Stilt Step (tapuva’e)

Culture: Marquesan (Te 'Enana) artist
Date: 19th century
Material: Wood
from: French Polynesia, France, Oceania
Classification: Furniture, tools & equipment
Collection: Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas
Current Location: On View, Gallery 108
Dimensions: 13 9/16 x 2 15/16 x 3 15/16 in. (34.5 x 7.4 x 10 cm)
Credit Line: Bequest of Morton D. May
Rights: Public Domain
Object Number: 1504:1983

NOTES

With oversized head and eyes and short flexed legs, this sculpture suggests dynamism of both the human figure portrayed and the individual who used this "tapuva’e" (stilt step) in a competition. The incised designs covering the figure recall the full-body tattoos worn by certain Marquesan warriors. The figure supports the footboard of the stilt step, to which a wooden post was attached with coconut fibers to form a complete "vaeake" (stilt). During important funerals, a pair of young men would compete while wearing vaeake, confronting each other on this elevated footing in sacred spaces. While the competitions where participants wore tapuva’e rapidly diminished following French annexation in 1842, these were among the most collected objects by European travelers to the Marquesas Islands.

Provenance

William Ockleford Oldman (1879-1949), London, England [1]

Harry Geoffrey Beasley (1881-1939), London, England [2]

- 1981
Ancestral Arts, Honolulu, HI, USA [3]

- 1983
Morton D. May (1914-1983), St. Louis, MO, purchased from Ancestral Arts [4]

1983 -
Saint Louis Art Museum, bequest of Morton D. May [5]

Notes:
[1] An invoice dated September 10, 1976 from Ancestral Arts to Morton D. May documents the purchase of this object, listed as "Marquesas Islands Stilt Step #A-573 [Ex Oldman Coll., ex H. G. Beasley Coll.]" [May Archives, Saint Louis Art Museum]. William Oldman was a collector and dealer of ethnographic art, doing business in London as W.O. Oldman, Ethnographical Specimens. Harry Beasley was a collector who established the Cranmore Ethnographical Museum.

[2] See note [1]

[3] See note [1]

[4] See note [1]

[5] Last Will and Testament of M. D. May dated June 11, 1982 [copy, May Archives, Saint Louis Art Museum]. Minutes of the Acquisitions and Loans Committee of the Board of Trustees, Saint Louis Art Museum, September 20, 1983.

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