Easter Island: The Secrets of the Moai and the Decline of the Rapa Nui

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Easter Island, Chile. A tiny speck of land covering 63 square miles [163 sq km], inhabited by less than 8,000 people, almost invisible amidst the vast sprawl of the Pacific Ocean. Possibly the most remote Island on the planet, it’s a full 2,300 miles [3,700 km] West of South America and 1,100 miles [1,700 km] from the nearest island. Yet, this apparently insignificant grain of sand is home to one of the most fascinating cultures in the world, one that never ceases to raise questions of its people, its art, its customs. Welcome to today’s Geographics: it’s time to offer answers on Easter Island. Flying to Easter Island How does one get to Easter Island? Your best bet is to book a flight from Santiago, the capital of Chile. In 5 hours and 15 minutes, you’ll cover a distance of 2,336 miles before landing in Mataveri, the Island’s International Airport, considered to be the most remote terminal in the world. Easter Island is today a major tourist destination, but this became possible only after the mid-1970s, when regular flights were established to and from mainland Chile. Before that, Mataveri’s single air strip was permanently booked by the NASA as an ‘abort’ site for Space Shuttles. In other words, if something went wrong after take-off, crews could stage an emergency landing there -- not that it was ever actually used to that end. Leaving the main town, Hanga Roa, to the south, visitors can reach the Ana Kai Tangata cave, famous for its fading paintings of ships and sacred birds. Ana Kai Tangata loosely translates into “Cave Eat Man”. Such a name could be interpreted in a reassuring way: “Cave where men eat” Or, more worryingly: “Cave that eats men” Or even worse “Cave where men are eaten.” Did cannibalism take place on Easter Island? According to some researchers, yes, as a consequence of warfare and famines. But I’ll get to those theories later. From Ana Kai Tangata, you can climb to the Rano Kau crater, overlooking 1000-foot cliffs. If you haven’t fainted from exhaustion, you can enjoy the magnificent viewpoints before continuing your walk to Orongo, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Orongo was the major site of worship for the Birdman Cult, one of the major religions of the Rapa Nui, the natives of Easter Island. Each year, the Rapa Nui would compete to win the title of Tangata-Manu, or Birdman. Each contestant would sponsor a representative to participate in a highly dangerous race – imagine an Iron Man triathlon, minus the bicycle, plus a constant risk of death. These ‘representatives’ had to first scale the dangerous face of the Rano Kau cliff, then swim shark-infested waters to the small island of Motu Nui. There, they had to find an egg of Sooty Tern, a rare and elusive breed of bird. The first to find an egg for their ‘sponsor’ was declared the winner and crowned Tangata-Manu for a span of one year. That gave the victor and their clan all the benefits of a god – which included living in a luxury hut for 12 months, doing nothing but eat and sleep! A year of leisure sounds pretty good, considering that the winner had just risked his life, several times over. Competitors could have fallen down a cliff, been mauled by a shark, or drowned … while you just stood there and watched. I hope you enjoyed that egg. The next stop on our tour of the Island is the so-called Navel of the World, a phrase sometimes used to describe the Island itself. This Navel is a large round boulder at the centre of a rock perimeter. I could create something like that in my backyard, so what’s the big deal? You see, this mysterious rock is believed to have travelled to the island with its first King, Hotu Matua, and according to legend, all life in the world sprang from it. Legends aside, the rock does display the strange power to send compasses into confusion, most likely due to the presence of polarised metals within. Another celebrated stone on the Island is Pu o Hiro, or trumpet of Hiro, a rain deity. The Rapa Nui would blow into the natural hole at the top of the stone, and this created a loud, trumpeting sound. The sound was used to summon a gathering, for example, and it was even believed to attract fish to swim up to the shoreline. As I mentioned earlier – and again over the episode – Easter Island has an intense history of warfare, and Pu o Hiro was a valued trophy, paraded around the Island by whichever victorious faction could get a hold of it. So, that quick tour should be enough for your archaeology fix. As you travel back to Mataveri