carrying us away from him.   --Florence Nightingale https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Florence_Nightingale