Roger Peet

Roger Peet
Moon, Ghosts, and Moa
$35

Back in stock! Another print about an extinct creature. There were numerous species of Moa once, found on New Zealand and surrounding islands. Pictured here is Dinornis Maximus, the tallest bird to have ever lived. It stood up to 11 feet high.
Moas were wiped out by the Polynesian colonizers of the New Zealand archipelago, the Maori. Dinornis Maximus was perhaps the latest survivor, done away with finally in about 1850. My point in this print is to express that the doom of the Moa was inevitable, that had the Maori not succeeded in finishing them off, then the Europeans on the horizon certainly would have. The Maori ate the Moa to death. Had the Europeans had a chance they would have undoubtably eaten them as well, and in addition their feathers, bones and eggs would have entered into the international trade in exotic plumage and parts that so captivated late 19th century Europe.
The ghostly hands in the foreground could be the Moriori, an unfortunate society of Polynesians that were enslaved and destroyed by the Maori. They could be the Maori themselves. Or they could be the Europeans. It matters not so much: We'll all be ghosts like the Moa before long.

Blockprint and Four-Color Stencil
19"x17"
Signed