Bone ornament, Marquesas Islands

Bone ornament, Marquesas Islands
ivi po'o
height 1 3/4in (4.3cm)

Provenance
French Private Collection
Private Collection, California

Eric Kjellgren and Carol Ivory (Adorning the World: Art of the Marquesas Islands, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2005, p. 44) note: 'The human body is the most important theme in Marquesan art. The primary motif in Marquesan designs, the body was also a major focus for artistic expression and materials derived from it served as artistic media. To adorn both themselves and the objects they used, Marquesans fashioned beadlike cylinders of bone called ivi po'o ("bone pieces") from the arm and leg bones of their enemies. Those carved in human form...were referred to as tiki ivi po'o. [...]

[...] As with all Marquesan tiki, the tiki ivi po'o represent deified ancestors, beings who were honored and propitiated to ensure their assistance in important tasks and in sustaining the abundance of food, especially breadfruit, the staple of the Marquesan diet. These powerful ancestral images may also have served, in part, as supernatural guardians for the individuals who wore them or the objects they adorned."