airport, though, you might have this nagging feeling, telling you there was something else worth seeing on the Island. What could that possibly be? The Moai The Massive Giant Stone Heads That made the Island Famous! Of course! It’s time to check out the Moai, the Massive Giant Stone Heads that have made the island famous worldwide! There are almost 1000 of these fascinating statues, standing like faithful sentinels against the cruel indifference of nature and time. The Moai are monoliths -- in other words, they are carved into a single piece, from volcanic stone, originating from the solidified ashes that were spewed out of the crater of the Rano Raraku. Most of these statues weigh around 20 tons and they stand at 20 feet, or 6 metres. But these are averages, of course. One of them, nicknamed ‘El Gigante’ – the giant – may weigh up to 182 metric tons. That’s the same as two Boeing 737s, passengers and all. This giant would have stood at 72 feet – almost 20 metres – if it had stood at all. El Gigante was left unfinished, and was discovered laying by the quarry at Rano Raraku. And this is the right time to raise the right questions: who built the Moai? How did they achieve such a feat? Why did they do it? How did they move these gargantuan monoliths from their quarry to their final locations? Who lived on Easter Island? As we’ve mentioned, Easter Island is located some 2,000 miles west of South America So who could have possibly reached such an isolated place? The most widely accepted theory is that the original inhabitants of the Island were Polynesian sea-farers, most likely from what are today the Marquesas Islands. While early European colonists in the 18th Century believed Polynesians to be a ‘primitive’ society, these populations were highly skilled and sophisticated sailors, adept at building sturdy boats and at navigating the perilous waters of the Pacific. Legends have preserved the name of Hotu Matua, the first King of the Rapa Nui, who landed on the island with a big canoe, his wife and a few companions. But beyond these oral traditions, the only written records of the Island are the wooden Rongo-Rongo tablets, which have never been translated. So, scholars still disagree on exactly why the first Polynesians arrived on Easter Island, and when, with estimates varying between the 4th and 13th centuries CE. Now, while most scholars agreed that the Rapa Nui descended from settlers of Polynesian origin, some others suggest that a second migration may have originated from Inca-dominated regions in South America. One of them is celebrated Norwegian anthropologist Thor Heyerdal. First piece of evidence: the fact that the Rapa Nui used to farm and eat yams, or sweet potatoes, which are common in South America, but are believed endemic to neither Easter Island nor Polynesia. Add to that the Rongo-Rongo tablets. While this script has never been deciphered, Heyerdal found evidence of a similarly styled script around Lake Titicaca, in the Andes range. Heyerdahl also led the famous expedition of the ‘Kon-Tiki’, a balsa wood raft with which he crossed the Pacific in 1947, from South America to Polynesia. Other researchers have disputed these claims. DNA analysis of skeletal remains on the Island shows a strong link to that of modern-day Polynesians. Plus, the Rapa Nui society lacked many of the arts and craft traditions typical of the Incas, such as fine pottery and weaving. In 1955 and 1956, Heyerdal led his first expedition to Easter Island, looking to de-mystify many aspects of the Rapa Nui heritage, including the Moai. Based on his excavations, he estimated that the ancestors of the Rapa Nui landed some time before 380 CE, finding an island covered in luscious vegetation. Heyerdal also identified three separate epochs in the history of the Island: Early, Middle and Late. In the Early Period, the Rapa Nui did not engage in carving the giant statues: they devoted their engineering skill to erect altar-like platforms, made of large stones, cut and joined together in a very precise fashion. These altars – called ‘ahu’ - had their fronts facing towards the ocean, and, more strikingly, they were astronomically oriented: the Rapa Nui stone masons must have been highly specialised, as they were able to align these platforms with the annual movements of the sun. It was during the Second Period that the Rapa Nui began to quarry, carve, and place the Moai on the altars, or platforms. This second period lasted roughly from the year 1100 to 1680, the year in which, according to Heyerdal, the construction of the super-Moai ‘El Gigante’ was suddenly abandoned. I will return to the mysteries