God image

In parts of eastern Polynesia the most important god images were abstract, not naturalistic human figures. They incorporated material such as feathers, coconut fibre bindings and barkcloth. These materials not only enabled the invisible bodies of the gods to take visible form, but also provided a place for the gods' power to be present. It was, in fact, the materials that were significant to islanders, rather than the wooden frames to which they were bound.


The cloth bindings enabled people to capture, constrain and release the gods' power through wrapping and unwrapping, binding and unbinding.

Almost all the surviving examples of this type of god image were collected by the London Missionary Society, including this one. The Society's missionaries first arrived in the Cook Islands in 1821. The Reverend John Williams visited in 1823 and during his time there he collected thirty-one such images, surrendered to him by islanders who had recently converted to Christianity.

Unfortunately, little is now known about how such objects were used.