1888.14.1

Collection type

Object

Description

God figure; carved wooden 'handle' with plant fibre binding and long plant fibre plaited 'tails'.

Long description

Carved wooden 'handle' with plant fibre binding and long plant fibre plaited 'tails'. A 'god figure'. [ZM 7/5/2004, JC 23 2 2008] The wood is wedge shaped with an elaborate carved head with seven vertical carved sections. Tassels of twisted ?sennit are tied to the bottom of the wood. Along the sennit cord are horizontal bunches of sennit. The centre of the wood is bound with a thin strip of white coloured bark cloth. [MJD DDF Body Arts Project 2010/2011 24/11/2010]

Geographical reference

Cook Islands

Oceania > Polynesia > Cook Islands

Person

Field collector Elliot Howard

PRM source Elliot Howard

Date / Period

Date made: Before 1888?, uncertain

Date collected

?By 1888

Acquisition information

Donated: 1888

Materials and processes

Material Wood Plant, Material Plant Fibre, Material Sennit Coconut Seed Fibre Plant, Material Bark Cloth Textile Plant, Process Carved, Process Bound, Process Twisted

Dimensions

Length: max 830 mm approx

Object numbers

Accession number: 1888.14.1

Research and responses

These three 'staff gods' (1888.14.1, 1888.14.2, and 1884.14.3) are referred to as being among the few known examples of this type of object in the entry for lot 152 on page 47 of Four Marquesas Islands Clubs and Art from New Caledonia, New Britian, New Guinea, New Ireland, Fiji and the Cook Islands from the Late James T. Hooper’s Collection [catalogue of a sale held at 8 King Street, St James’s, London on Tuesday 19 June 1979 at 10.30 a.m.], London: Christie, Manson & Woods (1979); photocopy in RDF. [JC 23 2 2008]

Associated publications

These three 'staff gods' (1888.14.1, 1888.14.2, and 1884.14.3) are referred to on pages 350-351 of Arts and Crafts of the Cook Islands (Bernice P. Bishop Museum Bulletin 179), by Te Rangi Hiroa (Peter H. Buck), (Honlulu: The Museum, 1944). Buck writes: 'The specimens of Mitiaro gods in English museums conform to one type, consisting of a dome-shaped head, a body carved into vertical rows of small arches, and a lower spatulate staff. Five of these neatly carved objects are in the British Museum. One, together with three fragments, in the Cambridge University Museum, and two with one fragment in the Oldman collection. Three fragments are in the Pitt-Rivers Museum, Oxford. Of the British Museum specimens, three were acquired with the London Missionary Society collection, and two were obtained from the Sheffield Literary and Philosophical Society. One of the London Missionary Society specimens, both of those in the Sheffield collection, and the Cambridge specimen were minus the lower staff end. The three Cambridge fragments, which are broken-off staff ends, and the three similar fragments in the Pitt-Rivers Museum probably belong to some of the incomplete specimens.' [JC 23 6 2017]

Search terms: Religion, Figure, Religious Object