Johnette Williams

Period 4

April 18, 2019

Nukuoro Figures Essay

Nukuoro figurines were wooden sculptures that ranged in size from 30 cm to 217 cm.

They were made from the breadfruit tree and were either carved using an adze with clamshell

blades or traditional European tools. The figures all had similar ovoid heads, column necks,

discrete or missing eyes and nose, flat buttocks, and flexed legs. For the female figures, the

triangular shape of the pelvis indicates a mandatory tattoo there (te mata) for elite women.

Nukuoro is a Micronesian atoll (a ring-shaped coral reef) in the Western Pacific. According to

archaeological records and oral history, it was settled in the 8th Century C.E. by Polynesians

traveling in canoes from Samoa. Nukuoro’s culture retains Polynesian influences such as social

structures and the practice of carving human figures, even though it is geographically located in

Micronesia. Nukuoro was ruled by a religious and a secular chief; the secular chief was passed

down hereditarily within a family without regard for gender. Europeans started trading with the

island's population of about 400 during the 1830s, and most of the islanders had given up their

religion for Protestantism by the early 20th Century; similarly, most of their distinctive wooden

sculptures had been traded off. Nukuoro deities were believed to inhabit animals, stones, pieces

of wood, and wood figures called tino aitu. Different extended family groups, a priest, and

specific temples had certain figurines associated with them and was labeled with a name of a

particular deity. They would place these figures in temples and decorate them for the annual

harvest ritual. This festival could last for weeks and during this time offerings such as coconuts,
arrowroot and sugar cane were brought to the sculptures and dances were performed. The people

believed that the spirit of the deity resided inside of the wooden figurine for the duration of the

festival. The sculptures sometimes symbolized ancestors along with the deities. Nails attached to

the figures allowed clothing to be added when they took on deities' identities at the festivals.

Artist Henry Moore was inspired by these Nukuoro figures when he created Recumbent

Figure in 1938 and Reclining Figure in 1969. Although the features on these figures are a little

more extenuated in Moore’s sculptures than the Nukuoro figurines, both works keep the form

very simplistic and abstract. Moore was inspired by and used natural objects to create his pieces

similar to how the Nukuoro people used the nature around them to make these artworks. When

Moore saw images of the Nukuoro figures at the British Museum, he thought it to be a highlight

in the history of sculpture. He and other European artists saw the Nukuoro figures representing

the highly stylized form of the human body and the purest form of art which lay at the origins of

mankind.