POLYNESIAN GODS 91 FIG. 14 (above): Warrior Chief Te Rauparaha, fixed in his canoe. Maori, Aotearoa (New Zealand), southern Polynesia. C. 1835. Wood. H: 43.5 cm. National Gallery of Australia, Canberra. FIG. 15 (below): Ancestor figure. Maori, attributed to Raharuhi Rukupo, Manutuke district near Gisborne, east coast of the North Island, Aotearoa (New Zealand), southern Polynesia. 19th century. Wood. H: 79.7 cm. National Gallery of Australia, Canberra. with an inexplicable “presence” associated with the sculpture. Each time this happened I got a fright because something in the object seemed to be entering me, not with violence, but with a noticeable presence. Sometimes it would enter through one arm and go back out through the other. Other times it would enter through an arm, perform a loop-the-loop in my body, then travel down my right leg. Sometimes it was like looking at a work of art through the rangefinder lens of an old camera, where suddenly there were two images of the same wood figure, shifting slightly apart. Polynesian people who were with me when this was happening understood that I was being entered by vairua, or spirits. Although it was very unnerving, these vairua didn’t seem to want to kill me. Perhaps they just wanted me to know that they were there. Or perhaps they were attracted by the “scent” of those who had entered me in the past. The first time it happened in the presence of a number of other people, I got really spooked and, although I was told that an atua showing itself like this was not abnormal, I didn’t like it. That evening I walked through the streets of a Polynesian city full of tourists clutching their plastic tikis, but I felt lonely and empty with eel-like spooks (for lack of a more precise term) swimming through me. It became clear to me that atua were what the exhibition was going to be about, that its focus would be defined by my attempt at understanding what these spooks were. I had come to realize that I wasn’t mad because other people—especially Polynesian people—similarly experienced these spooks or at least accepted their reality. However, I also met Western people who owned Polynesian art objects, had lived with them for years, and had never experienced anything unusual. Trying to understand atua became an exercise in trying to define the nature of reality—if enough people accept something as real, then it is real. Understanding atua was also about understanding the nature of perception. Were these spooks the Polynesian “gods” that initially had so eluded me? I didn’t know, but it was a possibility I couldn’t dismiss. Someone asked me one day what the Polynesian exhibition I was working on was going to be called. Atua was the natural answer, for atua and the strange presences I was experiencing in some of the Polynesian figures might be one and the same thing. My main role as curator became to develop the central idea of atua, to make it coherent, and to communicate it to all those working with me on the project. Initially, many people were skeptical about the notion of atua because it conflicted with the general Western idea of reality. I found that women were more inclined to accept what I was talking about, while men were more skeptical. I had to be very careful with my language, remaining true to my experience with the Tahitian atua while at the same time maintaining a firm grip on reality as it is understood in the West. As I wrote the catalog, I began to understand many of the common patterns regarding atua throughout Polynesia, especially those of deified ancestors and of vairua. This Polynesian reality became clear when the first crates arrived in the quarantine room at the National Gallery. I looked closely as the first of the pre-Christian Polynesian artworks were taken out and laid carefully on a table. One was a Tahitian wood figure. Lively and mysterious, she made her presence felt almost immediately. I realized at once that the reality that Polynesian people had been talking about was valid and that most Westerners did not or could not acknowledge it. Once an exhibition becomes part of a museum’s schedule, it develops a life of its own, and dozens and eventually hundreds of people become involved. Key people become the funders (thank you, funders), the director (Ron Radford), those who produce the catalog (Kirsty Morrison), exhibition designers (Patrice Riboust), registrars, and conservators. With only a few exceptions, most institutions we approached wanted to lend to this exhibition. I wanted to borrow not just pretty artworks or “masterpieces,” but pieces that were known to have been associated with atua. Every
ïTribalPaginaIntera_layout
To see the actual publication please follow the link above