119
FIG. 7 (facing page, left):
Male figure, kavakava.
Easter Island/Rapa Nui.
Wood.
Donated by William L. R. Gifford,
1895.
© President and Fellows of Harvard
College, Peabody Museum of
Archaeology and Ethmology,
inv. 95-2-70147751.
FIG. 8 (facing page, right):
Male figure, kavakava.
Easter Island/Rapa Nui.
Wood.
Sale of March 24, 2010, lot 12,
Rosenthal Collection, Sotheby’s, Paris.
© Sotheby’s/Art Digital Studio.
FIG. 9 (right):
Male figure, kavakava.
Easter Island/Rapa Nui.
Wood.
Sale of September 30, 2002, lot 31,
Sotheby’s, Paris.
© Sotheby’s/Art Digital Studio.
MOAI KAVAKAVA
early map created by the missionaries places this in
the area of the Miru, the tribe of the reigning dynasty
founded by King Hotu Matua. This is the only indicator
that connects a mythical animal, a place on Easter
Island, and a tribal group. Wooden statues cannot do
this since we know next to nothing about them, and
their places of origin will forever remain a mystery.
A wooden octopus in the collection of the Weltmuseum
in Vienna5 is sculpted with the precision that a
naturalist might have brought to the task. The octopus
glyph adorns the heads of at least fourteen figures,
including a lizard-man, four papa, two tangata, and
seven kavakava figures (see figs. 8 and 9). With its
large eyes that are sometimes on stalks and its human
dentition, the conventionalized representation of this
mythical animal appears across the full range of the island’s
sculptural styles. David Attenborough’s strange
archetypical kavakava bears one of the most ancient
glyphs representing an octopus, though it is located
on the figure’s neck, while it is on the top of the head
of all the other examples on which it appears.
Epilog
Susan Hoare’s photograph depicts the d’Azy kavakava
at the apex of a pyramid of Easter Islanders
surmounted by a long ao “paddle,” the supreme insignia
of aristocratic authority. The sacred objects in
the photo are in the hands of solidly built young men
who fix their gazes on us for eternity. At the righthand
side of the image, two women, each holding
her child, demonstrate that the history of the Easter
islanders does not end here. Seeing this picture, it is
hard to believe that these uprooted individuals, 4,000
kilometers from their homes, are among the few
survivors of a people who conquered an ocean and
erected nearly a thousand monumental stone statues
on the shores of a tiny island. The objects they brandish
no longer have power, as demonstrated by the
presence of Catholic priests in the scene. Henceforth,
neither the heart nor the spirit will guide an Easter
Island sculptor’s hand in his quest to reveal the divine
identity concealed within certain pieces of wood.
NOTES
1. Eugène Eyraud, 1865. Lettres des missionnaires,
congrégation SS.CC, pp. 168–208.
2. Inv. Oc1869,1005.1.
3. Adrienne Kaeppler, 2003. “Sculptures of Barkcloth and
Wood from Rapa Nui,” RES, no. 44, pp. 10–69.
4. W. O. Oldman, 2004. “The Oldman Collection of
Polynesian Artifacts,” Polynesian Society reprint in
Memoir, no. 15, University of Hawaii Press.
5. Inv. 22.868.