RAPA NUI - Clark University

RAPA NUI
Marquesas
Rapa Nui
Between 300-800 CE Polynesians established
in Rapa Nui, coming from the West.
Chile
Islanders and Monuments of Easter Island. Engraving after drawing by Duche de
Vancy on La Perouse Voyage, 1786.
COMPARE: Figure sculpture from ‘parent’
Polynesian culture (Marquesas) and the
sculpture from Rapa Nui
Marquesas:
Post Figure, Wood. H. 49”
Portable figure, Stone, H. 6”
Note: distortion of relative sizes
Rapa Nui
Figure, Stone, H. 13 ft.
Figure, wood, H. 18”
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 starts
1722 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. Petroglyphs
characterize the Bird Man cult.
After 1600, major internecine warfare broke out, inaugurating a period known as
the overturning of the statues.
Easter Island script on wooden tablets.
www.rongorongo.org
Male Figure
‘ribcage’ type
Wood. 18th c.
H. 18”
Female figure
Wood.
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. Janiform
structure 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 Gods
Douglas 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 including
the Metropolitan Museum Collections data base
the Bradshaw Foundation
http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/ioa/eisp/ (rapa nui research program)
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/easter/move/past.html