article
The birdman motif of Easter Island
Journal of new world archaeology • 7 (1) • Published In 1986 • Pages: 39-49
By: Lee, Georgia.
AbstractBrief abstract written by HRAF anthropologists who have done the subject indexing for the document
Seventeenth century civil wars saw the destruction of ceremonial platforms and statuary, and a breakdown in the traditional Rapa Nui clan system based on ancestor worship. The ancestor cult was replaced by one in which leaders were selected from the winner of an annual competition to procure the first egg of the season from a bird colony on a nearby islet. The author carried out an extensive survey of carvings and petroglyphs, most using a birdman motif associated with the new cult. She attributes the carvings to a priestly class, documenting and commenting on stylistic changes over time.
- SubjectsDocument-level OCM identifiers given by the anthropology subject indexers at HRAF
- Lithic industries
- Visual arts
- Religious beliefs
- Organized ceremonial
- cultureCulture name from the Outline of World Cultures (OWC)
- Rapa Nui
- HRAF PubDateThe date HRAF published the document
- 2016
- RegionThe area the document pertains to
- Oceania
- Sub RegionThe more specific area the document pertains to, which is located within the Region
- Polynesia
- Document TypeMay include journal articles, essays, collections of essays, monographs, or chapters/parts of monographs
- article
- Evaluation
- Creator TypeThe type of person writing the document, e.g. Ethnographer, Missionary, Archaeologist, Folklorist, Linguist, Indigenous Person, and so on.
- Archaeologist
- Document Rating A ranking done by HRAF anthropologists based on the strength of the source material on a scale of 1 to 5, as follows: 1 - poor; 2 - fair; 3 - good, useful data, but not uniformly excellent; 4 - excellent secondary data; 5 - excellent primary data.
- 5: Excellent Primary Data
- AnalystThe HRAF anthropologist who subject indexed the document and prepared other materials for the eHRAF culture/tradition collection
- Ian Skoggard ; 2012
- Field DateThe date the researcher conducted the fieldwork or archival research that produced the document
- 1981-1986
- Coverage DateThe date or dates that the information in the document pertains to
- 1600–1878
- Coverage PlaceLocation of the research culture or tradition (often a smaller unit such as a band, community, or archaeological site)
- Orongo, Easter Island, Valparaíso, Chile
- NotesAdditional notes
- Georgia Lee
- Includes bibliographical references
- LCCNLibrary of Congress Control Number
- 77641928
- LCSHLibrary of Congress Subject Headings
- Easter Island