Easter Island's Embellished Stones Georgia Lee

Rapa Nui Journal: Journal of the Easter Island Foundation Volume 16 Article 7 Issue 1 May 2002 Easter Island's Embellished Stones Georgia Lee Follow this and additional works at: https://kahualike.manoa.hawaii.edu/rnj Part of the History of the Pacific slI ands Commons, and the Pacific slI ands Languages and Societies Commons Recommended Citation Lee, Georgia (2002) "Easter Island's Embellished Stones," Rapa Nui Journal: Journal of the Easter Island Foundation: Vol. 16 : Iss. 1 , Article 7. Available at: https://kahualike.manoa.hawaii.edu/rnj/vol16/iss1/7 This Research Paper is brought to you for free and open access by the University of Hawai`i Press at Kahualike. It has been accepted for inclusion in Rapa Nui Journal: Journal of the Easter Island Foundation by an authorized editor of Kahualike. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Lee: Easter Island's Embellished Stones CATRIL 0' BELLI HCO o Georgia Lee INTROD CTIO Some petroglyphs, particularly those to be found at 'Orongo, are made in bas relief. Thi type of petroglyph i la mall stones from Easter Island with incised or pecked de bor-intensive. The background is cut away, leaving the de ign Ssign have been mentioned in many books and reports over to stand up from the matrix of the rock. Bas relief i an unusual the years. Ethnographic ource peculate on how they might form of carving in Polynesia, with Ea ter I land' example be have been used in ancient time , and mo t of the e discu s them ing the mo t striking and beautifully made. in the context of amulet or as fertility tone for chickens. The Where incising i found, it is on mooth vertical ba alt sur earlie t descriptions are from Alexander (Tati) Salmon, the Ta faces at outcrops called puku or karava (formations found at hitian who served as an informant for Lieutenant-Captain Hanga Piko, Ava 0 Kiri, and a few other areas), or on smooth Wilhelm Geiseler and William J. Thorn on, both of whom came isolated boulders. to the i land in the late 1800 . Small stones with inci ing are di cu ed fir t. A de crip During field easoDS on Ea ter Island in 1981-83, my tion of the two larger tone with inci ed de ign follows, and crew and I pent rainy day in the i land's museum, Museo fmally, the poro with inci ed komari are de cribed. The latter i Antropol6gico Padre Sebastian Englert (MAPSE), studying and discus ed in the context of other example of komari found at recording some of the incised tones in the museum's collec the island's petroglyph sites and general Polyne ian sexual sym tion. A ide from the fact that they had been collected on the is bolism. land, none had provenience, although orne had come to the mu eum from the collection of Sebastian Englert. In two in PUBLISHED REFERE CES TO INCISED STONES stances (and these with some provenience), we recorded inci ed designs on somewhat larger stones in the collection at MAPSE. Thomson (1891 :496) remarked that, "A custom obtained among One of these was excavated from the rubble fill of Abu Tautira; the islanders... of burying something of interest or value be the other wa from 'Orongo but had been taken to the Smith neath the doorpo ts of their dwelling. Usually it was a smooth sonian by the Thomson expedition. The Smithsonian subse beach pebble which was supposed to have orne fetish qualities quently returned it, along with orne painted house labs. to bring good luck or ward off evil influences." This paper is an effort toward compiling information about Other reference about tone with inci ing include that of the motifs on small tones and illustrating them, orne for the Mulloy (196l:Fig . 43-44) who illu trate tone with incising first time. An attempt will be made to eparale out what appears that were excavated at Vinapu. A few have recognizable motifs. to be differing function for them. In the proces, orne inci ed Mulloy illu trated a tar hape (Figure a); a po ible komari petroglyph sites on Ea ter I land will be compared and dis (Figure c); and a birdman, bird and oval form (Figure 43 c, e). cussed. As for the process of documentation, it should be noted One (Figure 43, 1) ha what might be an attempt to how a bird that, generally speaking, incising is too faint to show up well in head. The remaining stones are (seemingly) compo ed of cro