Big Stone Head: synopsis
On a sunny April morning in 1722, the western world had its first contact with Easter Island (or Rapa Nui), and the nearly one thousand big stone heads (or moai) erected there. Two centuries later, people in America were drinking cocktails out of ceramic mugs shaped like the moai, people in Japan were erecting fake moai in their cemeteries, and people in Europe were tattooing moai images on their biceps. Comic books in the 1960s imagined the moai coming to life, just as hippies of the era ate LSD tablets with tiny moai printed on them, while listening to rock albums with moai on the cover.
How did this happen?
Why did this happen?
How did this effect the Rapa Nui people?
Illustrated with almost 350 images of Rapa Nui, of pop culture artifacts inspired by the island’s mysterious moai figures, and an art gallery of contemporary interpretations of the moai, Big Stone Head: Easter Island and Pop Culture is a lively, fun, colorful, and educational peek at how millennia-old rock art on the world’s most remote inhabited island inspired cartoons, action figures, and bar decor.
Sample pages (blue web address lettering does
not appear in the real book!):
©2009 James Teitelbaum all
rights reserved.