RAPA NUI

Rapa Nui

Marquesas

ChileBetween 300-800 CE Polynesians established in Rapa Nui, coming from the West.

Islanders and Monuments of Easter Island. Engraving after drawing by Duche de Vancy on La Perouse Voyage, 1786.

Marquesas: Post Figure, Wood. H. 49”Portable figure, Stone, H. 6”

Rapa NuiFigure, Stone, H. 13 ft.Figure, wood, H. 18”

Note: distortion of relative sizes

COMPARE: Figure sculpture from ‘parent’ Polynesian culture (Marquesas) and the sculpture from Rapa Nui

Ancestor Images with eyes ‘activated’ with inlay of coral and red scoria.

Ahu Tongariki

1200-1600 CE Monumental stone statues erected on ceremonial sites

1600 Natural resources failing, Birdman cult failing and cannibalism starts1722 Jacob Roggeveen visits Easter Island

Ceremonial center at Orongo, home of the Bird Man cult that developed c.1400 in competition with the ancestor based cult centered on the Ahu or sacred precincts and large scale stone statues. Petroglyphscharacterize the Bird Man cult.

After 1600, major internecine warfare broke out, inaugurating a period known as the overturning of the statues.

www.rongorongo.org

Easter Island script on wooden tablets.

Male Figure‘ribcage’ typeWood. 18th c.H. 18”

Female figureWood.19th c.

Kaeppler suggests that these are objectifications of prayers and intoned texts which gave permanent form to transient ritual activities.

Barkcloth over cane figures – possibly associated with lineage continuity.

Staffs and paddles associated with chiefly status and judicial activities. Janiformstructure suggests supernatural ability to see both visible and invisible realms.

Other Easter Island wood sculpture included figures depicting disease and deformity and naturalistic male figures.

Since the 1960s, there have been regular flights to Rapa Nui – and a developing trade in cultural tourism.

Building materials associated with the monolithic stone sculptures have been recycled into Catholic imagery.

Local graffiti.

Sources for Easter Island include:Orliac, Catherine and Michel: Easter Island: Beneath the Eyes of the GodsDouglas Newton (ed.) Arts of the South Seas. NY, Prestel 1999, pp.342-347

D’Alleva, Anne. Arts of the Pacific Islands. NY, Abrams, 1998

Kaeppler, Adrienne, Christian Kaufman and Douglas Newton: Oceanic Art. NY: Abrams, 1997

Kaeppler, Adrienne. The Pacific Arts of Polynesia & Micronesia. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2008.

Kjellgren, E. (ed.) Splendid Isolation: Art of Easter Island. NY: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2001.

Various web sites includingthe Metropolitan Museum Collections data basethe Bradshaw Foundationhttp://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/ioa/eisp/ (rapa nui research program)http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/easter/move/past.html