Introduction

The Southern Pacific art is normally divided into three geographical areas including the Polynesia, Micronesia, and Melanesia, which are defined by their distinct political, linguistic, as well as cultural setups. The Easter Island is a Chilean island famous for its 887 monumental statues called the “Moai,” which made the UNESCO categorize it as the World Heritage Site. This island is under the Polynesia region and is found in the Southeast side of the Pacific Ocean. The word used to refer to these sculptures; “moai” simply means a statue. The region is located far from any land around, making it, the one of the most remotely inhabited regions on earth and was named Easter Island after a European explorer discovered it on an Easter Sunday. Nonetheless, today the locals renamed the land as Rapa Nui and organizes the society in a classic Polynesian pattern (Baker, 128). As depicted by the numerous large stone moai and other artifacts in the region, the people seem to have been an industrious community. However, the Island’s progress deteriorated with time due to overpopulation that led to the exhaustion of the natural resources, the Peruvian slave raiding, and the European diseases. As such, the reasons that facilitated the decline in the population of the people living in the area were that the people destroyed the surroundings and were forced to migrate from the region. The monolithic human sculptures in the region were created by the Rapa Nui people, who designed the sculptures with large heads that had faces believed to be of the deified ancestors. Most of the moai monuments that had been cut down during the European conflicts in the land were restored, with some still facing their clan lands.

The Moai

The tallest moai statue known as the “Paro” was around 10 meters high, and another one that was demolished by the natives after failing to reach their civilization These figures were scattered all over the Polynesia and were carved from flat planes that had a facial expression that showed some pride, with heavy brows and elongated noses and ears. The sculptures have small protruding mouth lips, jaws that stand out against the neck and arms designed in a way that they rest against the body in the position varies as per the moai. Moreover, the long fingers rest on the hips, and they seem to lack some clearly defined structure of the legs, except for the kneeling moai sculpture. The backside of the moai monuments do not have particular details, as they are plain and assume the upright posture (Baker, 133). However, the Easter Island statue Hoa Hakananai’a that was transported to England has a unique back as it has some intricate symbols and was believed to have been carved at around 1200 CE. The eye sockets of the moai are carved in a way that they could hold coral eyes that were decorated with obsidian found in ceremonial sites. The moai sculptures with coral eyes are believed to have been used to represent the ahu, meaning that there was a certain selected group of Rapa Nui that leads the people. Some of these statues have heads that are seen to have been dressed in a hat-like cylinder that is composed of some red stone representing the exquisite hairstyle or the dressing used to cover the head.

As such, the moai sculpture was used to symbolize authority and power in the communities. They were found in the religious setups, where they were viewed as the repositories of the spirits, as well as the political setups where they influenced leadership (Fischer, 24-26). The sculptures symbolized the belief of the people in some supernatural beings that required the respect from the community and appreciation through the construction of the monuments that resembled them. The size of these moai sculptures also implied the extent of power that these beings were believed to possess and used as a channel for communication between the people and the gods. They were carved in a way, to represent the ancestors and made to face away from the ocean and onto the land to watch over the people. Most of these sculptures were destroyed due to the emergence of the birdman cult that collected the first egg of migrating terns and led to the religious transition from worshipping the

Each of the Moai monuments is estimated to be at least 4 meters high, weigh around 12 tons and were made from compressed volcanic ash in a way that they stood uprightly (Van, 297-300). Since the statues were made in the quarries, research has shown that they were made to ‘walk’ to their current locations by a small group of people using ropes. The reason behind this is the trails and pathways left behind that emerge from the quarry to other parts of the island, indicating that the statues were moved while in their vertical position. The moai monuments are found to have formed a ring around the island while facing into the land as a way to show that they honored and protected the people on the island alone. As much as there are differing assumptions, on whom the ancient people represented by erecting the monuments, majority of the researchers believe that the moai represented the ancestral chiefs. These chiefs were believed by the people, to have descended directly from the gods and that by creating their symbolic monuments; they would be able to retain the supernatural powers. As such, the monuments had to face the villages for the ancestral spirits to watch over the people and thus benefit the people in the Island. These monuments were also set up on area believed to be holy and served as the temples for the community.

