An ethnology of wood carving: Continuity in cultural transformations on Rapa Nui

This study examines the cultural and social environment of Rapa Nui to illustrate two social domains where cultural continuity persists today. One such domain is the islanders' ability to use their internal kinship practices of exchanges and the giving of reciprocal gifts in their interface with outsiders. Another is the continuation of certain carving conventions and design elements linking the work of modern artisans and artists to early historic wooden and tapa figures and to ancient stone petroglyphs and statues (ahu moai). It is suggested that this convergence of design elements highlights a style of Rapa Nui imagery.;After 1722 the islanders realized their artifacts could be traded to Europeans for manufactured goods. Thus internal cultural messages encoded in the shapes and design elements of the wooden pieces became progressively irrelevant to the Rapa Nui as they devised means to desanctify them by ritual mutilation and making "copies".;Among other areas of discussion are the social significance of the Rapa Nui adze (kautoki) to the male carver, a prehistoric shift in political emblems from a large dance paddle (ao) to an extended war club (ua), the introduction of four new categories of wooden artifacts to the conventional inventory, a proposed relationship between Rapa Nui's legendary originator of wood carving (Tu'u Ko Ihu) and a major Polynesian deity (Tane) and the concept of "authenticity" as a major Rapa Nui aesthetic that applies not only to material culture but to social organization as well. In addition the islanders' affiliation to Chile's Catholic religion is viewed through an initial symbolic analysis of Maria, Madre de Rapa Nui, the first religious monument carved communally by the islanders since the stone torsos (ahu moai), over 1,000 years ago.;One conclusion is that a desire to acquire benefits from the outside has motivated the production of wooden artifacts on Rapa Nui for a very long time. Another is the recognition that the influence on information collected by a reporter's chronological and cultural paradigm is inescapable.