Iorana enigmatic Rapa Nui

Easter Island: 29 July - 6 August

Rapa Nui forms the south east edge of the Polynesian triangle created by New Zealand, Hawaii and Rapa Nui. The island which is over 2000km from the nearest inhabited landmass (Pitcairn Island with 50 people) is made up of three different volcanos from different time periods:  Poike being the oldest from ¬3mio years ago, then Ranu Kau over 1+ million years ago and Terevaka around 300,000 years ago. These three volcanos give the island its triangular shape. The island is home to ¬7-8000 people and harbours the mysteries of the ancient Rapa Nui people and their enigmatic Moai statues.

The history about the Moai is largely conjecture pieced together from oral tales handed down through generations, writings from early explorers who came to the island first ¬300years ago, as well as more recent archaeological insights since restorations began in the 1950’s.

Legend has it that the Moai construction took place between ¬900AD – 1400AD and that it took ¬10months to complete a Moai. The Moai would then be ‘walked’ from the quarry where it was carved to the Ahu (or stone platform) where it was placed to look upon and after the villagers. There are different theories of how the Moai ‘walked’, but the prevailing one at the moment seems to be that they were pivoted from side to side (similar as one would move a refrigerator). All Moai face ‘inland’ towards a settlement and are said to contain the mana (aka life energy) of the ancestor they represent. If a Moai ‘fell’ on route it was said that the person’s mana wasn’t very strong, so better for it to fall here than not being able to protect the village properly. Firstborns had the most mana and the first born child had more mana than their parents. Mana in the statues, which are mainly carved from Tuff, is concentrated in their eyes which are made out of coral and red scoria (as is their tophat which represents hair). There is only one statue currently on the island restored with eyes.

During this ancient period the island was split up between 17 ‘families’ which according to legend descended from Hotu Matua the first king of the island. Oral history says that a team of 7 Polynesian explorers found the island by following two stars which had appeared in the dream in one of the kings advisors. Some of them then went back to get the king and his people. When the first western explorers arrived in the 1700’s construction of the Moai had long stopped, but some were still standing. As time went on and warfare between the tribes, small earth quakes and tidal waves all took their toll on the island. All statues were toppled by the early 20^th century. Only 6 eyes of the Moai have ever been found and legend has it that all eyes were destroyed (or hidden) to ensure no mana would ‘survive’.

Sometime between the 1400-1700 centuries the Rapa Nui’s ancestral Moai worship gave way to the Tangata Manu or birdman cult. The birdman competition took place annually and consisted of contestants starting from Orongo village high on the cliffs. From there participants climbed down the 300m cliff of Ranu Kau before swimming over to Moto Nui to collect the egg of the first migratory seabirds to arrive and then bringing the egg back in one piece to Orongo. The winning family of the contest would then govern the island for the next year.

The recent history of the island is as fascinating as its ancient history. The name Easter Island comes from the Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen who discovered it on Easter Sunday – it was one of many names given to Rapa Nui through history, but the one that ‘stuck’. 

Rapa Nuis believed in a single god called Make Make and his symbol, two eyes, can be seen in many of the petroglyphs on the island. Therefore it was relatively easy for the islanders to accept/convert to Christianity. The ancient script of Rongo Rongo on wood tablets was almost entirely lost after early missionaries burned thousands of these wooden tablets in their belief that the islanders were savages and the writings heathen. Only 19 known tablets till exist (non on the island), not enough to properly decipher the meaning of the writing.

The population of Rapa Nui at its height is estimated at ¬28000, at its lowest depending on different sources only 111 – 450 Rapa Nui remained by ¬1870 Many were taking as slaves to work in Peruvian mines where they fell ill easily and often died or brought diseases back. Chicken pox nearly claimed all but the last remaining survivors.

Rapa Nui was initially colonized by the French who were too occupied with governing Tahiti to focus on the island. France sold the island to Chile. Chile, not knowing what to do with it, rented the island to Scotland for wool production with the claim that it was uninhabited. Scotland’s wool company introduced 30,000 sheep and told Chile to get the natives off the island. Chile then transferred all the islanders into the area of Hanga Roa where the locals essentially lived in an open air prison until the late 20^th century. During the ¬100 year lease to the wool company the locals were permitted to leave Hanga Roa only to work as sheep shearers and other labourers.  All land was taken from the local population with idea to ‘rehouse’ them on the mainland once enough suitable land had been found (which ultimately never happened). In the 1950’s the wool company didn’t renew its lease as the market for wool wasn’t lucrative enough anymore. The Chilean army then took over wool production for another ¬30 years before calling it quits. Rapa Nuis weren’t allowed to ‘own’ land or animals, so rather than handing over the 30,000 sheep to the Rapa Nui to tend to them, the army began killing off the sheep slowly by giving each family one sheep per week. Once the sheep had run ‘out’ that was the end of lamb for dinner. In the last few decades the Chilean government started to gradually distribute land in Hanga Roa to the local families, but the legacy of dependence on the outside world due to the enforced lack of self-sufficiency is still evident to this day. All food and everything needed to live on the island is imported from the mainland, despite the island being very fertile and easily self-sustainable.

This lack of self-sufficiency might also be linked to the ancient Rapa Nui culture itself, as well as the climate on the island which remains largely the same all year round. There are no words in Rapa Nui for year or month – only for today, tomorrow, yesterday, day before yesterday and day after tomorrow. Rapa Nuis very much live in the present moment and it doesn’t really matter how long things take and whether things get done today or not. There are also no real seasons to impose certain planting/harvesting cycles either. We were told the story of two families who, with government assistance, started to grow tomatoes. This significantly reduced the price of tomatoes on the island as they no longer needed to be imported from Chile. After one year both families quit the booming tomato business – one family reinvested the money into cabins (which were perceived to be less hard work) and the other ‘retired’ as they made enough money to live comfortably for the next 15years. There was no one on the island who wanted to take over the tomato business as one has to harvest (aka work) every day.  Jamie Oliver wouldn’t be impressed with the lack of ‘fresh & local’ produce. There is a primary school and more recently also a high school on the island. Previously students were taken to the mainland for high school education which had the added benefit of broadening the islander’s horizon and providing the young people with more aspirations. After campaigning to have a high school here, however the strategy backfired as students now value secondary education less – it also doesn’t help that largely the same teachers teach primary and secondary school.

As the island is so far from anywhere its ecosystem is rather fragile. Sometimes locals ‘introduce’ new species with the best of intentions to devastating effects for the island. For example one woman brought plant bulbs with her for her garden because she liked the flowers, however the plant didn’t stay contained in her garden. Or another example is a man bringing in seeds of Chinese horse grass because he thought his horses might like it. The horse grass is a relative to bamboo and weaves as it grows creating an impenetrable grass carpet which is taking over the island. The horses didn’t like it and the burning it down strategy nearly set the entire island on fire.

Nowadays there are ¬3000 Rapa Nui and an equal amount of Chileans living on the island. The rest are westerners and tourists. The runway was built by America as part of the space shuttle program in order to be able to land the shuttle in case it missed its trajectory into orbit. In ancient times Polynesians travelled here using the stars for navigation only – it is incredible to think that the island was found in the middle of the pacific with 3000 miles between its nearest neighbours ‘larger’ neighbouring landmasses, as well as people surviving so long on seas in simple ships!