Lost and Found: Hoa Hakananai'a and the Orongo "Doorpost"

Authors

  • Jo Anne Van Tilburg University of California at Los Angeles

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.15286/jps.123.4.383-397

Keywords:

Rapa Nui, Orongo, Hoa Hakananai'a, liminal model, ritual performance

Abstract

The provenance of the Orongo "doorpost" before its removal from Rapa Nui in 1917 is established relative to the collection history of the basalt statue Hoa Hakananaia, removed in 1868. Both objects were collected from the same secondary site context at Orongo during a "liminal" period in Rapanui history, when traditional social bonds were tenuous and colonials and collectors regarded Rapanui objects as curios or trade objects. Impromptu Rapanui performances reinforced community identity and re-assimilated both objects into an innovated context before they were removed from Rapa Nui forever.

Author Biography

Jo Anne Van Tilburg, University of California at Los Angeles

Jo Anne Van Tilburg is Director of the Easter Island Statue Project (www.eisp.org<http://www.eisp.org>) and the Rock Art Archive at the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, University of California-Los Angeles. The Easter Island Statue Project has worked closely with the Easter Island community to inventory, describe and catalog nearly 900 statues. From the mid-1990s Van Tilburg researched the life of Edwardian archaeologist Katherine Routledge, the first woman to conduct field work on Easter Island, and in 2003 Pacific published a biography of Routledge entitled Among Stone Giants: The Life of Katherine Routledge and Her Remarkable Expedition to Easter Island.
Cover for Journal of the Polynesian Society Vol. 123, No. 4

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Published

2015-03-20

Issue

Vol. 123 No. 4 (2014)

Section

Articles

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