God figure carving

This is a wood carving made in Tonga in 1983. It is small and portable and made from a light timber with a dark grain. It is one of several carved figures in the Pacific Cultures Collection made for the tourist market in Tonga in the mid to late twentieth century.

Significance

In the 1800s, wood carving was a well established art form in Tonga. By the mid 1900s, it had diminished as the religious and customary contexts for its production had radically changed. In the 1960s and 1970s, visiting cruise ships to Nukualofa were a major market for handicrafts and curios. Tourism to Tonga stimulated a revival of wood carving in a range of mainly non-indigenous forms. In 1984, Kernot noted that these included Hawaiian style temple figures, generalised "Polynesian" figures, mermaid and warrior figures.

A Pan-Pacific Style

This particular figure fits within a carving style that anthropologist Philip Dark described as Pan-Pacific. These carvings emphasised a ‘grimacing mouth, which would appear to have its origins in Hawaiian carvings, such as those of the atua (god) Kuka’ilimoku…’. Similar composite works typical of the time feature Tahitian style blended with Marquesan forms. Hawaiian style carvings and pseudo-Marquesan tiki had been carved and sold in Samoa since 1965 and in Tonga by at least the 1970s (Dark 1990:258).

A Tongan handicraft guide published in 1980 states:

"The carvings in Tonga have a chunky, stolid power about them that says clearly that they come from the South Pacific. Although those for sale are not sacred images, many are reminiscent of such ancient origins….Although many of the pieces they carve follow traditional designs, many carvers have their own specialities. One may see carvings of splendid dragons and many varieties of tiki, the Polynesian god image… But some of the better carvers concentrate on making excellent copies of intricately incised wooden linen chests and lampstands…for which there is a market" (anon. 1980:21-22).

Although these items were examples of the skills of Tongan artists as wood carvers, they were not part of any previously documented tradition of woodcarving in those islands.

Acquisition History

This carving is part of a larger group of items collected by Bernie Kernot in 1983-1984 while on university sabbatical to Tonga, Fiji and Samoa. The carved items are from the workshop of Nau in Nukualofa. At this time, he was also on the executive of the Pacific Arts Association (PAA) and while on this trip he publicised the PAA among Pacific academics and artists. Kernot was a senior lecturer in anthropology and Maori Studies at Victoria University, Wellington, New Zealand between 1967 and 1996. He published widely on Maori sociology, politics, art and religion.

References

Dark, Philip J.C. 1990 Tomorrow’s Heritage is Today’s Art, and Yesteryear’s Identity in Hanson, Allan and Louise Hanson (eds) Art and Identity in Oceania Bathurst: Crawford House Press pp. 244-268

Kernot, Bernie, 1984 Tonga (unpublished field notes). Te Papa File.

(anonymous)1980 Tongan Handicrafts. Canberra: Australian Government Publishing Service