Pacific Islands (Oceania)

9. Ambum Stone
● Location: Papua New Guinea
● Date: 1500 BCE
● Medium: Greywacke
○ Likely was modeled to be used as a pestle
○ Like had a ritual function
○ Resembles a long-beaked echidna (spiky anteater)

Pacific Islands Overview:

● There are about 25,000 islands organized into three categories:
○ Micronesia (small islands)
○ Polynesia (many islands)
○ Melanesia (black islands)
● Pacific region is vast - so pacific art is hard to classify
● They used available materials such as wood, bone, shell, coral, fiber, and stone
● Australia populated earlier - other islands were populated about 3,000-4,000 years ago,
some just 1,000 years ago
● Some objects celebrate/symbolize family/clan history - some are meant to be destroyed
after use
● Pacific art is influenced by the sea, which separates and connects the islands
● Lapita culture began the pattern of migration, bringing plants, animals, and culture with
them
● Ship building and navigation were essential
● Sculptures often represent forces in supernatural world
○ Mana (vital force) needs to be defended and protected
○ Sometimes mana would represent a whole community
○ Protect mana through rituals or by wrapping the sculpture (very important
concern to rulers)
● Intricate lines and details
● Art of Rapa Nui (Easter Island) is unusual in Pacific art
● Performed using costumes, dance, song, and cosmetics
○ Ritual performances have different purposes (celebration, war, etc.)
 ○ The act of performance contains the work’s meaning - the objects in a
performance contain no meaning unless brought to life by rituals
○ Costumes/masks = props in religious rituals, NOT produced for aesthetic reasons
● Men typically made the wood carvings and women typically made the tapa cloths

213. Nan Madol

● Date: 700-1600 CE
● Medium: Basalt boulders and prismatic columns
● Location: Pohnpei, Micronesia
○ About 1,000 years old, 92 artificial islands
○ It is about 1 mile by 0.5 miles
○ ½ used by priests for funerary rituals and ½ for use by rulers and their upper
class (similar to Versailles) - vaults, meeting houses, baths, temples, etc.
○ Scholars don’t know how the heavy stones were moved into place
○ Used ashlar masonry - basalt was cut and stacked without mortar, built over a
long period of time
○ Abandoned by the mid-1800s
○ May have been used to make a ceremonial/medicinal drink called Sakau
(sedative and anesthetic)

217. Female Deity

● Medium: Wood
● Date: 18th-19th century
● Location: Nukuoro, Caroline Islands, Micronesia
○ Elegant proportions, clean lines
○ Hands are linked the to the body, short precise horizontal cuts at the mouth,
navel, and knees
○ Nukuoro = ring of tiny islands - only 350-400 residents
○ Depicts Ko Kawe, a clan’s patron goddess
○ Exhibits simplicity of form
○ Micronesian figures like this have heads that are mostly proportional to the body
(head is usually oversized [3:1] in both Pacific and Africa)
○ Typically kept in cult houses, where art and architecture were used for specific
rituals
 ○ Not much is known about this work, so it is unlikely that it would show up in a free
response question and will probably have very few multiple choice questions
about broad information!

221. Navigation Chart

● Medium: Wood and fiber
● Date: 19th-20th century
● Location: Marshall Islands, Micronesia
○ Micronesians navigated long distances between small islands
○ Horizontal and vertical sticks are used as a support grid
○ Diagonal and curved sticks represent the wave swells and currents
○ Small shells represent islands
○ Some charts, like the one in the set, represent a large area, while others show
just a few islands
○ Pre-voyage, sailors performed a ceremony using weather charms, while chanting
to guard against storms and evil spirits
○ Navigators memorized a chart like this before leaving, unlike Europeans who
brought maps along on a voyage