a photograph, thus precise cale drawings were relied upon for lines and random line . the recording proce . Mulloy and Figueroa (1978:203) illustrate orne mall stones with geometric incising that were found during archaeo BACKGROUND OF INCISED PETROGLYPUS ON logical work at Abu Akivi (Figure 45 ;5-7). These were recov EASTER IsLAND ered from the ramp and plaza area of the ahu. Designs include crosshatching and other traight-line inci ing. Incised de ign are found at orne of the i land' petroglyph A collection of mall tones with inci ed figures is shown sites (Lee 1992:120-123), on human kulls (Thorn on 1891: in Campbell et al., 1985, and Mellen Blanco (1986-87:273-276) Plate L, 6; Metais 1971), or occasionally as superimposed de reported on a mall tone found near Hanga Piko. It has the fig signs on items such as small stone carvings of human figures ure of a tuna inci ed on one face of the stone. He calls it an (Forment 1990:Plate 101; Wolfe 1973:Plate XIIb, c; Heyerdahl amulet or talisman. The design is quite close to carvings of tuna 1976:Plate 163). Basalt beach cobble (poro) with inci ed de een in the larger petroglyph , particularly tho e located at the sign are commonly illu trated in the literature and these appear La Perou e section of the i land's north coa t. to fall into a eparate category, a i di cu ed below. Imbelloni (1954) illustrated de igns on both side of a As for the rock art sites on the island, incising i not a beach cobble. One hows two birdmen facing each other (manu common method of applying a de ign to rock surface . In mo t piri); the rever e ide has what appear to be a rongorongo fig instance, deeply carved de ign are made on "papa" or flat ure with humanoid attribute and triangular haped ears. Thi i lava flow that i characterized by having tiny vesicles in its very also illu trated in Ramirez (1986:23) where it is called a fertility hard, black surface. The designs on this type of stone are gener amulet. ally deep and very well defined, having been pecked and then abraded to make smooth deep grooves. Incised de igns, how ever, make little impression on such surfaces. Rapa Nui Journal 31 Vol. 16 (1) May 2002 Published by Kahualike, 2002 1 Rapa Nui Journal: Journal of the Easter Island Foundation, Vol. 16 [2002], Iss. 1, Art. 7 M SEO A TROPOL6GICO'S INCISED STONES Figure 3. Two The inci ed stone studied in MAPSE are: incised fish mo tifs. One of the fish ha a back bone as if shown in x-ray; the other fish may al 0 have been 0 in tended although the bones are only duplicated on one half of the figure. The Figure 3. design meas 2.5cm ures 11.5 x 12 Figure 1. 2.5 em em. The stone is 20 x 15 x 7 em. Thi piece came to the mu seum from the Sebastian Englert collection. (See also Blixen Figure 1. An octopus (heke) motif inci ed on an otherwi e un 1977:Plate 1, Figure 2). The "x-ray" design type can be seen in modified small rock. The motif mea ure 20 x 12.5 ern. The the rock art of the i land where several large fish forms show rock i 12 x 17 x 16 em. This carne to the museum from the their bone tructure. All are found in the area ju t inland or Sebastian Englert collection (See al 0 Blixen 1977: Plate 1: south of 'Anakena (Lee 1992: Figure 4.52; 4.55; 4.57 and Figure .8). Thirteen motif of octopu can be een in the rock 4.7 I). A few unidentified cratche are on rever e ide of the art of several sites, mainly in the La Perou e area where they rock; they measure 1.3 x 4 em. occur on large ection of papa (Lee 1992: Figure 4.62 and 4.63). The example at Ava 0 Kiri are particularly interesting as orne are shown with long wavy tentacle and large eyes and are carved to take advantage of natural feature in the lava. Oc topu wa acred in Polyne ia where it wa as ociated with sev eral creation myths. 2.5<:m Figure 2. A Figure 4. tone with trace of red Figure 4. Inci ed curvilinear line with an overall mea urement pigment and an of 8 x 19.5 em. The stone, which i in poor condition, i 34 x incised frigate L5 x 10 em. It is difficult to ay what thi may have been in bird figure. It tended to repre ent. The part that are till visible have vigor was found on ously repeating curves. The incidence of parallel curved line i the flanks of found in both rongorongo motif and in the rock art de ign .

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