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South Pacific art history is generally organized into three geographic regions: Polynesia, Micronesia, and Melanesia. While the regions have interacted, traded, and exchanged culturally for centuries, there are defining aesthetic, political, linguistic, and cultural traits within each region. This lesson considers art from Polynesia, comprised of islands within a triangular area bound by Hawai’i, New Zealand, and Rapa Nui (Easter Island) (See map in Slideshow for more). Polynesia is further subdivided into three sections: West Polynesia, East Polynesia, and the Polynesian outliers. West Polynesia (Tonga, Samoa and American Samoa, ‘Uvea, Futuna, Tokelau, Tuvalu, Niue, and Rotuma) also will include Fiji, whose indigenous populations are generally considered Melanesian. Fiji has cultural and arts traditions that align with West Polynesia, however, hence its inclusion here. Polynesian outliers include islands that are technically outside of the Polynesian triangle but are culturally related to Polynesia (Nukuoro, Kapingamarangi, Tikopia, Anuta, Rennell, Bellona, Nukumanu, Sikaiana, Ontong Java). East Polynesian islands are: the Society Islands, French Polynesia (including Tahiti), the Marquesas, Austral Islands, Tuamotu Islands, the Cook Islands, Chatham Islands, Rapa Nui (also known as Easter Island, nearly 2,300 miles off the coast of Chile), Hawai’i, and New Zealand. Geologically, Polynesia ranges from volcanic to coral islands, and its environmental diversity shaped cultural traditions via the media and technology available on the islands.
The Polynesian islands share linguistic and cultural similarities, although the material expression of each island group is different. Linguistic and cultural analysis place the migration movement from West to East, and the origin culture is generally cited as the Lapita peoples migrating through Fiji (in the second millennium BCE), landing at Tonga and Samoa, and eventually moving to other island groups. Lapita pottery is usually the starting point for chronologically organized South Pacific surveys (Read Jennifer Wagelie’s summary of Lapita culture here. Polynesian arts visually express the values and organization of life, belief, power, and knowledge within the region. The pieces in this lesson relate to three major themes: the paired concepts of mana and tapu, community and prestige, and genealogy, concepts that govern the aesthetic structures and use of objects. Mana is supernatural power that moves within and through people, time, and objects. According to Adrienne Kaeppler, mana is linked to genealogical rankings, fertility, and protocols. It is protected by a set of rules governing actions and ritual, called tapu. Social status was (and is) linked to these concepts, with specific members of the community holding specialized cultural knowledge. For example, hereditary chiefs (ariki, ali’i), sea experts (tautai), craftsmen (tufunga), and warriors (toa) all had mana, and they enacted their specialized knowledge in sacred spaces (like malae, marae, and heiau). It was important to use the correct and appropriate objects in the correct contexts, and history and lineages held (and continue to hold) an important place in Polynesian culture. Today, artists incorporate media and contemporary life (including global cultural influences) into their artwork, rooting new work within South Pacific artistic traditions, and this lesson notes just a few of these artistic changes within a vibrant contemporary art scene. The pieces in this lesson address Polynesian community, prestige, and lineages from the eighteenth century to present. The resources included (particularly video) are intended to aid students in reflecting on how many of these objects came into Western museum collections and to demonstrate how to engage with museum objects. Finally, a note on pronunciation: South Pacific terminology is used when possible, and these words may be unfamiliar and/or difficult to pronounce—as many South Pacific voices as possible are included through video to aid instructors in pronunciation, emphasis, and tone.
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