of the Moai later on. The beginning of the Late Period was marked by the sudden end of all carving work in the quarries under the Rano Raraku volcano. Heyerdal and his team surmised that, after 1680, many of the Moai were toppled over -- only one of the signs of warfare and destruction that they were able to dig out. The evidence points to the hypothesis that the Island society had undergone a period of rebellion, famine, civil war … … or all of the above. … Or none of the above. Sorry to confuse you, but you see, unlike the Moai, the historiography of the Island is not set in stone … and archaeologists and historians are still divided on what may have caused the decline and almost total collapse of the Rapa Nui natives. But I will ge to those theories, I promise. For the moment, let’s stick to the most widely accepted narrative. Little more than 40 years after ‘El Gigante’ was abandoned, on Easter Day 1722, Dutch sailor Jacob Roggeveen, arrived on the Island, the first European to make contact with the Rapa Nui. While Heyerdal had found evidence of a society numbering 10 to 15 thousand inhabitants, thriving on a fertile and verdant landscape, Roggeveen found a completely different situation. The Island was almost completely devoid of trees, and arable land was scarce.The island population had dwindled to approximately 3000. Along the way, something had clearly gone wrong. For several decades the inhabitants of Easter Island were largely left alone, having occasional contact with European ships, but in general, they were spared the ravages of unchecked colonialism. Well, at least for a while. In December of 1862, eight Peruvian ships landed and captured some 1000 Easter Islanders, including the king, his son, and the ritual priests. The fact that the priests were taken may indicate that there was no longer any one left to teach the religious customs and conduct their ceremonies. The captured islanders were sold into slavery in Peru. Ninety percent of the Rapanui died within one or two years of capture. In 1865, the Bishop of Tahiti denounced the abominable practice, and the embarrassed Peruvian government rounded up the few survivors to return them. But smallpox broke out on the ship returning to Easter Islands, and only 15 of the freed slaves survived the voyage. The resulting smallpox epidemic nearly wiped out the remaining population. 1868 saw the entire social order of Easter Island collapse, the population declining into the hundreds. Many of them accepted an offer to relocate to Tahiti. When Chile annexed Easter Island in 1888, only 110 impoverished and disheartened inhabitants remained. Meet the Moai Now, before I move onto the reasons behind the collapse, allow me one more stop to look at the Moai. Heyerdal’s team, who had established links between Andean populations and the Rapa Nui, suggested that the tradition of the stone idols was introduced by an Incan migratory wave. These Incas simply introduced a style of sculpture similar to the one already in use back home. As I have mentioned, not everybody subscribes to the Inca theory, and more recent approaches suggest instead that the cult of the Moai was developed in a completely autochthonous fashion. During the Second Period of Rapa Nui presence on the island, the inhabitants had split into several clans that were often in competition, if not open conflict, with each other. What unified the island residents was a shared religious belief, centred around the cult of ancestors. Ancestors, whose likeness was celebrated in the carving of statues, which became larger, more refined, more sophisticated over time. As prosaic as it sounds, this is how a population, unfairly described as ‘primitive’ by some European explorers, was able to build and shift 1000 stone giants: they simply assigned plenty of time, dedication and skilled labour to the job. Period. Oh, and the fact that the specific job at hand was fuelled by rivalry didn’t hurt. If you think about it, this recipe applies to many ‘mysterious’ human enterprise, from Stonehenge to the Pyramids. I know that many people like to attribute all these awesome things to aliens, but it seems like humanity can do pretty just fine on its own! But I digress. How did rivalry play into this? The clans of the Rapa Nui believed in the concept of ‘mana’ - a mystical combination of power, prestige and prosperity. In a belief system that included ancestor worship, the Moai represented a clan's most prestigious ancestors, who were believed to bestow ‘mana’ on living leaders. So, by building bigger statues and altars, the ahu, each clan was in competition with its rivals, seeking to