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Sidestep: Mangareva Island style
Back on 29th February I posted about an artefact from Dunedin called the Okia Artefact. Here is the link for the post from that date. http://tangatawhenua16.wix.com/the-first-ones-blog#!Sidestep-The-Okia-artefact/cgla/56be6dfa0cf2a547431d0c80
As a reminder here are a few photos of that rare and unusual piece.
It took a while and apart from the similarity with the ancient Russian artefact, the only close enough representation I could find was the below artefact representing the god Rao from Mangareva Island in the Gambier Archipelago of French Polynesia. (Imagine the arms and legs snapped off). Mangareva is the central and largest island of the Gambier Islands in French Polynesia. When missionaries arrived, most of the wooden artefacts were burned. Only a few survived and here is an example. Similar but not alike? That means they are unrelated? It probably does.
But an even more startling version from the same island is this one below. The reason I show it is because people will say the above sculpture doesn't match the Okia one exactly. True, but neither of the bottom two match either and they are the only two of three surviving wooden carvings from Mangereva.
What does this prove? I've no idea yet!
