- IJ & MD
162: The Okia Artefact 2 (Significant update)
Earlier in 2016, not long after we started all this, we submitted an article on this unique artifact found on the Otago Peninsula. This post examined the circumstances on which this unusual artifact was found. You can read it here - http://tangatawhenua16.wixsite.com/the-first-ones-blog/single-post/2016/09/08/100-Okia-artefact
Recently we found reference to the same artefact. Here is the script:
"The archaeological sites at Papanui Inlet and Ōkia Flat have been subject to fossicking for over 100 years. Amateur archaeological excavations peaking around the 1930s were followed by intermittent collecting by beachcombers. A number of significant taoka ‘treasures or artefacts’ and kōiwi tāngata ‘human remains’ have been removed from the site, particularly from locations that were considered tapu ‘forbidden’ to the people of Ōtākou. One such item, a wooden atua ‘diety, supernatural being’ (now housed in the Otago Museum), was removed from a cave burial at Ōkia in 1934, despite information provided to the amateur archaeologist of the connection between the atua and a particular whānau ‘family’ from Ōtākou. (Sinclair 1940)."
However, this artefact was such that the local 'whanau’ had no actual knowledge of its existence. Nor does the style fit anything in their possession or their knowledge. That was until it was found! That is a bit like the Korotangi bird and the Te Uenuku pou. And if we find out tall skeletons, old hidden stories will 'suddenly' emerge about giant ancestors... stories that did not exist until now. The fact was, no one knew the items we just mentioned above even existed, nor was there any specific legend about them... until they were found. And both, like the Okia artefact, do not match any other known item from Polynesia, nor any known Maori design (even note the lips...).
The facts are, that the above pictured artefact was not found where the local whānau could ever see it, for it was found under piles of rocks and then deep piles of fishbone and shells, standing upright and jammed between two boulders. Local whānau had no idea of its existence. Human bones from a cannibal feast were found at the same layer as this idol. Be sure of one thing... this wooden idol is not of Ngai Tahu origin at all, not even close. (Ngai Tahu were only invaded the area a hundred years before Europeans in case people did not know that). It’s not even Kati Mamoe. It likely belongs to the Melanesian remnant killed of (and as it turns out – eaten) by Polynesians from the main migration period - that's not certain, it's just hypothesis, but rare archaic Melanesian carvings have many more similarities than anything Maori... at all!
To correct our previous article link above, this carving shows not one, single, accepted ‘Maori’’ style - from it’s head shape, facial features, to its extended neck. The hands and feet are also missing. No Polynesian (and certainly no Maori carving we know of) has hands that extend outward rather than immediately downward. In Central Polynesia the arms cross the body. In Micronesia, Melanesia and in Rapanui they don’t (do you see the pattern we keep proposing that the academics choose to ignore?). That means the style of this statuette is closer to Micronesia, Melanesia or Rapanui than anything Polynesian. Can anyone challenge that statement? We would be happy to be proved wrong.
The angular shape mid body also appears only in Melanesia, Micronesia, and in some very few cases; Hawaii. The closest we can come to are from the Caroline Islands to the north of New Guinea (Melanesian territory!) but nothing matches what is obviously a bowed legged bottom section shape until we get to maori carvings. The belly is angular. There is an ancestor figure from Papua New Guinea in the Met Museum that has several similar characteristics, but that one is too recent (1830’s) to be useful as a comparison. This figure from Okia is much older. The facial features are similar to Nepalese carvings, but that proves nothing either. The fact is - this carving is unique. There is nothing like it anywhere in the world (except the Shiqur idol - a Russian example thought to be over 90000 years old). The Okia idol does not have a Polynesian origin since there is no other object of Polynesian origin like it.
What we now want to point out the sentence labelled in red at the beginning of this article. The article, provided by the Polynesian Society of NZ, suggests that Ellis Sinclair was told by local Maori that the item should not be removed after they heard of its discovery. The fact is, the item was so deep in the cave no local Maori knew of its existence at all - unless they were complicit to the story of those eaten hundreds of years before that the idol belonged to. In other words the carving did not belong to Ngai Tahu by manufacture, but by conquest of the land. The attempted destruction and the burning of it at the time is likely not from Ngai Tahu, or even Kati Mamoe. But one thing is true - Maori often buried or burned items they feared that were not of their culture, (as with Te Uenuku and the Pouto Pou!)
We suggest it is not Maori and that neither is it Polynesian. It is has Melanesian similarities. The further east you go toward Africa, the more their figurines have similarities to this one found at Okia. This doesn’t prove the carver came from there, but it proves it less likely of pure Polynesian design. And if this isn't - but is claimed as of Polynesian migration origin, you can be sure many other artifacts are - The Okehu tribrach, The Korotangi, The Nevis dagger, The Marlborough stone bowls, The Tauranga stone bowl, Unusual recorded rock art, Adzes and clubs of different design, The Pelorus stone eggs, The Kaitaia carving, The Awatea taniwha lintel, The Melanesian bow, The Maruwai boomerang, The Marlborough spiked club, The Clarence River amulet and many others... All these above mentioned items have no equals anywhere in NZ, but they do in Melanesia.
There are not many countries where so many one-of-a-kind archaeological pieces exist without parallel. But here, in New Zealand, they seem to occur quite often. Here are but a few... and we haven't even pictured the 'hexagonal' patu found near Karamea in the 1930's... a six sided hexagonal blade no less. The post on that one can be found below the pictures. Try and explain that patu/miti.
