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When first carved, the surface of the moai was polished smooth by rubbing with pumice. However, the easily worked tuff from which most moai were carved is easily eroded, such that the best place to see the surface detail is on the few moai carved from basalt or in photographs and other archaeological records of moai surfaces protected by burials.
Makemake with two birdmen, carved from red scoria. Makemake (also written as Make-make; pronounced [ˈmakeˈmake] in Rapa Nui [1]) in the Rapa Nui mythology of Easter Island is the creator of humanity, the god of fertility and the chief god of the "Tangata manu" or bird-man sect (this sect succeeded the island's more famous Moai era).
Moai, a monolithic human figure on Easter Island, sometimes erroneously called tiki; Tiki culture, a 20th-century decorative style used in Polynesian-themed restaurants; Taotao, similar carvings of ancestral and nature spirits in the Philippine islands; Totem pole, artworks similar in shape and purpose from Cascadian cultures; Chemamull ...
When first seen by Europeans, the carvings were painted red against a white background. The paint was totally or mostly washed off when the statue was rafted out to HMS Topaze. [38] [39] Precise reading of these designs varies. The birdmen are popularly interpreted as Makemake, a fertility god and chief god of the birdman cult. [40]
Pukao were not made until the 15th–16th centuries and are later additions to the moai. [2] The reason that pukao were made is not known, though various theories exist. One is that the placing of a pukao on top of the moai was a recognition of the power of the individual represented.
Moai kavakava are male carvings and the Moai Paepae are female carvings. [147] These grotesque and highly detailed human figures, carved from Toromiro pine, represent ancestors. Sometimes these statues were used for fertility rites. Usually, they are used for harvest celebrations; "the first picking of fruits was heaped around them as offerings".
They are monolithic human figures carved by the Rapa Nui people on Rapa Nui (Easter Island) in eastern Polynesia between the years 1250 and 1500. Nearly half are still at Rano Raraku, the main moai quarry, but hundreds were transported from there and set on stone platforms called ahu around the island's perimeter.
Featuring Tiki carvings and complex, alluringly named alcoholic drinks, [5] it eventually influenced residential recreation. It became one of the primary ways, although indirectly, that New Zealand culture influenced that of the United States. Beginning in California in the 1930s and then spreading around the world, Tiki culture was inspired by ...