116
FIG. 4 (center right): Group
of Easter Island sculptures.
The kavakava in fi gure 2 is at
the top center.
From Florentin-Étienne “Tepano”
Jaussen, L’Empire Maori et l’écriture de
l’île de Pâques, 1886.
Archives SS.CC.
either side of an aquiline nose and by a mouth fi xed
in a grin revealing rows of teeth. These expressive
characteristics make up a terrifying entity to whom
the living must pay proper tribute or face the consequences.
They also depict the merciless attackers that
would deal with possible offenders.
Used in private rituals, these iconic representations
of kavakava make it possible to invoke the full power
(mana) of an ancestor, whether for white or black
magic. In public ceremonies, the fi gures were proudly
hung in groups around the necks and on the backs
of their owners. Missionaries insisted they played a
negative role and denounced their protective role and
powers.
THE D’AZY KAVAKAVA:
oRigiNAl, BUT NoT Too oRigiNAl
Four developmental styles can be discerned in Easter
Island sculpture: archetypical, classical, late, and
modern. The d’Azy kavakava is in the classical style,
which predates the capture and subsequent death
of half the island’s population in Peru in 1862 and
1863. One of the consequences of this disaster was
the disappearance of the majority of the island’s aristocracy,
including the sculptor-priests. The d’Azy
kavakava’s size (49.2 cm) puts it at the upper limit
for fi gures of its kind in the classical style. Larger examples
are all in the late or modern styles. The body’s
height-to-width ratio is also just at the border of the
classical and late styles, and the same can be said of
its general sculptural rhythm. This quality is associated
with religious and aesthetic canons that varied
over time, but dictated the proportion the sculptor
must give the various parts of the body, including the
head, the chest, the abdomen, and the legs. The heads
of fi gures in the late style (dating from the late nineteenth
century) are proportionally larger than those
of fi gures in the archetypical and classical styles.
The d’Azy fi gure shows subtle signs of having been
fashioned with the help of a metal fi le. This tool,
which all but came from another world, was used to
sharpen nails that were converted into fi shhooks and
for shaping metal edges. It was only rarely used for
sculpting wood. There is little doubt that such fi les
were among the objects exchanged with foreigners
during the earliest contacts. It appears that the d’Azy
fi gure is the oldest Easter Island object known on
which the use of metal tools is apparent.
While the piece displays the structural characteristics
and the attendant artistic talent that defi ne a
FIG. 3 (below): Group of
Easter Islanders holding
traditional sculptures. The
kavakava in fi gure 2 is visible
in the background near the
top of the image. Photo
by Susan Hoare, Papeete,
August 23, 1873.
Archives SS.CC PAQ 2.
Photo: Michel Orliac.
mate size: fi fty centimeters (it actually measures 49.2
centimeters). In the course of a conversation I had with
a friend, he told me that he had similarly identifi ed the
statue but had been unable to locate its buyer. By a
stroke of luck it came up for sale again, and he was
able to acquire it in December of 2016.
KAVAKAVA: FEARSoME pRoTECToRS
Moai kavakava are carved wooden fi gures, nearly
all of them male, the ribs of which (kavakava means
rib) are carefully incised to form an expanded chest.
The name and specifi city of these fi gures were fi rst
noted by William Thomson in 1886 and confi rmed
by William Scoresby Routledge in 1919, and the designation
continues to be commonly accepted. The
emaciated bones of the fi gures’ chest, spine, and hips
suggest a cadaver, and symbolically, by extension, the
ancestors. This sculptural invocation of the ancestors’
supernatural power is made all the more dramatic by
a frightening face with glaring obsidian pupils set to