Aku Aku (spirit beings)

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Moai Kavakava , possibly representing Aku Aku

The Aku Aku (Polynesian: spirit, soul , shadow, ghost ) are spiritual beings from the mythology of Easter Island . The Rapanui believed that an intangible part of a deceased who had not left the island after death materialized in the form of a shadow or ghost.

Appearance

According to the old Polynesians , humans are made up of three components: body, life force and shadowy beings. The life force resides in the material body, mainly in the liver and the bowels, and manifests itself in all manifestations of life, especially in the breath. At death the life force goes out and the body perishes. But the shadowy being remains - at least for a while - outside the body. According to the tradition of the Rapanui, an Aku Aku can arise from this, a being that neither entirely belongs to the world here nor entirely to the world beyond.

There are both male and female Aku Aku. They are constant companions of people and can be good, but also bad. Their voices are high and high-pitched and terrifying. Sometimes the spirits cannot find rest because they have to keep promises that they made as living.

The spirits were individualized, each with its own name. Alfred Métraux collected over 100 names of Aku Aku during his research and states that the list is far from complete.

Each family had one or more Aku Aku. Particularly sensitive family members were able to converse with them and then reveal the future or offer useful advice. Thus, the manufacturing process of a dye from the Curcuma attributed -Wurzel according to legend, a Aku Aku. The spirits were (symbolically) involved in the meals, they always received their share before the family took part.

Word origin

The word is semantically related to identical terms from Mangareva and the Marquesas . In Mangareva it has the meaning of thin , lean and on the Marquesas chop, chop, reduce in the broadest sense . In Tonga there is the word a'ua'u , which means thin, old and frail . The word meanings imply a physical weakness, a reduction, and consequently the external appearance of an Aku Aku is also described as a skeletal shadow or a half-decayed corpse .

Aku Aku in art

The Moai Kavakava is a wooden statue, on average 40 cm high, showing a skeletal man with clearly protruding ribs, an oversized, skull-like head, long earlobes, a pronounced nose and a goatee. It is possible that the figure represents an Aku Aku. However, this contradicts the fact that the few Moai Kavakava that have survived in the ethnological museums are exclusively male. It is known that dignitaries wore the figures on a string around their necks on religious occasions.

mythology

The legend of Rano is told on Easter Island, who promised to treat his three sons equally and to bequeath his fields to them equally after death. However, the two elders did not obey the will of the father, but divided the inheritance among themselves, the youngest son of Rano received nothing. Then his father appeared to him as Aku Aku in a cave and promised him to send a large tree (wood was particularly valuable on the almost deforested Easter Island). A few days later, a large tree drifted ashore and the youngest son began to chop it up. When the two older brothers saw this, they wanted to keep the tree to themselves. However, the youngest called the Aku Aku for help and the tree rose and drifted away. Then the two elders saw that they had done wrong and shared the inheritance fairly. Together they made statues , oars and war clubs from the tree .

According to another legend, at the beginning of the ages 30 Aku Aku tyrannized the people of Easter Island. The hero Taraku destroyed the spirits and freed the island.

Parallels

There are comparable shadow creatures in the mythology of numerous other Polynesian islands, for example the vaerua on Mangaia or the vaelua on Samoa , the varua and oromatua on Tahiti or the lapu and wailua on Hawaii .

literature

  • Horst Cain: Religious Terminology of Easter Island and Polynesia. In: Courier Forschungsinstitut Senckenberg , Volume 125, pp. 11-22, Frankfurt 1990, ISBN 3-924500-64-9

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hans Nevermann : Gods of the South Seas - The religion of the Polynesians, Speemann-Verlag Stuttgart, 1947, pp. 39-40
  2. ↑ a b Fritz Felbermayer: Sagas and traditions of Easter Island. Verlag Hans Carl Nürnberg, 1970.
  3. ^ A b Alfred Métraux : The Easter Island. Kohlhammer-Verlag, Stuttgart 1957.
  4. ^ Horst Cain: Religious Terminology of Easter Island and Polynesia. In: Courier Research Institute Senckenberg , Volume 125, Frankfurt a. M. 1990, p. 14
  5. ↑ René Ildefonse Dordillon: Grammaire et Dictionnaire de la Langue des Illes Marquises. Paris 1904
  6. ^ Alfred Métraux: Ethnology of Easter Island. (Bernice P. Bishop Museum Bulletin 160). Honolulu 1940
  7. ↑ Thomas Barthel: The main deity of Easter Island. In: Yearbook of the Museum für Völkerkunde Leipzig , Volume 15, Leipzig 1956, p. 80 (footnote 119)
  8. ↑ Lieutenant Geiseler: The Easter Island - A place of prehistoric culture in the South Pacific. Berlin, 1883, p. 32
  9. ^ Annette Bierbach, Horst Cain: Religion and Language of Easter Island. In: Baessler Archive , Contributions to Völkerkunde Heft 9, Dietrich Reimer Berlin, 1996, pp. 7-15