Easter Island - Lori Stewart

Easter Island
Greetings from Rapa Nui, which is rapanui for Easter Island. Yes THE Easter Island….the most remote inhabited
island in the world! This tiny Polynesian island lies midway between Chile and Tahiti and is at least 2500 miles
from either. So of course, my first thought was to wonder if it was anywhere near Howland Island, where Amelia
Earhart was scheduled to refuel on her around the world flight. I immediately flashed to the scene in the movie
where, after flying from Lae, New Guinea over 2500 miles of endless blue ocean, she is running low on fuel.
Finally, to her great relief, she hears static radio transmissions from Howland, but still…she can’t see the island! So
she tells them “we are running north and south”….and then she loses even the faint radio static and … well, the rest
is history.
So as I ponder my fate, I realize that the first mystery of Easter Island is, ‘how did they ever find it?’ It’s only
about 26 miles by 12 miles -- the size of Lake Tahoe, or Washington DC --- in the middle of the Pacific - barely a
freckle! Fortunately, I have a 17 hour plane ride from Seattle to San Francisco, to Lima to Easter Island -- ample
time to learn more. So I picked up Jared Diamond’s book, Collapse – How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed,
and that raises more questions, more mysteries of Easter Island…’who built the hundreds of giant stone statues, the
Moai, that dominate the island’s coast?’ and ‘how did they move these 10-250 ton structures from a quarry in the
crater of a volcano to the perimeter of the island with no wheels and animals?’, and once there ‘how did they erect
them?”, and ‘why are there no trees and no birds’, and ‘is it true about the rats?’, and …uh oh…is the next chapter
really about…Montana?!
Suddenly, to my great relief, it appears – a tiny dot in a vast blue ocean known as Te Pitoote Hanua, ("Navel of the
World").
Easter Island – A bit of history
As it turns out, there’s a reason the pilot flies over Easter Island before turning around to land from the east.
Apparently the Rapa Nui want independence from Chile and figure that if everyone drives their cars onto the
runway, planes from Chile won’t land and…problem solved!
Secondly, Rapa Nui doesn’t mean Easter Island after all, it means ‘Big Paddle” and therein lies the answer to
several of the questions previously posed “who are they’, and ‘how did they ever find it’? So in a nutshell, the
history of Easter Island as I understand it is this…
Polynesians set out in leaky canoes that carried people, some chickens, sweet potatoes, taro root and Polynesian
rats. They knew the stars and winds and currents well and paddled hard, colonizing the South Pacific Islands from
Tonga to Hawaii to the Marquesas Islands. Somewhere between 300 and 700 AD two canoes carrying Hotu
Matu’a, Easter Island’s founder and first king, about 60 people and the aforementioned bounty finally arrived in
Easter Island. They sailed around the island looking for somewhere to land -- paddling, past the Pink Sand Beach
and around the point until they reached a lush cove - and pulled in on Atakena Beach. The island was a tropical
paradise covered with forest land, Chilean Palms, ferns, pumpkins, bananas, and sugar cane…but no animals. So
the paddlers cleared
some farm land, built
rock gardens and
stone chicken houses
and lived off the
bounty of the ocean
and the abundant
land and seabirds. In
keeping with their
ancestral culture,
they started building
ceremonial centers called Ahu Moai – the most important architectural achievement of the Rapa Nui culture.
The Ahu’s central platform is sacred and supports giant Moai – statues
embodying ancestor spirits. All the Moai were carved at Rano Raraku
crater, one of the
three volcanoes on
the island. These
huge 10-200 ton
structures range
from 7 to 60 feet
high, and often
had red top knots
or Pukeo. Once
carved, they were
slid down the side
of the crater into pits, so carvers could decorate their backs with
Petroglyphs.
Over 870 Moai were carved at Rano Raraku crater, but only 288 were erected in the 132 Ahu platforms built
around island along the coast.
*
The Last Moai
There are various theories on what happened next, but we do know that suddenly, everything just stopped! The carvers
put down their tools and left hundreds of Moai strewn in and around the crater. Some were half carved, some were
complete and ready for transport, and still others fell and were abandoned along the roads to the coast.
What happened? Well, it’s complicated! Apparently, this carving, moving and erecting of Moai required tremendous
communal cooperation, and consumed extraordinary resources. Workers had to be fed, and thousands of trees were cut
down to build canoes for fishing, and scaffolds for carving, and roads for moving the Moai.
Around 1500 the last tree was gone, food was scarce and suddenly it seems, the society fractured and collapsed into
chaos. Fighting broke out, leaders were overthrown and warriors dominated the island, resorting to cannibalism for
food, toppling the Moai, and destroying this ancient civilization in their battle over resources. The half-buried Moai
around the Rano Raraku Crater stand as a testament to this highly developed ancient civilization, reflecting in turn the
sudden decline that transformed it.
This fighting over resources lasted for 300 years. The people moved their rock gardens, chicken coups and themselves
underground to amazing caves…..with amazing views . . [
Fortunately the birdmen came along with a democratic
solution to the problem – a race! Each year, young
tribesman would race to a nearby island and find the
first egg of the sooty tern. The first to return and give it
to his chief, won for that chief the right to rule the
island, and allocate resources for the next year. Chiefs
were pretty equitable because the following year, they
might not be head chief, and would want reciprocal
treatment.
