The Bioarchaeology of the Human Head: Decapitation, Decoration, and Deformation

4. Marquesan Trophy Skulls: Description, Osteological Analyses, and Changing Motivations in the South Pacific

4 Marquesan Trophy Skulls Description, Osteological Analyses, and Changing Motivations in the South Pacific Frédérique Valentin and Noémie Rolland Several museum and private collections curate decorated skulls from the Marquesas Islands, French Polynesia. Regarded as trophy skulls, these objects are composed of a human skull adorned with pig canines to which a mandible was ingeniously attached using a vegetal bond. Nineteenth-century descriptions of the Marquesas Islands indicate the presence in sacred places of decorated human skulls with artificial eyes. Associated iconography portrays such decorated skulls hanging at the neck or waist of a warrior, while archaeological evidence suggests a pre-European to early European period. Relying on written , iconographic, artifactual, and archaeological documentation, this chapter describes such objects, focusing on osteological observations that shed light on head or skull selection and preparation processes, and then analyzes the potential motives for human skull collection and modification in a changing Nuku Hiva society influenced by Western contact in the eighteenth century. These decorated skulls of males, females, and adolescents, once curated by the indigenous population as trophies or the remains of ancestors, apparently became made-to-order curios for an expanding European market. Historical Descriptions of Trophy Skulls The Marquesan archipelago (figure 4.1) was discovered by Europeans in 1595, when it was sighted by Alvaro de Mendaña y Neyra and Pedro Fernandez de Quirós; however, actual first contact between Westerners and indigenous people only dates back to the end of the eighteenth century (Baert 1999; Bailleul 2001). Archaeological discoveries indicate that human trophy skull production began in the pre-European period in the Marquesas Islands, with such skulls apparently associated with domestic occupation sites as well as 98 Frédérique Valentin and Noémie Rolland Figure 4.1. Map of the archipelago of the Marquesas Islands. burial sites. In contrast, ethnohistorical reports suggest their use in warrior rituals during the protohistoric period. The written records indicate that the modified heads were those of war enemies, prisoners caught outside of the community. The main sources of information on Marquesan trophy skulls are written records (Dumoutier 1843; Gracia 1843; Melville 1996 [1846]; Radiguet 2001 [1861]; Vincendon-Dumoulin and Desgraz 1843; von den Steinen 1925–1928; von Langsdorff 1812), associated iconography (Radiguet 2001 [1861]; von den Steinen 1925–1928; von Langsdorff 1812), and the objects themselves. Collected almost exclusively on Nuku Hiva—one of the main islands forming the archipelago (figure 4.1)—during the nineteenth century by European explorers and mariners, they are represented by exemplars now curated in museum and private collections (briefly described in table 4.1, below). None of the Marquesan Trophy Skulls in the South Pacific 99 skulls in this inventory have been found in archaeological contexts; however, some Marquesan archaeological sites revealed burial practices that could be integrated into the protocol for producing these artifacts. Nineteenth-century accounts of Marquesan trophy skulls include those from explorers such as Max Radiguet (2001 [1861]), who observed a human skull adorned with pig canines and artificial eyes on a mortuary platform on Tahuata Island. He dramatically described his discovery, made while accompanying Abel Aubert Dupetit-Thouars during the French annexation of the archipelago in 1843: Vaguement entrevu dans l’obscurité, il me semblait pâle et chauve; il appuyait sur la pierre deux dents canines, aiguës et disposées comme celles d’un morse; son œil large et rond, sans paupière, chatoyait dans l’ombre et me dévorait du regard. . . . C’était un crâne humain dont on avait bouché les orbites avec des rondelles en nacre de perle, plates et larges comme des pièces de cinq francs. Un trou perforé au milieu restait noir en guise de prunelle; un morceau de bois remplissait la cavité nasale ; deux dents longues, menaçantes étaient fichées dans l’alvéole des canines; enfin des cordons en bourre de coco retenaient au maxillaire de nombreuses touffes de poils disposées en barbe, et aux oreilles des plaques de bois ovales blanchies à la chaux. (Radiguet 2001 [1861]: 64) [As I vaguely perceived him in the darkness, he seemed to me pale and bald; two of his sharp, canine teeth, placed like the fangs of a walrus, were pressed into the stone; his large, round, lidless eye shimmered in the shadow and devoured me with its gaze. . . . It was a human skull whose orbits had been plugged with slices of mother-of...