The Mangareva Statue or Deity Figure from Mangareva is a wooden sculpture of a male god that was made on the

Pacific The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the contine ...

island of

Mangareva Mangareva is the central and largest island of the Gambier Islands in French Polynesia. It is surrounded by smaller islands: Taravai in the southwest, Aukena and Akamaru in the southeast, and islands in the north. Mangareva has a permanent p ...

in French Polynesia. The cult image was given to English missionaries in the early nineteenth century as the local population converted to

Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global pop ...

. It was eventually bought by the

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...

in 1911.

Provenance

The wooden figure was made on the island of Mangareva in the late eighteenth century or early nineteenth century. The first Europeans to land on the island were from HMS Blossom under Captain Beechey in 1824. Soon afterwards, French missionaries converted the local population to

. In 1835, Father

Honoré Laval Honoré Laval, SS.CC., (born ''Louis-Jacques Laval''; 5/6 February 1808 – 1 November 1880) was a French Catholic priest of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary (also known as the Picpus Fathers), a religious institute of the ...

and Father François d'Assise Caret, with support of the reigning King

Maputeoa Te Maputeoa (baptized Gregorio Stanislas; reigned as Gregorio I; born c. 1814 – 20 June 1857) was a monarch of the Polynesian island of Mangareva and the other Gambier Islands. He was the King or '' ʻAkariki'' (paramount chief), as well as ...

and the former high priest Matua, destroyed most of what remained of the indigenous artwork, although Caret sent a few pieces to Europe. At that time, British missionaries were also active in the area and this idol was probably given up to the

London Missionary Society The London Missionary Society was an interdenominational evangelical missionary society formed in England in 1795 at the instigation of Welsh Congregationalist minister Edward Williams. It was largely Reformed in outlook, with Congregational m ...

in the 1820s. The LMS initially loaned their important collection of Polynesian sculptures to the British Museum but later sold it to the national collection in 1911.

Description

The large figure of a local

god In monotheistic thought, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. Swinburne, R.G. "God" in Honderich, Ted. (ed)''The Oxford Companion to Philosophy'', Oxford University Press, 1995. God is typically ...

is carved from highly polished wood indigenous to the

archipelago An archipelago ( ), sometimes called an island group or island chain, is a chain, cluster, or collection of islands, or sometimes a sea containing a small number of scattered islands. Examples of archipelagos include: the Indonesian Arc ...

. It is relatively intact with only parts of its arms and feet missing. The standing male deity has a large head with distinctive features that are unique to artwork from the island. The exact meaning and name of this

idol Idol or Idols may refer to: Religion and philosophy * Cult image, a neutral term for a man-made object that is worshipped or venerated for the deity, spirit or demon that it embodies or represents * Murti, a point of focus for devotion or medit ...

has not been definitively identified, although scholars think it may represent either the Polynesian god of agriculture

Rongo In Māori mythology, Rongo or Rongo-mā-Tāne (also Rongo-hīrea, Rongo-marae-roa, and Rongo-marae-roa-a-Rangi) is a major god (''atua'') of cultivated plants, especially kumara (spelled ''kūmara'' in Māori), a vital crop. Other crops cult ...

or the principal god of Mangareva, Tu. Two types of figures were sent to Europe in the nineteenth century: The first group, of which this is an example, were anthropomorphic in design; the second (and rarer) group were more abstract.

Gallery

File:Mangareva Statue.jpg, Another image of the British Museum sculpture File:Rogo6.jpg, Similar sculpture held by the

Metropolitan Museum The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

in New York Metropolitan Museum Collection
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References

{{reflist 18th-century sculptures 19th-century sculptures Ethnographic objects in the British Museum Artefacts from Africa, Oceania and the Americas in the British Museum Oceanian sculpture Sculptures of gods Mangareva Sculptures in the Metropolitan Museum of Art Nude sculptures Sculptures in the British Museum Wooden sculptures in the United Kingdom Cult images

Provenance

Description

Gallery

See also

Further reading

References