Large Ceremonial Adze, Mangaia, Cook Islands

K. J. Hewett, London and Bog Farm, Brabourne Lees, Kent

Judith Small Nash, New York, acquired from the above

Acquired from the above on March 1, 1984

Ceremonial adzes, or toki, of this type were made only on the island of Mangaia in the Cook Islands. This large and elegant example is an apt illustration of Steven Hooper’s comment that Mangaian adzes “enshrine the finest of woodwork, binding and stonework.” (Steven Hooper, Pacific Encounters: Art and Divinity in Polynesia, 1760-1860, London, 2006, p. 229).

The most authoritative historic description of ceremonial adzes from Mangaia in the Cook Islands is given by the English missionary William Wyatt Gill, who lived in Mangaia between 1852-1872: “The stone adzes were secured to their wooden hafts by means of fine sinnet, itself esteemed divine. It was fabled that the peculiar way in which the natives of Mangaia fasten their axes was originally taught them by the gods. A famous god, named Tane-mataariki [the god of craftsmen], i.e., Tane-of-royal-face, was considered to be enshrined in a sacred triple axe […] to use an adze was to be a man of consequence, the skill necessary in using it being invariably referred back to the gods as its source.” (W. Wyatt Gill, Jottings from the Pacific, London, 1885, p. 224).

The present example has a well-polished, close-grained basalt blade of broad, flat, triangular-edged form, with a carefully faceted underside. Not a mere tool, a blade such as this was a valuable item of exchange which might also serve as a shrine for a god. The blade is bound to the haft of the toki with an elaborate triple triangle lashing which is distinctly Mangaian. The circular shaft is covered in lozenge-shaped motifs, while the contrasting quadrangular butt is carved in back-to-back “K” motifs. As Te Rangi Hīroa notes, the length of ceremonial toki such as this “usually exceeds greatly that of the working adzes” since they were never intended for use in cutting wood; rather “it is probable that master craftsmen kept a carved adz[e] and went through some ritual with this craft symbol, when occasion warranted […] in a culture in which working adzes underwent a temple ritual to obtain mana from the god Tane, there is little wonder that one area should have developed an adz[e] symbol for the tutelary deity of craftsmen, Tane-mata-ariki.” (Te Rangi Hīroa, Arts and Crafts of the Cook Islands, Honolulu, 1944, p. 383 and 394-395).