Hoa Hakananai’a

Give the back of the figure time as well as the face. Birds and paddle-like forms are carved into the basalt. These marks are linked to the birdman tradition of Rapa Nui, the Pacific island whose people made the sculpture. Hoa Hakananai’a is a moai, an ancestor figure. The approximate date given to the sculpture is AD 1000–1200. Its role belongs to Rapanui relationships with ancestors and place. The carvings add another part of the figure’s history to the form seen from the front. In 1868, the crew of the British naval ship HMS Topaze removed Hoa Hakananai’a from Orongo on Rapa Nui. The Admiralty presented it to Queen Victoria, who gave it to the British Museum in 1869. That journey brought an ancestor figure into a new setting, far from the people and place for which it was made. The carvings on the back remain part of its Rapanui history alongside the face seen from the front.