Easter Island wood carving
The finely crafted, highly polished wood carvings of Easter Island are among the most beautiful art objects that the cultures of Oceania have produced. The wood carving art of Easter Island - and stone carving alike - always had a religious purpose.
General
As can be seen from the works preserved in the ethnological museums, the entire artistic creation served exclusively the production of ritual objects . The term “ l'art pour l'art ” was alien to the Polynesian cultures. It should be noted, however, that in the culture of Easter Island religious and secular power were closely interlinked and often united in the same people. The secular rulers ( ariki = chief, tribal superior) always had priestly functions. The ritual objects therefore also served as symbols of worldly power. This becomes particularly clear with the ceremonial paddles called Ao and Rapa , which were used in ritual dances, but at the same time were also a sign of the authority of high dignitaries.
When the wood carving art originated on Easter Island can no longer be traced archaeologically because of the ephemeral material. The problem is that not a single art object comes from a stratigraphic excavation. All of the objects received were added to the collections through purchase or exchange with the European expeditions. They are undated inasmuch as there is no information about the production time. If at all, only the year of purchase can be traced. The earliest items came to the ethnological museums on James Cook's second voyage to the South Sea (1772–1775).
On the basis of the objects in the collections, an artistic development can hardly be traced. Either the style was kept unchanged for centuries or - this is more likely - no wooden figures from the early days of Easter Island culture have survived. It can be assumed that some statuettes were created much later, after the European influence, and that they were specially made as barter objects. They differ from the classic figures by a clearly noticeable decline in craftsmanship and the use of other materials, e.g. B. of inferior driftwood or non-native woods.
In view of the artistry of the objects, most of them were probably made by experts ( tohunga, a kind of priest-craftsman). Since there were no metal tools on Easter Island, shark teeth and obsidian splinters were used as tools in the heyday of culture . The main material used was the wood of the toromiro tree ( Sophora toromiro ), which is now extinct in the wild . More recently, it has been possible to microscopically identify the cell structure using wood samples from a toromiro in the Gothenburg Botanical Garden , so that the authenticity of art objects from the classical period on Easter Island can now be proven beyond doubt. How precious and rare the wood was on the island, which was increasingly deforested from the 11th century onwards, can be seen from the fact that human figures were often depicted unnaturally crooked in order to be able to use even the smallest branches for the carvings. At the same time, this shows the special talent of the carver, who was able to incorporate such irregularities into his work as natural features.
A certain standardization is characteristic of the artistic creation on Easter Island. The objects were produced according to the same basic pattern, but always individualized, i.e. H. Despite the outward appearance of the same or similar appearance, the figures represented individual people. This applies both to the large stone sculptures - especially the gigantic Moai - and to the small-format, figural art. This extensive standardization facilitates the classification.
The wood carvings of Easter Island can be divided into the following categories:
- Moai
- Moai Kavakava
- Moai Tangata
- Moai dad
- Moai Tangata Manu
- Moko
- Rei Miro
- Tahonga
- Ao and Rapa
- Including
- Rongorongo tablets
- Other wooden objects
- Moai
Europeans have records of the function and the religious or power-political significance of the objects in individual cases. They are supplemented by orally transmitted information from the islanders, which, however, was only systematically collected and recorded from the late 19th century.
The art objects of Easter Island are now scattered around museums all over the world, but little of them has remained on the island itself. In Germany there are wood carvings of various kinds u. a. in the Rautenstrauch-Joest Museum in Cologne , in the Museum of Ethnology in Berlin- Dahlem, in the Museum of Ethnology in Dresden , in the Museum of Ethnology in Leipzig and in the Overseas Museum in Bremen .
Moai
As Moai (Polynesian for figure statue) is called not only the large stone statues of Easter Island, but also small, average forty centimeters high, human wooden figures.
Moai Kavakava
The most common wooden figure on Easter Island is the Moai Kavakava . The Polynesian word kavakava means ribs. Logically, the statue shows a starved-looking man with clearly protruding ribs, an oversized, skull-like head, large eyebrows, long earlobes with ear pegs, a pronounced nose and a goatee. The eyes are inlaid with bone plates and obsidian over high cheekbones. The drooping mouth is half open and shows the teeth. The legs are disproportionately short, the arms hanging down disproportionately long. The pointed belly stands out clearly, the figure's penis is half erect. Overall, the figure is reminiscent of a mummy or a half-decayed corpse.
