THE PACIFIC
700 CE - 1980 CE

Cultural Influences

• The Pacific region—including more than 25,000 islands, about 1,500 of which are inhabited—is defined by its location within the Pacific Ocean, which comprises one third of the earth's surface. The lands are continental, volcanic, and atollian. Each supports distinct ecologies that exist in relation to the migrations and sociocultural systems that were transported across the region.

• Ships and devices of navigation and sailing expertise were built and used to promote exploration, migration, and the exchange of objects and cultural patterns across the Pacific. Navigators created personal charts or expressions of the truths of their experience of the sea and other objects intended to protect and ensure the success of sailing. Ocean-going vessels carried families, and often communities, across vast distances; passengers could also return to their place of departure.

• The region was explored by Europeans as early as the 16th century and most extensively from the second half of the 18th century. By the beginning of the 19th century, Dumont d'Urville had divided the region into three units—micro- (small), poly- (many), and mela- (black) nesia (island). By 800 CE the distribution that has come to be described as Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia was established.

• Arts of the Pacific involve the power and forces of deities, ancestors, founders, and hereditary leaders, as well as symbols of primal principles, which are protected by wrapping, sheathing, and other forms of covering to prevent human access. Ritual dress, forms of armor, and tattoos encase and shield the focus of power from human interaction. One's vital force, identity, or strength (mana) is expressed and protected by rules and prohibitions, as well as by wrapping or shielding practices, or tapu. Mana is also associated with communities and leaders who represent their peoples. Objects that project status and sustain structure hold and become mana. These objects are made secure through tapu or behaviors that limit access to and protect the objects.

Materials & Techniques

• Pacific arts are composed of objects, acts, and events that are forces in social life. Created in a variety of media, Pacific arts are distinguished by the virtuosity with which materials are used and presented.

• Pacific arts are objects and events created from fibers, pigments, bone, sea ivory, seashell, and tortoise shell, as well as wood, coral, and stone, which are carried, exchanged, and used by peoples of the region.

• Objects and behaviors in the cultures of the Pacific are often designed and presented to stimulate a particular response. Rare and precious materials are used to demonstrate wealth, status, and particular circumstance. Ritual settings are structured with elements that address all of the senses. Physical combat and warfare are announced and preceded by displays of ferocity in dress, dance, verbal aggression, and gestural threats.

Theories & Interpretations

• Pacific arts are performed (danced, sung, recited, displayed) in an array of colors, scents, textures, and movements that enact narratives and proclaim primordial truths. Belief in the use of costumes, cosmetics, and constructions assembled to enact epics of human history and experience is central to the creation of and participation in Pacific arts.

• Objects such as shields, ancestral representations, and family treasures were and continue to be constructed to give form to and preserve human history and social continuity. Other art forms are constructed to be displayed and performed to remind people of their heritage and shared bonds (such as the significance of an ancestor or leader) and are intended to be destroyed once the memory is created.

• Reciprocity is demonstrated by cycles of exchange in which designated people and communities provide specific items and in exchange receive equally predictable items. The process of exchange is complex and prescribed. Chants, dances, scents, costumes, and people of particular lineage and social position are called into play to create a performance that engages all of the senses and expands the form and significance of the exchange.