Ceremonial Paddle (Mata Kao-Kao)
date: label: Accession Date
content: 24 Jan 1888
label: Collection Date
content: 18 Dec 1886 to 31 Dec 1886
name: label: Collector
content: Maj. William J. Thomson
label: Donor Name
content: U. S. Department of the Navy
label: Expedition
content: Mohican Survey of Easter Island
label: Vessel
content: U.S.S. Mohican
notes: label: Notes
content: From card: "Painted red. Head carved flat like a face and obsidian eyes set in. Illus. in USNM AR, 1889; Pl. 52, fig. 3; p. 534; described in Thomson, p. 537-538."
label: Notes
content: Illus. Fig. 83, p. 45 in "Ingrained Images: Wood Carvings from Easter Island", by Joan Seaver Kurze, Easter Island Foundation/Cloud Mountain Press, 1997. Illus. Fig. 42, p. 72, in "Splendid Isolation: Art of Easter Island" by Eric Kjellgren, Metropolitan Museum of Art/Yale University Press, 2001, and identified there as an 'ao or large dance paddle.
label: Notes
content: On exhibit in NMNH Sant Ocean Hall. 2014 exhibit caption identifies this as a dance paddle: "In rituals of the birdman religion, dancers twirled these paddles to create the illusion of three-dimensional forms."
label: Record Last Modified
content: 3 Mar 2022
label: Specimen Count
content: 1
place: label: Place
content: Easter Island (Rapa Nui), Chile, Polynesia
topic: label: Topic
content: Ethnology
setName: label: See more items in
content: Anthropology
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: NMNH - Anthropology Dept.
identifier: label: Accession Number
content: 020078
label: USNM Number
content: E129749-0
objectType: label: Object Type
content: Paddle
physicalDescription: label: Length - Object
content: 222.9 cm