Male Figure

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Culture Rapa Nui (Easter Island)

Title Male Figure (Moai Kavakava)

Date Early to mid-19th century

Medium Wood, obsidian, and and bone

Dimensions Object: 15 1/8 × 3 1/4 × 3 5/8 in. (38.4 × 8.3 × 9.2 cm)
Overall (includes mount): 15 7/8 × 3 1/4 × 3 5/8 in. (40.3 × 8.3 × 9.2 cm)

Credit Line Raymond and Laura Wielgus Collection, Eskenazi Museum of Art, Indiana University

Accession Number 80.5.1

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About this Work

Though the monumental stone figures of Rapa Nui have for years captured the public imagination, another type of sculpture carved of wood, the moai kavakava, “statue with ribs,” also leaves a remarkable impression. Always male, moai kavakava have prominent rib cages, clavicles, and spines, and sunken eye sockets that evoke skeletons, leading most scholars to believe that moai kavakava represent ancestors or their spirits; but their beards, glinting bone-and-obsidian eyes, and elongated fleshy earlobes place the images within the realm of the living.

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Provenance research is ongoing for this and many other items in the Eskenazi Museum of Art permanent collection. For more information about the provenance of this artwork, please contact the department curator with specific questions.

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"Male Figure | Collections Online." Collections Online. Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Museum of Art, Indiana University, 2024. https://artmuseum.indiana.edu/collections-online/browse/object.php?number=80.5.1