219. Hiapo (tapa)

● Medium: Tapa or bark cloth, freehand painting
● Date: 1850-1900 CE
● Location: Niue, Polynesia
○ Tapa = cloth made from bark that is soaked and beaten into fabric
○ Some had very intricate designs but others were simple and only used for
functional purposes
○ Used for rituals/ceremonies
○ Designs sometimes took inspiration from local plants
○ Designs are painted freehand using a highly animated visual system that may
represent mana (spiritual power)
○ Created by women only
○ In Hawaii it is called kapa and has other names in other places
○ Many depict specific events in abstract form
215. Ahu’ula (feather cape)
● Medium: Feathers and fiber
● Date: Late 18th century
● Location: Hawaii
○ Feathers taken from birds captured by expert trappers - several feathers were
plucked and then the birds were released
○ These birds were Mamo and I’iwe birds - Mamo birds are now extinct
○ Created by men only
○ Feathered capes were worn by elites in Hawaii (about 160 exist)
○ Length = status/prestige of owner
○ Even this small example required thousands of feathers
○ Worn for physical and spiritual protection in ceremony or battle
○ Red feathers associated with royalty, Yellow feathers associated with prosperity -
highly valued because of their scarcity
○ Created by attaching bundled feathers to a mesh base
○ May have been an imitation of of European officer jackets
○ This cape was presented by a queen to a Russian explorer in 1817
○ Chants based on genealogy imbued cape with spiritual power

216. Staff God

● Medium: Wood, tapa, fiber, and feathers
● Location: Rarotonga, Cook, Islands, Central Polynesia
● Date: Late 18th century to early 19th century CE
○ Wooden figures represented gods, possibly ancestors
○ This is the only surviving wrapped staff god
○ Lower portion was ritually wrapped in barkcloth (tapa), coconut fiber, and
feathers, in order to contain the deity’s power (mana)
○ Because all staff gods that remained on the island were destroyed by
missionaries in the 1800s, original meaning is unknown
○ On other islands, similar figures are used to show the line of descent of male
ancestors from a deity
220. Tamati Waka Nene
● Artist: Gottfried Lindauer
● Medium: Oil on canvas
● Date: 1890 CE
● Location: New Zealand
○ Portrait painted posthumously of a well-known Maori chief
○ Protected trade and allied with the British to ensure Maori survival
○ By this time this was painted, this man was a Methodist leader in NZ
○ Dressed in traditional fiber cloak, holding a weapon staff
○ The artist, Gottfried Lindauer, traveled throughout NZ and painted many similar
portraits
○ Traditional tattoo method (ta moko) is a long and painful process: incised cuts
filled with dark ink using a bone chisel, followed by medicinal leaves
○ All Maori men of rank had facial tattoos done as part of coming-of-age
○ Each design was unique, using symbolism to reflect genealogy

214. Moai Stone Figures on Platform (ahu)

● Medium: Volcanic tuff figures on basalt base
● Date: 1100-1600 CE
● Location: Easter Island (Rapa Nui), Polynesia
○ Rapa Nui has 887 of this figural monoliths, all made between 1200-1500
○ Some are near beaches, some are in quarries
○ Function is uncertain, many believe they represent chiefs
○ Heads disproportionate to bodies, some wear red topknot
○ Many figures appear to have been in transit, but were abandoned
○ Some are placed on stone bases (ahu)
○ Burial sites are near some of them
○ Many were toppled before European arrival (tribal warfare)
○ Population decline due to deforestation, slave traders, and European diseases

223. Presentation of Fijian mats with tapa cloths to Queen Elizabeth II

● Date: 1953 (during 1953-1954 royal tour)
● Medium: Multimedia performance with photographic documentation
● Location: Fiji, Melanesian Islands
○ QE II visits Tonga, only Pacific nation to keep its monarchy - Queen Salote had
attended QE II’s 1953 coronation
○ Photograph shows most elaborate welcome ceremony ever
○ A group of women are presenting QE II with large, decorated bark cloth, made by
women
○ Ngatu are gifts meant to be recirculated at important events (weddings, funerals,
other special occasions)
○ The cloth in the picture was used in 1965 as part of the funeral of Queen Salote
○ Size: about 75 feet long by 14 feet wide