- IJ
Sidestep: The Okia artefact
This interesting carving was found by Ellis Sinclair in a cave 1938 on the Otago Peninsular. The area used to be called Okia Flat. A full excavation was made but sadly the cave has since collapsed.
Click to view detail of artefact
In 1934 when the cave was first discovered, the sea came right up to the entrance. Sand deposits have pushed the shoreline back some several hundred metres. After clearing rocks and finding evidence of occupation they began to excavate. The artefact was found under piles of fishbone and shells, standing upright and jammed between two boulders and showing remnants of a red coating, probably ochre which is made from burning the yellow clay from Otakau on this peninsular. The figure was also slightly charred as shown in the coloured photo. The broken arms and logs were never found and it seemed to suggest the artefact was broken before it was brought into the cave. But I have another theory on why it was broken.
The cave was in the left hand pyramid at the extreme lower left where the shadow is. At the bottom level, just above the clean sand, Sinclair eventually found evidence of a cannibal feast with broken human bones discovered in the same layer as the idol. The arms and legs of the figure showed evidence of a recent clean break, as opposed to hundreds of years ago, but they could not be found. That in itself seems unusual until you wonder how they fuelled the fire. My belief is this figure belonged to an archaic people living here before Maori arrived - the Waitaha, or those before them. It could that when the Kati Mamoe arrived, they killed the inhabitants, ate them and destroyed their idol because it wasn’t one like theirs, breaking off the arms and legs for fire fuel. Because it was a god, they had disfigured it and probably jammed it in the rocks believing it would somehow be unable to hurt them. Keep in mind the spiritual and mythical nature of the Maori toward curses and tapu. (They also found skulls and bones of a bird much bigger than a chicken and some green egg shells, yet no one knew of such a coloured shell. It is presumed the egg was from a small moa. That makes this site aged to about 1300AD when they still roamed near the coast. However, this date conflicts with a cannibal feast of 1700's as moa did not exist in the 1700's - so the mystery deepens.)
On investigation it seems skulls were found nearby in previous years and that one European who lived with the Maori in the area was told the cave was particularly tapu, having been the scene of slaughter by Te Wera, presumably about the year 1750. The finding of the broken bones could point to the fact that the victims suffered the indignity of being eaten by Te Wera and his men. But was that Nagi Tahu eating Kati Mamoe or Kati Mamoe eating Waitaha, or Ngai Tahu eating ...? We won’t know...but the carving is not of Ngai Tahu or Kati Mamoe design, it existed long before they arrived. Perhaps the cannibal victims were from a passing canoe of maori explorers. We will never know the true detail. The discussion is not so much about the cannibal feast, that is nothnig unusual in NZ. It is about the carving being of a different style to Maori, painted red, and with it's arms an legs deliberately broken off...and why.
There is a story of a god of Te Wera, a local Ngai Tahu chief of the 1700's, called Kahukura (meaning cloaked in red) being stolen by warriors of his nephew. Now there is no need to go into the story other than to point out their god was painted red. With the Okia artefact being once painted red, it means this figure was also a revered god. Therefore if you broke it’s arms and legs, it would not be able to hurt you (as we mentioned above).
This artefact has definite Polynesian facial features, like the early flat faced figurines of the Marquesas Islands. (It is also has the same facial face face an features as the 9500 year old Shigir Idol - see below) Some say it represents the war god Rimaroa and if so, tells us much about early Eastern Polynesian art styles now lost to time. However, Rimaroa is also a god from New Caledonia & Fiji, suggesting a spread east where Tahiti and others have the same God. We know the people spread east across the Pacific. As they did some also went south. I believe a few found NZ long before Polynesians even discovered the place, but I can’t prove anymore than no one can disprove it.
But here is an artefact that is not Maori so is either brought south from Melanesia or Polynesia and is found near Dunedin of all places. Melanesian gods and figures vary from island to island so diversity of styles was something commonplace. Melanesia was also where lapita pottery came from. They had diverse religious beliefs and this may have, as we have already suggested, been the reason Maori came to NZ, all around a similar time when a new religion began to grow within Polynesia from elsewhere and they were forced out like the pilgrims. It's just a theory. But we keep saying people were reaching here from Polynesia, Melanesia and Rapanui many hundreds of years before Maori arrived in their immigration canoes.
Now, just because I found it interesting...alongside the Okia statuete is a picture of the Shigir artifact from Siberia that is 3000 years old. The heads are almost identical. No, I'm not saying our artefact came from Siberia...I'm saying they are fairly identical.
