FIG. 8 (left): Female figure. Ra’ivavae, Austral Islands. Discussed on pp. 84–85. FIG. 9 (below): Figure, tangiia. Mangaia, Cook Islands. Discussed on p. 70. FIG. 6: Cover of the English edition book award: Atua: Sacred Gods from Polynesia, Michael Gunn, National Gallery of Australia, 2014. FIG. 7 (below right): Male figure. Rapa Nui. Discussed on pp. 182–4. However, I am curious about religious belief, and I often wonder what people experience when they have a religious interaction. Almost all Polynesian pre-Christian art objects now in museum collections appear to have been created for a role in the interaction either between humans or between humans and the divine. Strangely enough, most authors who wrote about Polynesian religious art objects worked from a Christian belief system and assumed that pre-Christian Polynesian religious activity was somehow false or wrong. After I found—or perhaps realized—that at least some of these pre-Christian Polynesian art objects exhibit or retain a “presence,” or atua, I decided to take the approach that what pre-Christian Polynesian people believed in was true, or at least reflected an understanding of reality that is largely rejected in the West. I spoke with several of my scientist friends about the process I should take to detect life within an art object, and they all said that I needed to have a doubleblind experiment. The problem with this approach, I found, is that the “presence” associated with some of these art objects appeared to have a definite life or mind of its own and would choose on its own terms whether or not to make its presence apparent. It became clear to me that double-blind experiments would not work under these circumstances. I decided that the evidence could be found elsewhere, for although the “presence” was associated with the art objects, objectivity could be found in the documents of those who sought to destroy these “presences.” T. A. M.: The objects that are discussed in this book left their original cultural contexts very early on—in the eighteenth century in some cases. They were then subject to interpretations made by the Christian missionaries who came to Polynesia in the name of another god. How were you able to find a way to uncover the essence and original meanings of these works that you describe in your extremely comprehensive captions? M. G.: I tried to move away from the commonly published ideas regarding these objects because I found them unsatisfying, and they did not make complete sense to me. In the 1980s I was on the Tabar Islands in New Ireland working with the people living there to understand the reasons why they created art objects (malagan) and what they used them for. The language and their culture are largely derived from the Austronesian-speaking people (also known today as the Lapita people), who were also the ancestors of the Polynesian people. Every malagan sculptor and every malagan owner I spoke with were insistent that the art objects they created were only images, they were not “active” in any way— except, of course, the woven type of malagan known as vavara (wowara, uara). After some time it became clear to THREE QUESTIONS FOR MICHAEL GUNN, AUTHOR OF ATUA, SACRED GODS FROM POLYNESIA Tribal Art Magazine: This book and the eponymous exhibition it accompanies explore notions of the divine and its representation that fall more into the realm of personal belief than rational and observable fact. How did you approach such a subject, and how did the belief systems of Polynesian cultures help in understanding them? Michael Gunn: I was brought up without any religious beliefs and have remained a heathen throughout my life.
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