Material Wood Registration AOA LMS 19 | Size 1.17 metres high Present location British Museum | |
Created Late eighteenth century AD | ||
The Statue of A'a from Rurutu is a famous wooden sculpture of the god A'a that was made on the Pacific island of Rurutu in the Austral archipelago. In the early nineteenth century, the sculpture was given by the islanders to the London Missionary Society to mark their conversion to Christianity. Following this, it was brought back to England to be displayed, first in the museum of the LMS and then in the British Museum.
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Description
The statue of A'a is a wooden anthropomorphic figure, 117 cm high and 36 cm wide. The figure is hollow, and has a removable back panel allowing access to the interior. The figure has no feet or base, and it is unknown if it did when it was created. The lower legs, right buttock, and left arm of the sculpture are damaged, and the penis has been broken off completely.
Thirty smaller figures are carved on the surface of the statue. Many of these are positioned to mark features on the human body, such as the eyes, nose, and mouth, though some do not obviously correspond with any human feature. The figures are carved in two distinct styles; sixteen of the figures are upright with arms over the torso, while fourteen lie spread-eagled, with arms and legs outstretched. Possibly these two distinct styles of figure are intended to represent male and female forms respectively. These figures are symmetrically distributed across A'a, with the exception of those on the lower abdomen, where there is an upright figure on the right side of A'a and a splayed figure on the left. It is not clear whether this asymmetry was deliberate.
History
The earliest records of A'a date to 1821, when the statue was presented to the missionaries of the LMS on Ra'iatea. However, the sculpture itself could be much older, and radiocarbon dating carried out in 2015 suggests that A'a was created between 1591 and 1647. According to Rurutuan tradition, A'a is made from the wood of the pua keni keni (Fagraea berteriana) that is native to islands in the eastern Pacific. However, tests conducted in 2015 suggested that the figure is in fact made from sandalwood, possibly Santalum insulare. A'a was probably made using stone-bladed tools, though if it was made after the arrival of Europeans to Polynesia in the 1760s iron tools may also have been used in its construction. Ray or shark skin rasps, breadfruit leaves, cowrie shells and coconut oil would have been used to finish and polish the statue.
In 1821, A'a was given to missionaries from the London Missionary Society based on the island of Ra'iatea, as a symbol of the islanders' conversion to Christianity. From 1890, the LMS loaned much of their collection of Polynesian art to the British Museum, and in 1911 the Museum acquired the sculpture.
Purpose
When A'a was brought to the LMS missionaries in 1821, 24 "small gods" were found inside its cavity. It has long been believed that A'a was originally constructed to hold these small gods. However, the size and shape of the cavity suggest that it was originally created to hold some other objects – an assortment of small gods could have equally been housed in a much simpler cavity. Steven Hooper argues that in fact A'a was originally created as a casket to house the bones of a revered ancestor; the small gods were only placed into A'a for ease of transport to Ra'iatea.
Identification
John Williams, one of the missionaries who witnessed A'a being presented to the LMS on Ra'iatea, identified the sculpture as representing the god "Aa", both in a letter of 1822 to the directors of the LMS informing them that the sculpture was being delivered, and in his 1837 book about his experiences in Polynesia. However, in 1824 the LMS' publication Missionary Sketches referred to the sculpture as "Taaroa Upoo Vahu", under which name the sculpture was also recorded in the 1826 LMS museum catalogue. The name "A'a" is not otherwise known in Polynesian cosmology, but Ta'aroa was a Polynesian creator-god, though not one known from the indigenous traditions of Rurutu: possibly because the local cult of A'a had displaced it.
Copies
After the statue of A'a had been loaned to the British Museum, the museum made a cast of A'a to be displayed at an exhibition at the museum of the LMS. A number of other casts were subsequently made at the request of museums around the world. Copies of the figure have also been acquired by individual collectors, including the artists Roland Penrose, Pablo Picasso, and Henry Moore, and a cast of A'a is today displayed in the mayor's office on Rurutu.