The moai statues on the Easter Island are some of the most exotic man-made sculptures in the world that are quite mysterious. These monuments have raised unanswered questions in terms of the reasons for their creation as well as reasons that led to their discontinued carving by the people. Over hundreds of years, the people of Rapa Nui dug up the rocks and carved several moai that gradually escalated in terms of their size and complexity, over time. The famous Hoa Hakananai’a is one of the few moai that are made from the basalt while the rest were made from the easily found compressed volcanic tuff, which is softer and easier to carve. In additional, this sculpture also has its head tilted backward to show that the Hoa Hakananai’a was gazing at the distant horizon, to scan all the operations taking place in the distant. Similar to the other sculptures, the Hoa Hakananai’a moai has some strong and prominent eyebrow ridges that seem to shadow the empty eye sockets, as well as long, straight nose (JoAnne, 158). Unlike other moai sculptures, the Hoa Hakananai’a has thin lips that are curving downwards in an unrelenting manner to express the seriousness of the figure as well as the uncompromising authority. The ears are long as the start from the top of the head and ends with some lobes and a strong jawline that matches the shape of the head.

Every single moai sculpture was allocated for the maintenance and protection of a certain individual or a group of chosen people and was designed by some people believed to be experts in the area. These experts were always guided by another person referred to as the master sculptor because of his perfection in the art, as well as believing that the gods guided him. Therefore, a group of around ten or twenty people would extract a rectangular-shaped block from the quarry which the sculpted roughly. The master carver and his assistants then molded the sculpture into a fine looking figure that revealed the actual shape of the moai through an addition of some fine details, making a sense of the moai. The sculpture is then put in an upright position and final touches made on the monument as per the guidance of the master sculptor. and moved to the final locations along the coastline of the Easter Island. Experiments carried out suggest that these completed moai were moved by around forty people and took around 300-400 people to make the ropes required, and the food used during this period.

hereason for the huge harvests that the people had, making it a culture to place some fruits around the moai as an offering. During these periods, the sculptures were dressed in bark-clothes and decorated to match the kind of festivals in progress and serve their purpose in the ritual process (Kaeppler, 14-15). The moai kavakava had a human posture that showed the ribs and the spinal cord, circular eyes under pronounced brows that were filled shells and the black obsidian, and a goatee displayed on the chin. The moai paepae appears to be distorted but has some protruding features on the chest to signify the breasts, the torso, as well as the genitals. The figure had an elongated face with big open eyes that give it the female resemblance as well as distinguish it from the male posture displayed.

Conclusion

deserted, and no one knows the actual people who created the figures or how such colossal figures got there.

 

Baker, Peter E. “Archaeological stone of Easter Island.” Geoarchaeology 8.2 (1993): 127-139.

Van Tilburg, Jo Anne, et al. “Petrographic Analysis of Thin sections of Samples from Two Monolithic Statues (Moai), Rapa Nui (Easter Island).”&nbsp;The Journal of the Polynesian Society&nbsp;(2008): 297-300. Availability:<http://search.informit.com.au/documentSummary;dn=399820018281486;res=IELNZC>&nbsp;ISSN: 0032-4000. [cited 12 May 15].

Fischer, S.R., “Rapani’s Tu’u ko Iho versus Mangareva’a ‘Atu Motua: Evidence for Multiple Reanalysis and Replacement in Rapanui Settlement Traditions, Easter Island,”&nbsp;Journal of Pacific History, 29 (1994), pp. 3–48

Kaeppler, A.L., “Sculptures of Barkcloth and Wood from Rapa Nui: Continuities and Polynesian Affinities,”&nbsp;Anthropology and Aesthetics, 44 (2003), pp. 10–69.

JoAnne, Van Tilburg, and C. A. Pakarati. “Remote Possibilities Hoa Hakananai’a and HMS Topaze on Rapa Nui.”&nbsp;BRITISH MUSEUM RESEARCH PUBLICATIONS&nbsp;158 (2006).

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