Post #366968 by Paipo on Fri, Mar 14, 2008 2:12 PM

On 2008-03-14 13:46, pappythesailor wrote:
Very feminine.

My thoughts exactly.
I saw someone else's interpretation of this piece as "Pele" the other day and just thought "huh"? - there is nothing remotely female about it! The headdress is obviously based on the niho palaoa (sp?) whale tooth ornaments. I see this figure as just another style of representing an ali'i.

According to the definitive source (Hawaiian Sculpture):

The exaggerated chest line has led some to consider these images to be female gods (the image in figure 6 is designated as the goddess Pele), but this is simply a stylisation, similar to the thickening of the calves and other volume expansions."

In other words, it is an exaggerated male figure. Female deity figures are almost unheard of in classical Polynesian sculpture.

Edit: to say "almost unheard of" is probably a little harsh (for Hawaii at least) - there are some Hawaiian gals, a handful out of the 160-odd in the book, but the boobs are very rounded in form and separated from the chest, and none of them appear to have head-dresses. Apparently the crest can be also be seen as a spine or rainbow too, depending who you believe. Just goes to show hard it is to produce an accurate background for any of these ancient pieces....

[ Edited by: Paipo 2008-03-14 21:43 ]