Among the most elegant works from the Marquesas Islands are the bird-shaped bowls known as kotue. Only about a dozen examples survive, all of which exhibit the same unusual imagery in which a small human head is depicted on the end of a lidded bowl, whose gracefully curving form otherwise suggests the body and tail of a bird. Only about a dozen of these remarkable vessels are known.

Versatile as well as elegant, bird-shaped bowls were first described by European explorers in the eighteenth century and a number of different functions are assigned to them in the historic sources. Fitted with removable lids to protect their contents, kotue were used to store a variety of items, including popoi, a paste made from pounded breadfruit that is a staple of the Marquesan diet. They were also used to safeguard ornaments and other valuables as well as 'eka (turmeric), a precious yellow-orange powder used to adorn the skin.

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