Remote Possibilities Hoa Hakananai'a and HMS Topaze on Rapa Nui

Abstract

• In 1868, Hoa Hakananai’a was ‘discovered’ on Rapa Nui (Easter Island), Polynesia. Shipped to England on board HMS Topaze, it was presented by Queen Victoria to the British Museum. One of only ten statues known to have been carved in basalt, it fits the design canon of nearly 1,000 others, known as moai, all carved of consolidated volcanic ash in a single quarry, beginning c.1100 AD. Erected on ceremonial sites, the statues were sacred icons exemplifying the Polynesian concern with ancestry and gods. This volume describes how, and by whom, Hoa Hakananai’a was collected, and reconstructs the underlying Rapa Nui aesthetic and social structure that produced it. The research framework includes the form, features and symbols of Hoa Hakananai’a itself; eyewitness accounts; the cultural context discerned in objective archaeological data; the anthropological insight gained from two decades working with the Rapa Nui community, and the aesthetic continuity of selected Rapa Nui museum objects.