‘DIEU-BÂTON’, ATUARAKAU, RAROTONGA, ÎLES... - Lot 65 - Binoche et Giquello

‘Staff-god', atuarakau, rarotonga, Cook Islands
Period: probably of the XVIIIth century
H. 3.7 in - L. 35 in - W. 2 in
Provenance:
-Former collection of Sir Thomas, a miner who travelled in Australia in 1860, transmitted to his grand- nephew
-Sotheby's, New York, Nov. 24th 1992, lot 35
-Private collection
Publication:
- Steven Phelps, Art and Artefacts, The James Hooper Collection, Hutchinson Ltd, 1976, p.133-134
- Steven Hooper, Pacific Encounters, The British Museum Press, 2006, P. 224-225
The shaft of this superb Rarotonga “staff god” is sculpted with four groups of miniature figures, i.e. nine characters, and ends with a phallus. From left to right, the first figure, seen from the side, is very well sculpted with a large head, almond-shaped eyes, stretched ears and short limbs; it is turning its back on a second figure, whose head is aligned with the staff, but whose body is presented face-on. The second and third groups have three characters; two from the side framing a face-on figure with large ears. The last character, on its own, is similar to the first, but smaller and less sophisticated. The patina of this very hard wood, with a fine grain, deep and soft with shades ranging from light brown to dark brown, is a mark of ancient use, obtained with long polishing movements using a scalloping tool and stone tool.
Although Captain Cook explored this archipelago during his second (1772/75) and third (1776/80) voyages, he missed the largest of these islands, Rarotonga. It was Reverend John Williams (1796-2839) from the L.M.S. (London Missionary Society) who documented information in July 1823.
These magnificent ‘staff gods' are excessively rare; today we know of less than 20, mainly in museums. They are increasingly rare today since most of these sculptures of worship were burned by the L.M.S. missionaries to force natives of the Cook archipelago to convert. A few “staff gods” sent to the L.M.S. for its museum in London, founded in 1836, managed to escape the flames. But many were cut up to make transport easier, or due to reasons of “obscenity” because of the phallic part. The inhabitants of Rarotonga were able to keep a few staffs to ‘decorate the rafters of the chapels' (missionary chapels)' [Williams, 1837, p.119]. This explains why some examples were able to be exported later on. Due to the poor treatment inflicted upon these ‘staff-gods', we have lost, for most of them, the tapa cloth that was wrapped around the middle part of the staff. Tapa - present all over Polynesia - symbolises power and the soul of the goods or mana. These highly symbolic objects are often linked to the creator god Tangaroa.