Written by Terence Barrow
Traditional Polynesian art was cut short by the impact of a much more developed technological society. The old craftsmen based their work on a stone-age technology set in a precarious economy which of necessity relied on horticulture, primitive animal husbandry, and the products of the sea. Just as the technology of the South Sea stone age is evident in the materials - wood, stone, bone and shell - used in the art, so the ideas of South Sea man are revealed in its images. Tribal life was based on beliefs in the power of gods and spirits, the dominant subject-matter of the art.
Softcover: 96 pages.
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