Sacred Texts -- Pacific Islander Religions

Te Pito Te Henua, or Easter Island: List of Ethnographic Specimens Obtained at Easter Island

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This is an 1891 artifact catalog from William J. Thompson's survey of Easter Island (Te Pito Te Henua), documenting objects collected or observed during his visit — a genre sitting between ethnographic inventory and museum accession record. The text systematically describes wooden and stone figures (Moai), ceremonial clubs, feather headdresses, obsidian spear-points, calabashes, fishing equipment, ritual fetish objects, and the famous rongorongo incised tablets, giving each its Rapa Nui name alongside physical description and use. A recurring and distinctive claim is the sharp distinction between objects that were venerated (actual stone "gods" for fish, fowl, and crops — rough, uncarved pebbles) and decorative or ceremonial objects like wooden figures that were honored but explicitly not worshipped. Thompson also notes specific functional and social details often absent from contemporaneous accounts — for instance, that bone fish hooks were made from the thigh-bones of deceased fishermen and that islanders still preferred them to European hooks, or that nine distinct named classes of obsidian spear-point existed. The catalog ends with brief dynastic notes hinting at civil war in Easter Island's history. This text would interest anyone researching Rapa Nui material culture, 19th-century ethnographic collection practices, or the specific objects held in museums from Thompson's expedition.

Te Pito Te Henua, or Easter Island: List of Ethnographic Specimens Obtained at Easter Island

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