89
these connections were renewed periodically
with appropriate rites. Growing seasons were
governed by the stars, in particular, the cyclical
rise and fall of the Pleiades cluster. The appearance
on the horizon every November of these
seven stars, known as Makali’i (“Eyes of the
Gods”), signaled the beginning of Makahiki, a
festival that celebrated the god Lono and the
coming of the rains. Their visibility was an auspicious
sign that the ancestral gods were present,
anticipating an abundant and prosperous
season. God, chiefs, and the natural world were
closely linked in Polynesia, especially in Hawai’i,
where genealogy was paramount. A high-ranking
chief was not simply an agent of the gods
but their earthly counterpart. Armed with shark
teeth knives (fig. 9), fiber fans (fig. 8), and enveloped
in dramatic feathered capes, the elite class
of Hawai’ian chiefs (ali’i) staked claim to legitimate
leadership. By marshaling the forces of the
natural world in visually dynamic ways, they
enhanced their spiritual efficacy and expressed
their close kinship with the environment.
For Hawaiians, the deity Wakea (Tonga:
Vatea; Tahiti: Atea) is understood as the creative
force and source of all life, but his name derives
from the same sense of expansiveness
and light, atea, that is both the
title and framework for this exhibition.
The term connotes vastness, a
sense of expansiveness, understood
to be crucial qualities relating to a
sacred, or tapu, state. In the earliest
origin stories, Hawaiians recount
how Wakea —the progenitor of all
life in Hawai’i—raised the outer skin
of a gourd to create the first sphere
of the sky. Casting the pulp into the
air, he forged the sun. The seeds became
the stars, the ripe flesh of the
gourd the clouds, and its succulent
juices the rain. The final work in the
installation, an immaculate gourd, is
painted with delicate linear designs
that gently sweep across its surface, tracing
the rise and fall of its contours. It speaks
precisely to the relationship of nature with
divinity.
Atea is bathed in the immersive sound of
contemporary Hawaiians, who visited the
FIG. 12 (far left):
Ritual staff, to’o.
Rurutu, Austral Islands.
18th century.
Wood. L: 55 cm.
Private collection, c/o The Menil
Collection, Houston.
FIG. 13 (left):
Pendant.
Hawai’i. 18th–19th century.
Whalebone. H: 6 cm.
The Metroplitan Museum of Art,
the Michael C. Rockefeller Memorial
Collection, bequest of Nelson A.
Rockefeller, 1979, inv.
1979.206.1587.
FIG. 14 (below):
Flywhisk, tahiri (detail).
Austral Islands. Early to
mid-19th century.
Wood, fiber, human hair. L: 32
81.3 cm.
The Metroplitan Museum of Art,
the Michael C. Rockefeller Memorial
Collection, bequest of Nelson A.
Rockefeller, 1979, inv.
1979.206.1487.
FIG. 15 (right):
Staff god.
Rarotonga, Cook Islands.
Late 18th–early 19th
century.
Wood. H: 85.1 cm.
Gordon Sze Collection.
ATEA