receive more ‘mana’ from its forebears. According to Dr Georgia Lee, of the Bradshaw Foundation, the building of the Moai became a perceived solution to many of the issues of the Rapa Nui society. Crop failures, epidemics, local uprisings – all were addressed by carving bigger and better statues, an activity which eventually absorbed most the whole society for decades. But the ahu, and the Moai, may have fulfilled a more practical function too, according to a research team led by Prof Robert J. DiNapoli, from the University of Oregon. DiNapoli and Co. realised that the ahu had been erected in coastal spots in which volcanic fresh water seeps into the ocean. Their findings suggest that the Rapa Nui monuments were actually used by clans to signal the presence of a precious resource such as freshwater, and to assert their control over it. The Professor, however, does not entirely discard the ceremonial value, and his paper mentions that the statues may have served two simultaneous purposes: one functional, one cultural. Many of the Moai were adorned with red stone crowns, called pukau. These were not carved from the main quarry, Rano Raraku, but from a different location, Puna Pau. It appears that the pukau indicated special status, red being a sacred colour both to Eastern Islanders and Polynesians. Either crowned, or bare-headed, many of the Moai were placed upon their ahu platform, and then were ‘activated’ by having their eyes opened. More precisely: the shape of their eyes had already been carved at the main quarry, and these sockets were then filled with inlaid eyes made of coral and red stone for the pupils. According to popular belief, all Moai were placed facing the sea, as if keeping watch for the arrival, or the return, of mythical seafarers. Actually, most statues, and all of those placed on an ahu, face inland, looking over areas designated for ceremonies. I just mentioned how the Moais were placed on top of their ceremonial platforms. If you remember, these guys weigh around 20 metric tons. That’s almost the same as four adult elephants. How do you shift such a weight? Elephants can walk of course, while the Moai … well, local legends actually tell of how these giants would walk to their altars after being carved. Is there some truth to it? Let’s see! The Moais were initially carved on the slopes of the Rano Raraku volcano. Stone masons would sculpt three sides of the statue, which was not necessarily just a big head – most included an elongated bust or even crossed arms. The fourth side – the back – was left rough and unfinished. Next, the Moai were lowered to the ground by ropes so the carving could be completed. The first time I heard this, I imagined a group of Rapa Nuis lowering a giant stone head down a literal cliff, the statue dangerously dangling over an abyss. In reality, it was nothing so extreme. The Moai had to slide down a 45-degree slope, kept in control via a system of ropes and bollards made with palm trunks. Each rope must have been about 600 feet [20 metres] long and at least three inches [8 cm] thick. Once the Moai was at ground level, the sculptors would take care of the back of the head. And I like to think they held a mirror up to the Moai - you know, like barbers, so they could see their work? And maybe they asked if they wanted gel, or wax, or maybe just a pukau? But what came next was no joke: the Moai had to travel to its final resting place, sometimes as far as 15 miles. The initial theory was that the Rapa Nui used wooden rollers. This is the method displayed in the critical and box office success ‘Rapa Nui’, by Kevin Reynolds, consistently ranked above ‘Citizen Kane’ in the top 10 of best films ever. However, research by Prof Charles Love proved that the roads and paths used by the Rapa Nui were not level, but slightly concave. Which means that rollers would have got stuck, or even crack under the pressure of the statues. Our good old friend Heyerdahl may have found the solution to that puzzle, when he returned to Easter Island in 1986. With the help of Czech engineer Pavel Pavel and a group of sixteen local residents, Heyerdal made an attempt to move a standing Moai by pulling it with ropes attached to the statue’s head and base. It worked. With some muscle, ingenuity, coordination and concerted effort, 18 guys made the statue bob along, or ‘walk,’ in accordance with the legend. And all without much difficulty! So, one mystery solved. Next up: the one I have been anticipating for a while: how did the Rapa Nui almost go extinct? The Decline of an Island I have already mentioned the best known narrative, according to which the