A Marquesas Islands Popoi Pounder (ke'a tuki popoi) Marquesas Islands, c. late 1...

Description

A Marquesas Islands Popoi Pounder (ke‘a tuki popoi)
Marquesas Islands, c. late 19th to early 20th century

Carved from fine grained basalt, this well preserved Marquesan food pounder combines utility with sculptural presence. The form features a curved base and tapering sides rising to a cylindrical shaft, surmounted by Janus tiki heads with broad upturned mouths and scrolling ears. In very good condition, a one-inch square dark spot on handle, probably the result of an old sticker.

In Marquesan culture, the stone pounder (ke'a tuki popoi) was not just a kitchen implement but a tool bound up with ritual and identity. Used to mash breadfruit into popoi, a starchy paste central to daily diet, the act of pounding was itself considered sacred and governed by taboos. Children were initiated into pounding around the age of ten, consecrating their hands for this life-sustaining task.

The Janus tiki heads that often crown these pounders, with wide mouths and coiled ears, introduce another layer of meaning. In Marquesan art, tiki are ancestral presences, and the Janus form—two faces back-to-back—embodies dual vision: the ability to see both the past and the future, the visible and invisible realms. Their placement at the top of a domestic yet sacred tool suggests that the act of making food was watched over, sanctified, and perhaps imbued with ancestral protection.

Thus, a Marquesan popoi pounder unites the practical with the symbolic: its carefully modeled basalt body ensures stability and function, while the tiki heads transform it into an object of presence and power, an heirloom that embodied continuity between household practice and the sacred order of the community.

This pounder shows refined carving and well-balanced proportions, giving it strong sculptural presence. The paired tiki heads at the top add character and make it an especially compelling example of the type. It is a highly desirable piece for collectors of Marquesan, Oceanic, or really any kind of museum quality art.

Provenance:
Acquired by the current collection in 1993
Wayne Heathcote, London UK and New York, NY
Sotheby's New York, November 20, 1990, lot 17A
Harry Bober, New York, NY
Sotheby's New York, 1976 (exact date unknown)
John J. Klejman, New York, NY

Height: 10 inches

More Information: Sources:
Kaeppler, Andrienne L., Polynesia: The Mark and Carolyn Blackburn Collection of Polynesian Art, University of Hawai'i Press, Honolulu, 2010, pg. 111.

Kjellgren, Eric, Adorning the World: Art of the Marquesas Islands, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Yale University Press, New Haven, 2005, pgs. 105 and 106.


Estimate: $10,000 - $15,000.

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