Kevin Costner produced a movie “Rapa Nui” that tells
the story...in an odd sort of way. If you haven’t seen
it…it’s not surprising!
So things were getting better until the big ships arrived with explorers, slave traders and diseases that wiped out the
population. By the late 1800’s, there were only 111 people left out of a once thriving population of 15,000-20,000.
Easter Island Today
Why do I know so much about Easter Island you ask? Well, I’m traveling with Wyoming friends – an anthropologist
on the board of the Easter Island Foundation, whose mission is to promote the conservation and protection of Easter
Island's fragile cultural heritage; and a geologist, archeologist and protégé of William Malloy, the Wyoming
archeologist responsible for initiating the restoration of the Ahu Moai. The restoration gave the Rapa Nui a renewed
sense of pride in their ancient culture, a culture they themselves had destroyed. A plaque in his memory says "By
restoring the past of his beloved island he also changed its future."
Today, Easter Island is open air museum, an archeological treasure, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and a near
paradise once again. The Chinaberry and Palm trees are back, eucalyptus trees introduced by the Australian sheep
ranchers soften the incessant winds, and bright bougainvillea, orchids and tropical flowers add splashes of color to the
vast green, largely treeless landscape. A short 90 minute hike takes you 500 meters above sea level to the top of
Teravaka, the tallest in a triangle of volcanoes that created the island. From there you can see the entire island – from
Poike to the East to Rano Kau to the South, and endless ocean in every direction. Such a tiny fragile island, I sure hope
Chili’s recent 6.8 earthquake doesn’t send a Tsunami this way!
The island has one town, Hanga Roa, which
is lined with restaurants, artisan shops, a
Catholic church (yes the missionaries were
able to find it) and O’Tai Cove – the center
of fishing, diving, boat and surfing activity.
Young men prance their horses down the
main streets, or scooter down with their
surfboards on the back. A bit further on is
Mokomae’s tattoo parlor, which happens to
be right across the street from the theater,
where Mokomae himself is the lead dancer
in Kari Kari, a cultural ballet, that expresses
the history and the culture of Easter Island through dances, costumes and the
Rapa Nui body paintings they pass down from one generation to the next. So there we were drinking Pisco Sours and
watching Motomae move in ways the Moai never could, when the conversation turned to hair feathers and tattoos! Just
have to decide what and where! They are so well done here….and so reasonably priced!
Hanga Roa is home to most of the 5000 islanders, and at least as many wild horses, stray dogs and kittens – and they all
mingle freely. Wild horses graze around the Ahus under the stern gaze of the Moais. Wild dogs lie in front of their
adopted restaurants; chickens and roosters roam everywhere; and tiny wild kittens lurk around the hotel rooms preying
on sucker tourists who seriously consider taking them home! I say
wild, but there isn’t anything wild about any of them - they just roam
freely. It seems nobody is responsible for them -- or maybe
everybody is! And that’s it for the animals - no snakes no scary
predators, and I think the wild kittens must take care of the rats since
I didn’t see any. And yes, apparently rats were involved in the
deforestation of the island. With no natural predator and abundant
food, they ate all the plants and nuts and seeds – leaving no way to
plant new trees. I did see one baby pig running around, but the
restaurant owner said it was a ‘pupet’, and not to be eaten… which brings us to the subject of food. Some of the food is
great….salads are great and barbeque is terrific, but I’m pretty sure the barbequed ‘pork’ is not from pigs (probably
horses), and the sausages could be stuffed with anything….anything the wild kittens can’t catch!
The island is overflowing with visitors who have come for Tapati Festival, the most important cultural event in all
Polynesia. Tapati promotes Rapa Nui ancestral customs through song and dance, art and body painting competitions;
stone and wood-carving and costume making contests; sailing, surfing, and fishing competitions; horse racing bareback,
and Haka Pei, where extreme competitors slide down a very steep mountain on banana toboggans at breakneck speed!
Our trip ends at Rano Raraku and
it’s quite a scene. Inside the quarry
where hundreds of Moai still stand
in various stages of completion,
young men in ‘traditional garb’
(which seems to consist of wáter
soluble bodypaint, tattoos and a
feather) swim and paddle totora
boats and race around the cráter
lake carrying a 50 lb banana clúster.
In 1958, I was given the first book I remember. It was Aku Aku, the Secret of
Easter Island, Thor Hyerdahl’s book describing his research on the Moai of
Easter Island and the culture that created them. So what does Aku Aku mean?
It’s a way of moving giant stone Moai by walking them…like a tall bookcase.
It’s also a guiding spirit that lives behind your left knee and demands a lot of
attention. To appease the spirit, simply cook a freshly caught fish and sweet
potato. Take a piece of fish with a piece of sweet potato, chew it, and then take it out and toss it back over your right
shoulder. So if Easter Island is on your bucket list, just appease your Aku Aku, and he may guide you there.