Moai Kavakava

Moai Kavakava figure

A Moai Kavakava ( Mo'ai kavakava in Japanese) is a small wooden anthropomorphic figure (statuette) of the culture of Easter Island .

description

Each figure resembles a standing, slightly bent, male with an emaciated body. Many of the Moai Kavakava show pronounced skull deformation .

The name mo'ai kavakava comes from the mo'ai , which are monumental monolithic human figures found on Easter Island. The word kavakava means ribs. Little is known about the cultural context of these characters, although they are widely considered to be representations of starving people. It is believed that these figures were carried on the necks of the men who participated in ritual dances during the ceremonies.

Mass spectrometric measurements on a specimen (ET 48.63) of the Royal Museums for Art and History in Brussels revealed a significantly older age from around 1390 to 1480, which connects the wooden moai with the culture of the stone moai, which in some cases share the style elements of oversized ear lobes and ribs are.

The German expressionist Max Ernst was inspired by the figures. The figures can also be found in the collections of the French surrealist André Breton .

gallery

left Moai Papa ,
right Moai Kavakava.
Moai Kavakava

literature

Wilhelm Geiseler : Easter Island. A site of prehistoric culture in the South Pacific. Ernst Siegfried Mittler & Sohn, Berlin 1882. (PDF; 4.7 MB).
Stéphen Chauvet : Easter Island and its mysteries. Without place, 2005. English translation by Ann M. Altman. Original title: L'île de Pâques et ses mystères. Paris 1935.
Alfred Métraux : Ethnology of Easter Island. ( Bernice P. Bishop Museum Bulletin ; 160). Bishop Museum Press, Honolulu 1940 (reprinted 1971).
Katharine Luomala : Moving and movable images in Easter Island custom and myth. In: The Journal of the Polynesian Society , Volume 82, 1973, No. 1, pp. 28-46.
Thor Heyerdahl : The Art of Easter Island. Secrets and Mystery. Bertelsmann, Munich / Gütersloh / Vienna 1975.
Thor Heyerdahl: The Heterogeneity of Small Sculptures on Easter Island before 1886. In: Asian Perspectives. Volume 22, 1979, No. 1, pp. 9-31 ( JSTOR 42929141 ).
Francina Forment: Les figures moái kávakáva de l'île de Pâques. SEA, Department Ethnic Art, Gent 1991.
Steven Roger Fischer (Ed.): Easter Island studies. Contributions to the history of Rapanui in memory of William T. Mulloy. Oxbow Books, Oxford 1993, ISBN 0-946897-60-3 .
Catherine Orliac, Michel Orliac: Bois sculptés de l'île de Pâques. Edition Parenthèses, Marseille 1995, ISBN 2-86364-505-6 .
Adrienne L. Kaeppler : Rapa Nui art and aesthetics. In: Eric Kjellgren (Ed.): Splendid isolation. Art of Easter Island. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Yale University Press, New Haven / London 2001, ISBN 1-58839-011-X , pp. 32-78 (with illustrations).

Web links

Individual evidence

↑ Francina Forment, Dirk Huyge, Hélène Valladas: AMS ¹⁴ C age determinations of Rapanui (Easter Island) wood sculpture: moai kavakava ET 48.63 from Brussels. In: Antiquity , Volume 75, 2001, No. 289, pp. 529-532. doi: 10.1017 / S0003598X00088748 ( abstract ). Retrieved June 25, 2017 (English).

[1] Francina Forment, Dirk Huyge, Hélène Valladas: AMS ¹⁴ C age determinations of Rapanui (Easter Island) wood sculpture: moai kavakava ET 48.63 from Brussels. In: Antiquity , Volume 75, 2001, No. 289, pp. 529-532. doi: 10.1017 / S0003598X00088748 ( abstract ). Retrieved June 25, 2017 (English).