Staff gods (or atua rakau) are sacred objects within the cultural and spiritual practices of the Cook Islands Māori, particularly prominent on the island of Rarotonga. These objects were crafted from wood and adorned with intricate carvings and symbolic designs, combining images of gods with their human descendants.

Staff-god, late 18th–early 19th century, wood, paper mulberry bark, feather, 396 cm, Rarotonga, Cook Islands (© Trustees of the British Museum) The only surviving wrapped example of a large staff god, this impressive image is composed of a central wood shaft wrapped in an enormous roll of decorated barkcloth.

2011年5月4日 · IN 2003 RESEARCHERS in Peru’s Patavilca River Valley uncovered a 4,000 year-old-gourd fragment that appears to be the oldest identifiable religious icon in the Americas. The fragment bears the image of the Staff God, which was the main religious figure in South America until the Europeans arrived in 1532.

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2021年12月13日 · The pre-Incan Andean deity known as the Staff God, assimilated as Viracocha in Incan mythology, is the earliest depiction of a deity in the Americas, and representations have been found from Lake Titicaca to the northern Peruvian highlands:

The stone shows the Staff God, a standing semihuman figure having claws, a feline face with crossed fangs, and a staff in each hand. Above his head, occupying two-thirds of the stone, is a towering, pillarlike structure fringed with snakes and emerging from a double-fanged face, which Rowe interpreted…

The Staff God may have had its roots in earlier cultural styles, including the one known as Cupisnique, making Chavín just one of many expressions of this deity. The Staff God’s imagery traveled extensively, far beyond the areas already mentioned.

Viracocha was worshipped as god of the sun and of storms. So-called Staff Gods do not all necessarily fit well with the Viracocha interpretation. [14]

Ancestral figures and flying foxes descend the central arm of this boldly carved ritual staff god from the Cook Islands. Their sequence, emphasized by the careful notching of the central figure’s spine, reinforces the close genealogical relationship …

The Staff God is an ancient artifact found in the Andean region of South America. It consists of a wooden staff topped with multiple heads or faces carved in stone or wood. It represents divine power and was used in religious ceremonies.