Hina and Fatu
c. 1892
carved tamanu wood
Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Gift from the Volunteer Committee Fund, 1980

Gauguin carved numerous tiki-like devotional sculptures based on Tahitian deities. Here the goddess of the moon, Hina, is seen with her hand raised, speaking to her son Fatu, god of the earth. While the two deities did, in fact, exist in Tahitian mythology, their appearance is wholly of Gauguin's imagination.