In a few figures, hair is indicated, most of the skulls are bald and show various types of head glyphs such as birds, fish people, geometric symbols and zoomorphic figures, some of which are motifs from the Rongorongo script. They are likely tattoos , although they do not exactly match the head tattoos traditionally passed down from Easter Island. Hence, they could possibly also represent tribal emblems .
Little is known about the purpose of the 30 to 50 cm high portraits. Today they are interpreted as ancestral portraits with the function of a protective spirit, possibly they represent Aku Aku .
The figures were assigned exclusively to men and were worn on a cord around the neck on religious festivals or other important occasions. Most of the surviving wooden figures have an eyelet or hole in the neck area.
Wilhelm Geiseler, a German visitor to Easter Island in the late 19th century, reports that dignitaries carried ten to twenty such figures on strings around their necks during processions. During the rest of the time the portraits were wrapped in tapas bags and hung in the huts.
According to legend, the creator of the first Moai Kavakava was a gifted woodcarver named Tuu-ko-ihu, the brother-in-law of Hotu Matua, the mythical founding father of Easter Island culture . He was one of Hotu Matua's followers and came to the island with the first settlers. The statuettes are said to be images of two ghosts that he had met personally.
It was the custom to set up Moai Kavakava at festivals in order to let the ancestors participate and at the same time to insure their protection. Allegedly, all Moai Kavakava were able to move around on their own and, if they were well-disposed towards them, warn their owners of imminent misfortune in a dream. On the other hand, they were also able to cause damage. A legend tells of a man named Rua Nuka who borrowed seven Moai Kavakava from Tuu-ko-ihu for a festival. He set up the figures in a hut, but the hut burned down the night before the festival. Rua Huka went to Tuu-ko-ihu the following morning to report the accident and offer him compensation. But when he entered his hut, he was astonished to see that all seven Moai Kavakava were standing there unharmed. Tuu-ko-ihu said that during the night he dreamed that his moai had screamed loudly in pain, whereupon he asked them to get to safety. When he woke up in the morning, he found the figures in their usual place.
Moai Tangata
The Polynesian noun tangata means man. Moai tangata are realistically carved male figures, usually with a boyish physique, although some figures also have a distinct belly approach. Thor Heyerdahl aptly writes that the carving usually gives the impression of depicting a well-fed boy. The male genitals of the nude statues are clearly pronounced.
The naturalistically designed facial features in the relatively large head are dominated by oversized, round eyes made of bone plates and obsidian. Almost all figures have a goatee. The hairstyle is different. One specimen in the Musée de l'Homme in Paris carries a bundle of human hair tied up with string on its otherwise bald skull. Other statuettes are bald, sometimes with tattoos on the scalp, while still others have a hairstyle with carved notches.
A raised pattern is carved around the hips, which could represent a loincloth with a knot over the buttocks or a tattoo. In this respect there is a similarity with the large, stone moai , which have a comparable pattern. The figure mentioned in the Musée de l'Homme, Paris, is the only surviving figure to be dressed in a loincloth made of tapa bark fiber.
Moai Tangata are much rarer in the collections than Moai Kavakava. Possibly they represent ancestors who actually lived, so they could be individual portraits. Thor Heyerdahl assumed that the figures, in contrast to the ghostly Moai Kavakava and the Moai Papa associated with the Earth Mother, represent humanity as a whole.
The figures could also represent nero or neru , selected children who were kept in caves in order to achieve a very light skin color. They were given a special diet to gain weight and were allowed to wear special body paint and distinctive insignia. The children were consecrated in solemn ceremonies in the Orongo cult site . The cult was closely linked to fertility, procreation, marriage and offspring.
Moai dad
Moai papa (different spellings: paapaa or pa'a pa'a ) are also seldom preserved , these are predominantly female, occasionally also hermaphroditic figures, which have a less “skeletal” physique than the Moai Kavakava. The noun papa in Rapanui denotes a flat stone or rock or a wooden plank, as a verb it means to scratch a drawing in a flat stone.
The body of the 12 to 60 cm high statuettes is flat as a board, between 2 and 6 cm thick. In contrast to this, the relatively noticeably small head is fully plastic. Although the vulva is usually clearly engraved, the overall appearance of the figure looks rather masculine, and some figures even have a goatee. The encrusted eyes are shaded by pronounced eyebrows, the raised carved mouth is straight or drawn down, which gives the figure a sullen facial expression. The earlobes are pierced and provided with an ear plug. The skull is either adorned with a distinctive hairstyle with a comb or a knot, or it is bald.
