Pacific Sacred Art: Easter Island, Maori, and the Oceanic Imagination
The Pacific Ocean covers more than a third of the Earth's surface — the largest geographic feature on the planet. The peoples who navigated it, settled its islands, and built civilizations from Hawaii to New Zealand to Easter Island were among the most extraordinary navigators and cultural creators in human history. Their sacred art traditions reflect the specific spiritual challenges of ocean existence: the world as water and islands, ancestors as the source of all power and identity, the body as the primary medium of sacred marking, and the community as the primary vehicle of spiritual practice. The moai of Easter Island (Rapa Nui), the carved meeting houses (wharenui) of the Maori, the tattoo traditions of Polynesia — all encode a worldview in which the boundary between the living and the dead is permeable, in which the ancestors are continuously present, and in which art is the primary technology for maintaining that presence. Moai at Ahu Tongariki, Easter I...