tour 9 of 21
Audio description tour
Hoa Hakananai'a
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This is a giant stone sculpture of a human figure from Orongo,
Easter Island. The island is known to its inhabitants as Rapa Nui.
The figure dates from around AD 1000.
There are two images on this page, one showing the front of the
sculpture, the other showing the reverse.
Easter Island is famous for stone statues such as this one. They
are known as moai (meaning 'statue'). They were probably
carved to commemorate important ancestors and were made from around
AD 1000 until the second half of the seventeenth century.
Originally, many of them stood on stone platforms.
This figure is known as Hoa Hakananai'a, meaning 'stolen or
hidden friend'. It is a monumental carving of the head and torso of
a man, almost twice life-size. The proportions are typical of these
statues, with the head being one-third of the total height.
In the British Museum, the figure is set on a stone platform
just over a metre high so that it towers above the visitor.
Estimated to weigh around four tons, it is carved out of dark grey
basalt - a hard, dense, fine-grained volcanic rock. The surface of
the rock is rough and pitted, and pinpricks of light sparkle as
tiny crystals in the rock glint. Basalt is difficult to carve and
unforgiving of errors. The sculpture was probably commissioned by a
high status individual.
Hoa Hakananai'a's head is slightly tilted back, as if scanning a
distant horizon. He has a prominent eyebrow ridge shadowing the
empty sockets of his eyes. These once would have been filled by
coral and stone eyeballs. The nose is long and straight, ending in
large oval nostrils. The thin lips are set into a downward curve,
giving the face a stern, uncompromising expression. A faint
vertical line in low relief runs from the centre of the mouth to
the chin. The jawline is well defined and massive, and the ears are
long, beginning at the top of the head and ending with pendulous
lobes.
The figure's collarbone is emphasized by a curved indentation,
and his chest is defined by carved lines that run downwards from
the top of his arms and curve upwards onto the breast to end in the
small protruding bumps of his nipples. The arms are held close
against the side of the body, the hands rudimentary, carved in low
relief.
The second image shows the rear of the sculpture.
The figure's back is covered with ceremonial designs, some
carved in low relief, others incised. These show images relating to
the island's birdman cult, which developed after about AD 1400. The
key birdman cult ritual was an annual trial of strength and
endurance, in which the chiefs and their followers competed. The
victorious chief then represented the creator god, Makemake, for
the following year.
Carved on the upper back and shoulders are two birdmen, facing
each other. These have human hands and feet, and the head of a
frigate bird. In the centre of the head is the carving of a small
fledgling bird with an open beak. This is flanked by carvings of
ceremonial dance paddles known as 'ao, with faces carved
into them. On the left ear is another 'ao, and running
from top to bottom of the right ear are four shapes like inverted
'V's representing the female vulva. These carvings are believed to
have been added at a later date.
As the birdman cult developed, from about the 1600s, the
moai were gradually toppled from their platforms. When
Captain Cook's crew visited Easter Island in 1774, William Hodges,
Cook's artist, produced an oil painting of the island showing a
number of moai, some of them with hat-shaped stone
'topknots'. Hodges depicted most of the moai standing
upright on stone platforms, known as ahu. After 1838 at a
time of social collapse following European intervention, the
remaining standing moai were toppled.