The hand position is the same for almost all figures, one hand points to the flat, hanging breasts , the other hand points to the vulva. This characteristic hand position can also be found in pictures of Maori art, where it is interpreted as a sign of conception.
Routledge interprets the figures as images of female Aku Aku , but points out that the term papa in the Marquesas is associated with the Great Earth Mother. In the Maori creation myth, Rangi and Papa form the original couple, Rangi the (male associated) heaven and Papa (female associated) earth.
According to the legend, two female spirits who had covered their genitals with their hands appeared in a dream to a famous wood carver named Tuu-ko-ihu. The following morning he carved two masterful sculptures that are said to have served as models for all future moai papa.
The meaning of the statues is unknown. The union of female and male attributes could, however, indicate that the figures are to be seen as a counterpart to the male Moai Tangata.
Moai Tangata Manu
Moai tangata manu is an image of the mythical bird man, a zoomorphic hybrid of humans and birds. The bird man is a frequent motif of the petroglyphs of the Orongo cult site , which is dedicated to the bird man cult .
In July of each year, the tribes from the village of Mataveri went in procession to Orongo. This was the time when the terns laid their eggs on the offshore motus of Easter Island. The war chiefs of the tribes held a contest to see who would succeed in bringing the sooty tern's first egg (Sterna fuscata) ashore. They did not enter the competition personally, but were represented by subordinates, the hopu . They climbed down the steep cliffs and swam with the help of bundles of reeds, on which they carried some supplies, to the Motu Nui , a highly dangerous undertaking because of the steep coast, the strong surf and the sharks. There they waited in caves for the terns to breed. The stay, which sometimes lasted several weeks, ended as soon as a Hopu discovered a tern egg. He put the egg in a piece of tapa bark , tied it around his head, and started the dangerous way back. He presented the egg to his chief, who from then on bore the title of bird man (tangata manu) .
The figures combine a human (male) body with the head of a bird, mostly a frigate bird . The few surviving statues are designed very differently, they vary in size, posture, shape of the beak and in body structure. Some have wings. They therefore do not belong to the formally, but to the thematically standardized forms. A single figure in the American Museum of Natural History in New York City is covered in Rongorongo characters .
The ethnologist Heide-Margaret Esen-Baur points out that bird-human hybrid beings occur in numerous cultures on earth. As a rule, they are associated with fertility rites - just like the egg, which also occupies a central position in the bird man cult on Easter Island. On Easter Island the Vogelmann petroglyphs are always associated with incised vulva, which indicates a close connection between the Moai tangata manu and a fertility cult.
Moko
The wooden objects called Moko (also Moko-Miro) are anthropomorphic images of the lizard of the same name, Ablepharus boutonii, from the genus of the adder-eye skink , an animal about 12 cm long and golden-brown in color, which is still common today on Easter Island . The naturalistically carved hybrid creatures are a combination of human and lizard and have human attributes such as backbone, ribs, arms and hands, but at the same time also animal ones such as a tail or a triangular head. Often a vulva is notched on the body, on other specimens a circumcised penis . The lizard tail is unnaturally elongated and ends in a point. The pronounced back crest, which is strongly jagged in some specimens, but more closely resembles a human spine in most. Sometimes this ridge is pierced for a hanging cord. The head of the figures is triangular and resembles a lizard's head with a human nose and eyebrows. The eyes are inlaid with round bone plates and obsidian.
It appears that the statuettes played an important role in connection with the paenga houses . They were used in the construction as well as in the demolition and defense of the buildings. When the houses were inaugurated, the figures were stuck into the ground on both sides of the entrance to ward off evil spirits (Aku Aku) . At the same time they were quickly at hand in the event of an attack and could allegedly be used as clubs. In view of the fragility and the small size of the figures (length 30–40 cm, thickness 6–13 cm), this intended use seems rather doubtful. With the help of these ritual figures, the provisional festival houses built especially for the religious celebrations were demolished.
The orally transmitted tradition of Easter Island suggests that Moko were considered “terrifying underworld creatures and were closely linked to the subject of death.” On the occasion of a special annual festival, carved Moko figures were ritually buried to banish ominous underworld influences. The figures were also used in ritual dances by being cradled rhythmically in the dancers' arms. It is possible that the figures were also used suggestively as phallus forms in fertility dances.
