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Male figure - 'Fishermen's god'
Late 18th/ early 19th century
Cook Islands
Wood
h. 40.7 cm
UEA 189Several ancestral gods were recognised in Polynesian societies, and ritual offerings to representations of these gods were considered necessary to obtain divine favour and ensure success. This wooden male figure is one of seven of its type thought to have survived from the early nineteenth century. It would have been placed on the front of fishermen�s� canoes and offerings made to it before they set off to sea.
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