ART on view A T U A SACRED GODS OF POLYNESIA FIG. 1 (left): Head of an atua. Rarotonga, Cook Islands, central Polynesia. Probably 18th century or earlier. Wood. H: 72.5 cm. Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Cambridge University. Facing page clockwise from upper left FIG. 2: Deified ancestor with the name A’a. Rurutu, Austral Islands, central Polynesia. Probably 18th century or earlier. Handed over to the London Missionary Society on Raiatea in the Society Islands, in 1821. British Museum, London, Oc,LMS.19. Photo: Barry Le Lievre, National Gallery of Australia. FIG. 3: Figure from a panel with an unusually strong presence. Aotearoa (New Zealand). Probably before the early 19th century. Gordon Sze, New York. Photo: Barry Le Lievre, National Gallery of Australia. FIG. 4: Wood figure of a frigate bird covered with 40 komari symbols (most likely depictions of women’s external genitalia). Rapa Nui (Easter Island), eastern Polynesia. Probably 18th century or earlier. British Museum, London, Oc1950,04.12. Photo: Barry Le Lievre, National Gallery of Australia. FIG. 5: Female figure, moai papa (detail). Rapa Nui (Easter Island), eastern Polynesia. Probably early 19th century. Wood, bone, obsidian. H: 64 cm. Otago Museum, Dunedin, New Zealand. Atua began out of curiosity. The pre-Christian cultural world of Polynesia was populated with gods and I, living in the first years of the twenty-first century, did not know what a god was, at least not in the visceral sense. I began to look toward Polynesia with curiosity. Perhaps Polynesia could show me what a god was. I didn’t know where to start, but I thought I would begin by trying to find out more about what a god figure was— a heathen idol, as the missionaries were so fond of labeling them. I liked the idea of starting with sculpture—figures of wood, of feathers, and of stone. I’m a museum curator and I specialize in this sort of thing, so that seemed like a logical place to begin. By Michael Gunn It soon became clear that this personal exploration could develop into a major Polynesian exhibition. I spoke with Brent Benjamin, director of the Saint Louis Art Museum, where I was then employed, about the possibility. He mused about the idea for a minute and then said that I shouldn’t restrict myself and I should find the best examples of Polynesian art throughout the world. With those words, a Polynesian exhibition was on the books for the Saint Louis Art Museum. I had a subject but didn’t have a theme. When I moved to the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra in 2008, the exhibition came with me on the understanding that Saint Louis would be the second venue. I mentioned this to the NGA’s director, Ron Radford, and he could immediately see the possibilities of such an exhibition and agreed that I should continue to develop it. Steve Hooper at Norwich was already developing a general exhibition involving Polynesian gods, the 2006 Pacific Encounters: Art and Divinity in Polynesia, 1760–1860. He had a team of people working on the project, scholars such as Karen Jacobs, Ludo Coupaye, Maia Nuku, Wonu Veys, and Amiria Salmond. I didn’t want to replicate what Steve and his people were doing, but my project was developing a distinctive identity. I had begun hunting for Polynesian art objects that were associated with the name of an atua, that is, the gods and spirits of Polynesia. Records indicated that there had been thousands of atua—not just the big four god names of Tangaroa (Kanaloa), Tu (Ku), Tane (Kane), and Rogo (Rongo, Lono) that people who think about such things think of today. Within a comparatively short period of time I had accumulated photos and information about more than 5,000 objects from Polynesia. I found that a number of these objects had been attributed names—names that were given to the objects after they had left their homelands—but their real names were not known. Attributed names included generic or descriptive terms such as tiki (image), moai kavakava (ribbed carving), and ki’i hulu manu (feathered image). It was also becoming clear that even seemingly real names such as Ku ka’ili moku (Seizer of Land, an aspect of the Hawaiian deity known as Ku) had been attributed far outside their original environment,
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