Rei Miro
→ see main article: Rei-Miro
Rei Miro are wooden pectorals with a crescent moon shape. Their exact meaning - cult object, jewelry or badge of rank - has not been passed down, they are probably something of everyone. From the descriptions of the early European visitors it is known that they - often several at the same time - were carried by high dignitaries on a string around their necks or over their shoulders. Rei Miro is a combination of the Polynesian terms rei (German: breast ornament, pectoral) and miro (German: wood).
Tahonga
The word tahonga or tahoga or taonga occurs in several East Polynesian languages and means “precious possession” or “gem”. Tahonga are well-fist-sized, approximately heart- or egg-shaped, rounded pendants with a hole for a string of human hair at the top. Occasionally the upper pierced bead for the hanging cord is worked out as a fully plastic figure, e.g. B. as a double human head or as an animal or anthropomorphic figure, sometimes provided with inlaid eyes made of bones and obsidian. The lower end is pointed. The surface of the ball is divided lengthways into four oblong zones with bars, so that the object has a striking resemblance to a coconut . In one specimen kept in the Bernice P. Bishop Museum in Honolulu, there are only three zones, which makes the object even more similar to a peeled coconut. This is all the more remarkable since the coconut did not originally grow on Easter Island. Today's coconut grove on Anakena Beach was only planted in the first half of the 20th century. It can therefore be assumed that the shape of the Tahonga, as one of the oldest motifs in Easter Island art, has been handed down over several centuries from the time of the initial settlement.
The objects are considered to be feminine jewelry worn over the shoulder or in front of the chest by women of high standing. A drawing by William Hodges from 1777 on the occasion of the Cook Expedition shows a woman from Easter Island wearing a Tahonga around her neck.
Routledge reports of an initiation rite within the bird man cult, te manu mo te poki (English: the bird for the child) or manu for short , in which eight or nine children, whose hair had previously been completely removed, were decorated with white ribbons and with Tahonga were led by priests to the Orongo cult site . There were dances, sacrificial ceremonies and recitation of ritual chants and the children were given chicken eggs. The exact meaning of this ceremony is not known, but the egg indicates a connection with a fertility rite.
Ao and Rapa
→ see main articles Ao and Rapa
Ao and Rapa are paddle-shaped ritual objects of Easter Island culture of the same shape and design, but differ in size. The Polynesian adjective rapa means: shiny, shining, luminous, the noun ao is used for a person with power, influence and authority. The objects were badges of rank of priests of the highest rank. They were carried as a sign of the high dignity of their bearers, but were also used in dances and ceremonies of the bird man cult.
Including
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Ua sticks or ua clubs are among the largest wooden objects that have survived from Easter Island culture. The rods between 0.90 and 1.60 m long and 5 to 8 cm thick are club-shaped and thickened at the lower end. The upper end is adorned with a carved double head (" Janus head ") with inlaid round eyes made of bone platelets and obsidian. The bags under the eyes or cheeks are very bulging. The pronounced forehead is covered by the coarse furrowed hairstyle. The long ears are provided with ear stakes or holes. Below the raised carved mouth, the head merges directly into the staff without a neckline.
The "Janus head" (moai aringa) is a not uncommon motif in Easter Island art. A unique, approx. 20 cm high head made of tapa bark fiber has been preserved, as well as several small carved heads with a hole for a lanyard, and there is also a Tahonga with a double head at the top. The motif of the double head also appears in the short and wide war clubs ( paoa ) , a melee weapon from Easter Island. It is therefore believed that it was a symbol of heroism, bravery and military strength. The subject can be traced back to a legend of Easter Island, a warlike epic about the struggle between two tribes. A chief's son by the name of Rau-hiva-aringa-erua (English: twin with two heads) was born with two faces, one looking forward and one looking back. In a battle in which he fixed his opponent with his head in front, he noticed another warrior with his head behind him who was approaching from behind. The back of the head ordered the body to turn to face the new threat. However, the front head refused and the two heads began to argue with each other. This gave the enemy warrior an opportunity to pierce Rau-hiva-aringa-erua with a spear.
