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Vatican ceremonial occasions. The two heads at the terminals of the crescent-shaped objects are reminiscent of the colossal stone moai, with extended jaws and strong, profiled noses. Rei miro were worn primarily by women, but ethnologist Alfred Métraux has indicated that the island’s male ariki mau (highest chief) wore up to six at once.28 Before the culture’s conversion to Christianity in 1868, Rapa Nui religion centered around the ariki mau, who was considered to be imbued with supernatural powers as a descendant of the gods Tangaroa and Rongo. Another Rapa Nui object type of importance is the paddle shaped rapa (fig. 15). These are carved from single pieces of wood and take the form of figures reduced to essential linear form. Low ridges define the brow, nose, and ears, whose stylized ear ornaments can also be seen on the moai tangata. The point at the paddle’s bottom represents a phallus.29 Before widespread conversion, indigenous religious ceremonies included the rapa, which Métraux has indicated were used in pairs and spun to the rhythm of chants.30 In 1866, Brother Eyraud was joined on Rapa Nui by Father Hippolyte Roussel of the Picpus mission in the Marquesas. He was accompanied by Marquesan converts. A mission was established and conversion to Christianity followed. In subsequent years, a great number of pieces were collected and exhibited in Belgium, Rome, and at the Vatican in the Universal Missionary Exposition of 1925. We can deduce that the Rapa Nui works in the Vatican have a direct connection to Eyraud or Roussel, but further research in the archives is necessary to confirm this.31 Museum catalog records from the exposition and records created by subsequent staff list the individual or organization that conveyed the work to the Vatican rather than the primary source. What is incontrovertible is that the Picpus missionaries gathered one of the largest collections of Rapa Nui artworks in history.32 While we don’t know how much aesthetics influenced the composition of the collection of these works, it certainly shapes our current understanding of Rapa Nui aesthetics in that period. Missions in Africa provided works that filled five halls in the 1925 exposition. One of these was dedicated to the “Belgian Congo” and another to “religion” in sub-Saharan Africa.33 Extensive collections remain in the Ethnological Museum, but further conservation and research are needed so they can be exhibited and shared with scholars and the public. A few important African pieces were selected for the de Young exhibition. Distinctive among these is a bronze crucifix (fig. 16) created in the late seventeenth century by a Kongo artist in the present-day Democratic Republic of the Congo. At that time, Christian iconography and forms 87 FIG. 13 (above): Chest ornament, rei miro. Rapa Nui (Easter Island), Chile. Before 1868. Wood. Conveyed by the Order of Picpus Mission for the Vatican Universal Missionary Exhibition of 1925. Ethnological Museum, Vatican, inv. #100181. Photo by Scott McCue. FIG. 14 (left): Male figure, moai tangata. Rapa Nui (Easter Island), Chile. Before 1868. Wood, bone, obsidian. Conveyed by the Order of Picpus Mission for the Vatican Universal Missionary Exhibition of 1925. Ethnological Museum, Vatican, inv. #100201. Photo by Scott McCue. FIG. 15 (right): Dance paddle, rapa. Rapa Nui (Easter Island), Chile. Before 1868. Wood. Conveyed by the Order of Picpus Mission for the Vatican Universal Missionary Exhibition of 1925. Ethnological Museum, Vatican, inv. #100173. Photo by Scott McCue.


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