Does Maori have a script?
These days Māori is written using the Latin alphabet with macrons, or Māori braille (which I'm unfamiliar with).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C4%81ori_language
[..]The Māori language did not have an indigenous writing system. Missionaries arriving from about 1814 learned to speak Māori, and introduced the Latin alphabet. In 1817, Tītore and his junior relative, Tui, sailed to England.[7] They visited Professor Samuel Lee at Cambridge University and assisted him in the preparation of a grammar and vocabulary of Māori. Thomas Kendall travelled to London with Hongi Hika and Waikato (a lower-ranking Ngāpuhi chief) in 1820, during which time further work was done with Professor Lee, who gave phonetic spellings to a written form of the language, which resulted in a definitive orthography based on Northern usage.[8] By 1830 the Church Missionary Society (CMS) missionaries had revised the orthography for writing the Māori language; for example, Kiddeekiddee became, as in the modern spelling, Kerikeri.[9] Māori distinguishes between long and short vowels; modern written texts usually mark the long vowels with a macron. Some older texts represent long vowels with double letters (for example: Maaori rather than Māori); for modern exceptions see § Long vowels below. [..]
Of course tattoo and scarification were only for people who had actually done anything worth remembering.
However this can have a positive effect in a different context. Maori don't come from a Christian background, so the act of marking people has a completely different meaning. If my life story is permanently written on my skin, that's a strong motivator to live well and do things I can be proud of. If my ancestry is part of my public identity, then I must also be excellent, so that my actions reflect well on my descendents and those descendents have a good role model to emulate in their lives. I think it encourages a strong sense of individual responsibility, a focus on supporting the community and multigenerational thinking.
But everyone is somewhat ‘urbanized’ now and we don’t live in tribal societies anymore. That has its advantages but also makes those who follow older customs more vulnerable.