In contrast to the publications of Thor Heyerdahl, who still believed that it was a question of weapons of war, it is now assumed that the Ua staffs were exclusively badges of rank for high dignitaries in the form of ceremonial weapons. In view of the high consumption of valuable wood for the production, one can assume that only dignitaries of the highest rank were awarded with it. Geiseler states that these were very rare sovereign staffs that were worn by chiefs on special occasions. William Thomson even considers it to be the weapon of the “King” and claims to have acquired his copy only with great difficulty and high cost. An impression of the importance of the ceremonial weapon is given by an engraving published in the writings of the writer Pierre Loti , which shows a chief clad in a feather crown and cape - both symbols of the highest dignity - with an Ua staff.
Katherine Routledge mentions that each club had an individual name. This shows parallels to the U'u war clubs - melee weapons of the Marquesas islands also decorated with double heads - which were specifically manufactured and ritually baptized for the respective wearer. There is also a distant resemblance to the Taiaha clubs of the Maori, which also have the Janus head motif (upoko), but here with a pronounced, protruding tongue at the upper end of the staff.
Rongorongo tablets
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→ see main article Rongorongo
Rongorongo is the unique writing system on Easter Island, the only font known from the South Seas . It developed completely isolated and cannot be compared with any other writing system on earth. To date it has not been deciphered, although there are some approaches to interpretation. The writing itself consists of pictograms that can be read in the bus trophy . The symbols themselves show anthropomorphic figures, plants, body parts, animals, graphic and astronomical symbols, tools and devices of daily use as well as ritual objects such as Rei Miro. There are only 25 known to be authentic written documents, mainly wooden panels (kohau rongorongo), but also a stick with over 2000 characters (copy I: Santiago stick) as well as two Rei Miro and a Moai Tangata Manu, which are covered with characters.
Most of the panels are made from the wood of the sacred Miro tree ( Thespesia populnea ), and some are made from Toromiro or driftwood. The characters were probably engraved with obsidian splinters or shark teeth. It is not known when these tablets were made either. They were first mentioned by Europeans in the early 19th century. From this, some scholars have concluded that it is a mere imitation of European writing that emerged after European contact. However, this contradicts the complete independence of the “letters”, which cannot be compared with any other written symbols, as well as the use of the bustrophedon reading, which in Europe was only used in some ancient but not in modern scripts.
The tablets were sacred objects for scribes, surrounded by taboos , which were not accessible to unauthorized persons. They were kept covered in the huts. However, this contradicts the claim of the missionaries that they want to be found “in every house”. In fact, there must have been numerous tablets as the missionaries systematically searched for them in the 19th century and burned many of them.
The serious, scientifically founded speculations about the content of the tablets range from ritual texts or chants, myths and genealogies to calendar dates.
Other wooden objects
A number of other wooden objects that cannot be classified in the above scheme have been preserved. These are in particular human and animal figures as well as body parts. Their symbolism is largely unknown, even more so than with the standardized wooden figures.
Heterogeneous human figures
Several female figures have survived that are characterized by extremely enlarged labia (e.g. Museo Nazionale Preistorico Etnografico "Luigi Pigorini" in Rome and Otago Museum in Dunedin , New Zealand). Several peoples of the South Seas are known to have practiced artificial lengthening of the labia and clitoris . According to the figures, the process was obviously also in use on Easter Island. These figurines are likely to be seen in connection with fertility rites.
Furthermore, several double-headed male, female or hermaphroditic statuettes are known (e.g. Museo Etnográfico de la Universidad de Buenos Aires ). The Janus head motif is also used in particular on the Ua ceremonial staffs.
There are other atypical human figures, many of them unnaturally crooked (e.g. Museum für Völkerkunde zu Leipzig ) so that even the smallest branches can still be used for work. It can be assumed that these figures were made in the late period, when the Toromiro wood had largely disappeared from the island.
Human body parts
Several human skulls are known, some with encrusted eyes and a goatee (e.g. the collection of the Congregazione dei SS Cuori in Grottaferrata near Rome), two masterfully carved human hands (Museo del Carmen de Maipù in Santiago de Chile and the British Museum in London ), a vulva ( Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford ) and a roughly crafted, crippled foot ( Bernice P. Bishop Museum in Honolulu ) with the lanyard still preserved. The meaning of these representations is not known.
