Provenance:
– James Hooper Collection, Arundel, UK (no. 643)
– Christie’s London, June 17, 1980, lot 122
– Galerie Flak, Paris
– Private Collection, France

Publication:
– Steven Phelps, 1975. Hutchinson & Co, London.
Art and artifacts of the Pacific, Africa and the America . The James Hooper Collection.
– Serge Dunis & Julien Flak, 2011. Polynesia. Galerie Flak, Paris.

This paddle is carved all over with alternating chevron-shaped geometric motifs. The top of the circular handle is topped by a frieze carved with ten stylized female figures. The paddles formerly used in Polynesia to maneuver outrigger canoes were rarely decorated. The paddles, entirely carved from Tubuai and Ra’ivavae in the Austral Islands, were made for barter or sale between Tuha’a Pae and sailors in the first half of the 19th century. The exact origin and function of these so-called “ceremonial” objects is not known. They were probably kept in family temples and used for ritual dances, or as symbolic paddles reserved for chiefs, to propel the va’a mo’emo’e, the sacred pirogue. The carving work was generally done with shark teeth, and it’s possible that rat teeth were also used. Ra’ivavae’s inhabitants had a reputation for being excellent sculptors, but in the late 1840s, the island’s population was decimated by epidemics and the tradition of this remarkable art was lost.