ARTHIST115 Chap.2 Māori and Pacific Carving and Sculpture
Māori and Pacific Carving and Sculpture
The Week 1 lecture asks how power and authority are represented through the body, how body imagery connects with carving, and how materials enhance a person's mana. Carving answers on several scales. Cook Islands god images such as the Rarotongan Tangaroa and the staff gods compress divine power into wood, while Hawaiian art making was organised around particular deities, with timber workers honouring several forms of Ku.
In Aotearoa the whare whakairo is conceived as the body of a named ancestor: koruru head, maihi arms, tahuhu spine and poho belly. The Uawa poupou honours Hinematioro, a woman of ariki rank, and Sidney Moko Mead's continuum of four periods gives a framework for change from the Seeds to the Turning. Colonial history is part of the story too.
God images were handed to missionaries in Rarotonga in 1837, and later figures were carved for tourists, so context includes what happened to objects after they were made. Scale and material matter as much as subject: a hand-sized Tangaroa and a 1.7-metre A'a from Rurutu make different claims on the viewer.
What this chapter covers
- 01
Questions of rank, body and material in the opening lecture
- 02
Tangaroa, staff gods and other Eastern Polynesian god images
- 03
Deities of Hawaiian art making and the god Ku
- 04
The whare whakairo as an ancestor's body
- 05
The Uawa poupou and the chiefly woman Hinematioro
- 06
Mead's continuum from the Seeds to the Turning
- 07
Missionary conversion and carving for tourists
Worked example · free
Explain how a carved meeting house embodies an ancestor
- 1State the principle: the house is usually named after an important ancestor and likened to that ancestor's body.
- 1Map the front: the koruru mask is the head, the maihi barge boards are the outstretched arms, and the raparapa are the fingers.
- 1Map the structure: the tahuhu ridge pole is the backbone, the heke rafters are the ribs and the porch is the brain.
- 1Conclude: the interior is the poho or belly, so people gathered inside are held within the ancestor's body.
Key terms
- Koruru
- The carved mask at the apex of a meeting house, representing the head of the ancestor.
- Maihi
- The barge boards at the front of a meeting house, likened to the ancestor's outstretched arms.
- Poupou
- A carved ancestral panel of the kind that lines a whare whakairo.
- Kōwhaiwhai
- Painted rafter patterns of curling forms derived from the tendrils of the gourd plant.
- Staff god
- A Rarotongan god image carved on a long staff, shown in the lecture with a tapa wrapping.
- Tukutuku
- Woven panels set between the carvings of a meeting house that also insulated it from cold.
Māori and Pacific Carving and Sculpture FAQ
What does Mead's continuum of Māori art divide history into?
It names four periods: Ngā Kākano, the Seeds, from 900; Te Tipunga, the Growth, from 1200; Te Puāwaitanga, the Flowering, from 1500; and Te Huringa, the Turning, from 1800 to the present. The framework comes from Mead's 1984 essay in the Te Māori catalogue and presents change as a living continuum rather than decline.
Why do some Māori carvings have open mouths?
Mead links the open mouth to the myth of Ruatepupuke, whose son struggled to speak to him. Carvers could not make their poupou literally talk, but skilled ones made them speak in a visual code understood by knowledgeable viewers. An essay can use this to explain a formal feature through tradition.
What happened to Cook Islands god images after conversion?
The lecture shows an 1837 image from the journals of the missionary John Williams in which god images are presented to missionaries in Rarotonga after conversion. Tangaroa figures were later carved for the tourist market, so the same object type records sacred use, colonial change and a new commercial audience.
What is the whare whakairo in Māori art?
A carved meeting house, usually named after an important ancestor and likened to that ancestor's body. The koruru is the head, the maihi barge boards are the arms, the tahuhu ridge pole is the spine and the interior is the belly. Carvings, painted kōwhaiwhai rafters and tukutuku panels all belong to that ancestral body.
Exam move
Draw a meeting house front from memory and label six parts with their body equivalents, then check against the chapter figure. Next, make a three-row table for the Uawa poupou, the Pukeroa Pā gateway and Te Hau ki Tūranga with date, people and one formal feature each.
Those three works form a ready set for the essay question on rank and authority, and placing each one on Mead's continuum gives you a ready-made line on change over time. Revise the god images by size as well as place, since scale is evidence in an image response.
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