Embodying the Ancestors

While it seems that figures were not worshiped as deities, they were kept in temples and shrines as embodiments of deified deceased individuals, usually ancestors. There appear to be two basic types:standing figures with bases or pegs, and those incorporated into hooks used for suspending offerings. Of the extant corpus, female images considerably outnumber male examples. Some representational elements recur, such as the posture with arms held free from the body, tattoos, and remnants of hair or adhesive substances on the heads of figures, presumably to secure wigs.

Examples of ivory double-figure hooks or single-figure pendants are even more uncommon. One of the three known surviving double-figure hooks is shown here, collected by the first resident British governor of Fiji, Sir Arthur Gordon, in 1876. Field reports refer to such hooks as “the most revered of all objects. . . small twinned images, most skillfully carved from a single sperm whale’s tooth.” They were further described as being hung within a small temple of coconut fiber cordage and placed within an actual temple (portable temples are included in the Respecting the Ancestors section of this exhibition). Much of the ivory sculpture from Fiji has been associated with Tonga, the source of initial collections made on Captain James Cook’s voyages in 1773 and 1774. Figures from the nineteenth century are rare from Fiji, with just a few dozen examples, some preserved in the Fiji Museum, Suva, and elsewhere in collections. A number of styles are identifiable though it may never be possible to locate the centers of production with any precision.