Animal representations or zoomorphic figures
Masterfully carved depictions of animals are among the most beautiful pieces of Easter Island art. These include: a lifelike octopus ( Museum für Völkerkunde Wien ), a realistically crafted sea turtle ( Peabody Museum of Archeology and Ethnology in Cambridge (Mass.), USA), several birds (e.g. Museum für Völkerkunde in Vienna), a cock's head (Peabody Museum in Cambridge), a beetle snail ( Polyplacophora ) as a pendant (Universitetets Etnografiske Museum in Oslo ), a cowrie shell (Museo Nacional de Historia Natural in Santiago de Chile ) and several fish figures (e.g. Institute for Ethnology at the University of Göttingen) . One of them is particularly noteworthy, as the figure is entirely covered with Vogelmann reliefs and the fish's tail ends in a human head ( Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago). Several of these pieces are provided with eyelets and a hanging cord, so that it can be assumed that they were used as ritual jewelry.
Remarks
- ↑ z. B. a figure in the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (Kunstkammer) in St. Petersburg
- ↑ Similar weapons, made from whale bones, are also used by the Maori in New Zealand under the name patu paraoa
- ↑ Pierre Loti, actually Julien Viaud, visited Easter Island in January 1872 as a cadet on the French warship "La Flore".
- ↑ z. B. the archaeologist Kenneth P. Emory of the Bishop Museum in Honolulu
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f Heide-Margaret Esen-Baur: 1500 years of Easter Island culture - treasures from the land of Hotu Matua. Catalog for the exhibition organized by the German-Ibero-American Society Frankfurt a. M. from April 5 to September 3, 1989, Verlag Philipp von Zabern, Mainz am Rhein 1989
- ^ Catherine Orliac: Sophora Toromiro, One of the Raw Materials Used by Pascuan Carvers in Courier Forschungsinstitut Senckenberg, Volume 125, pp. 221-227
- ^ A b c Alfred Métraux: Ethnology of Easter Island. Bernice P. Bishop Museum Press, Honolulu 1940
- ↑ a b c d e Kapitänleutnant Wilhelm Geiseler: Easter Island - a place of prehistoric culture in the South Seas . Ernst Siegfried Mittler & Son, Berlin 1882
- ^ Sebastian Englert : Island at the center of the world - New light on Easter Island . Charles Scribner's Sons, New York 1970, p. 61
- ↑ a b c d Eric Kjellgren: Splendid Isolation - Art of Easter Island. Catalog for the exhibition of the same name at the Metropolitan Museum, Yale University Press, New Haven 2001, ISBN 0-300-09078-1
- ↑ Hans Felbermayer: Legends and Traditions of Easter Island , Verlag Hans Carl, Nuremberg 1970, pp. 82–83.
- ^ A b Thor Heyerdahl : The Art of Easter Island . Bertelsmann Verlag, Munich-Gütersloh-Vienna 1975
- ↑ a b c d e Katherine Routledge : The Mystery of Easter Island. London 1919, Reprint: Cosimo Classics, New York 2007, ISBN 978-1-60206-698-4
- ^ Jo Anne van Tilburg: Easter Island - Archeology, Ecology and Culture. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington DC 1994, ISBN 1-56098-510-0 , p. 84
- ↑ David Simmons: Whakairo - Maori Tribal Art. Oxford University Press 1985, ISBN 978-0-19-558119-5 , p. 44
- ↑ a b Thomas Barthel: Das Echte Land. Klaus Renner Verlag, Munich 1974
- ^ Anthony JP Meyer: Oceanic Art. Könemann, Cologne 1995, ISBN 978-3-89508-080-7 , p. 586
- ^ New Brunswick Museum, St. John, Canada
- ↑ z. B. Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Mass.
- ^ Collection of the Congregazione dei SS Cuori in Grottaferrata near Rome
- ↑ William Thomson: Te pito te Henua, or Easter Iceland, In: United States National Museum Annual Report. Washington 1889, p. 535
- ^ Reproduction in: Illustrierte Zeitschrift für Völkerkunde. Volume 23, Leipzig 1873
- ↑ z. B .: Thomas Barthel: Basics for deciphering the Easter Island script. Hamburg 1958 or Steven R. Fischer: Rongo Rongo, the Easter Island Script - History, Traditions, Texts. Oxford-New York 1997, to name just two of numerous publications
- ↑ Catherine Orliac: The rongorongo tablets from Easter Island: botanical identification and 14c dating. In: Archeology in Oceania , Vol. 40 (3), October 2005, pp. 115-120