population of the Island went through prolonged strife, civil war and epidemics during the Late Period, collapsing on itself and almost disappearing entirely - just before the arrival of the first Dutch sailors. According to a widespread theory by geographer Jared Diamond, that early decline was triggered by the Islanders’ own obsession with the building of Moai. At its peak, Moai-carving was a fully-fledged industry, mobilising almost the entire population. Shifting the Moai, therefore, required the locals to cut down almost all of the palm trees on the Island, either to use as wooden rollers, or to produce ropes. The deforestation in turn left the soil exposed to erosion caused by the wind and other elements. The next consequence was crop failure. And when crops fail … societies collapse. People starve and compete violently over scarce resources. In the case of Easter Island, the Rapa Nuis engaged in civil war and even cannibalism. Preoccupied with the urgent matter of survival, the Islanders simply quit building their ahu, Moai and pukau. It may have been at this stage, towards the end of the 17th Century, that the Rapa Nui abandoned the cult of the ancestors. The rites of the Birdman, with its death-defying races, took hold. Diamond’s explanation has gained popularity as the ‘Ecocide’ theory, and it is frequently cited as a cautionary tale against the depletion of natural resources. Kevin Reynolds also subscribed to this theory in his movie, surely one of the reasons behind the deserved 12 Academy Awards. Today, Diamond’s Ecocide has been challenged by many researchers. For example, I have already mentioned Prof Love, who argued that wooden rollers, a cause for deforestation, were never really used. Another critic of Ecocide is Dr. Catrine Jarman, of Bristol University. Dr. Jarman argues that the deforestation process may have started as early as when the first Polynesian settlers landed on the Island. When they disembarked, they brought along an unwanted guest: the Polynesian rat, a voracious critter that reproduced exponentially, feasting on palm nuts and sapling trees. The rats’ eating habits essentially destroyed the existing palm groves and caused the subsequent erosion and impoverishment of the arable land. Despite this early deforestation and subsequent decline in agriculture, the Rapa Nui did not starve. Instead, they quickly adapted to the new situation by adopting a rich, shellfish-based diet. So, Lobster over potatoes -- who can blame them? Now, if the Rapa Nui did not need to fight over food, then, why did Heyerdal, Diamond and others believe in a civil war amongst the clans? They cite the finding of obsidian weapons as evidence, but they may have misinterpreted their intended use. Prof Carl Lipo argues that these artefacts were domestic tools, or ritual implements. His research also proved that only 2.5% of human remains on the Island displayed evidence of injuries, most of them non-fatal. So, to recap: there was no Ecocide. The deforestation was a long process to which the Rapa Nui adapted efficiently. There was no civil war, and certainly no cannibalism. Why did so many natives die, then? What caused such an original and unique civilisation to almost fade to extinction? Well, I have already given you the answer. Remember the slaver raids and the epidemics of the 19th Century? According to previous theories, these calamities hit the Island when its population had already been severely reduced by other factors. But according to the new timeline of events proposed by the likes of Jarman and Lipo, slavers were the true, main culprits behind the massive demographic decline of the Rapa Nui. Less of a case of suicide, then, and more of a case of kidnapping and murder that almost went unnoticed. Conclusion I hope I have given you some food for thought about Easter Island, one of the most recognisable, yet least understood destinations on Earth. Before I take my leave, let me ask you: which explanation do you find more believable: Ecocide, or Slavery & Disease? Oh, and let me clarify something for you: ‘Rapa Nui’ by Kevin Reynolds was destroyed by critics and tanked at the box office. I hope I have fooled you … once again.
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Channel: Geographics
Views: 603,758
Rating: 4.912746 out of 5
Keywords: The Secrets of the Moai, Rapa Nui, Easter Island, easter island history, easter island chile history, Easter Island chile, easter island travel
Id: IiOJRMm_lFY
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Length: 23min 9sec (1389 seconds)
Published: Wed Feb 05 2020
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