Rapa Nui(Easter Island)

The United States extended the runway to accommodate the Space Shuttle in emergencies – so the one runway the width of the island (literally) can handle any type of plane.

Used to have only 2 planes a week – as of January 2001 there is one plane every day

We missed the big Rapa Nui week-long festival that takes place at the end of January – we could already see their month-long preparation.  They elect a ‘queen’ from a long list of competitors – hey compete in history knowledge, local skills, tattoos, etc.  The festival also includes moai carving contests – it takes about a week to carve one from the right stone.

The island has more horses than inhabitants.  The horses run free – they are branded to identify their owners.

Hanga Roa is the only town on the island – there are no traffic lights, pretty much just dirt streets with restaurants, small beach/pool/bathing areas, festival site, etc.

Every married Rapa Nui couple over 21 is given a piece of land by the government (this program was instituted within the last 5 years).  It is hard to move far away from the main town because of the expense of importing materials and building more than a non-government-material-provided flimsy house.

They export nothing.

There used to be  lots of lobster and other important fish off the shores of the island, but most of that is gone now.  Some think this change was brought about as a result of the nuclear testing 3K miles from the island (then Tahiti would be worse!)  Fishing is also not major because there are no reefs around the island  – it is just in the middle of Pacific Ocean.

Extremely dependent on tourism.  When the tour ships don’t come because of weather issues it hurts them.  There is no major port, so cruise ships have to taxi people in.

There are 2 discos in town – they are medium size 1 story structures with no windows.  One of them does not open until 2AM.  

No commercial/known restaurants.

They can now get one TV station on the island.  The one TV station shows CNN and soap operas.   No newspapers get to the island.  

Rapa Nui, the movie, changed a lot of things.  It brought lots more tourists to the island.  Most of the people on the island worked on the movie (they used tons of extras) so they all made ‘lots’ of money.  With the money they bought cars and fixed up their houses – so there are more cars as a result of the movie.  Also, since the movie, people now rarely do each other favors for free, but instead now want to get paid for helping out.

Unlike the movie, popular belief on the island is that the moai's were created to extend the power of a powerful/respected family member.  Families created the moai in honor of the family member then positioned the moai looking over the family's land/house so that the moai could protect the family.  Notably, all of the moai face inland, rather than out to sea.

At one time (sometime 1000-1500A.D.) there were 10,000 people on the island.  Like the movie, it is believed that they killed each other during huge conflict.  The natural resources were being way-overtaxed, which likely played a part in starting the conflict.

Rapa Nui people no longer have tribal conflicts as in the past.  Now most of the issues are with the Chilean government.  When Chile took control of the island (not sure how) in the late 1800’s they sold the rights to use the island to French, then British, to raise animals.  The island had tons of sheep on it during this period.  They moved all the inhabitants to Hanga Roa to segregate the people from the livestock farms.  Consequently, Hanga Roa is the only inhabited part of the island.  Because the people were given no rights, as the land was sold out from under them, they are/were unhappy.  Now there are almost no sheep on the island and people are slowly moving outward.

On Orongo (site of bird man contest -- see the movie) there are 47 earthen ‘houses’ where the competitors and some relatives lived while waiting for the birds to migrate.  The houses were dirt/rock/grass covered structures with a small entry opening – no other source of light.

There are three main volcanoes on the island. Rano Kau has a huge crater with pooled rainwater and grass at the bottom.  Supposedly the pools of water are 100’s of feet deep, but with very dense grass etc blocking people from discovering the depth.  In the past generation this is where they came to wash clothes and bathe.  On the far side are the bird man houses and past that is bird island.  Lots of fruit grows at the bottom of the crater so the locals pick/eat it. It is open to anyone to harvest the fruit, but they are not allowed to sell it for a profit.  

Using dating techniques archaeologists have determined that the moai/ahu’s were built from 1000-1500AD, though there are some ahu dating earlier.  It is believed that the first immigrants to the island built ahu’s, and the second wave of immigrants developed and refined the moai.

All standing moai on the platforms (ahu) have been re-erected this century – none were standing when archeologists starting investigating the island in 1955.  Most of them were destroyed (pulled down) by warring tribes, but some were destroyed by the family members who created them. The family members may have felt that the extreme hard times they were facing were not being thwarted by the moai - spirits of their honored family members.

All moai were carved from the quarry Rano Raraku, which is basically a rock mountain/volcano.  The quarry has very heavy, porous rock that carved easily.  The craftsmen would carve the statues from the side of the mountain and then somehow they would move it 10’s of miles to the platform.  No one knows how they moved the statues, which weighed between 10 and 160 tons.  The largest positioned maoi is 30 feet high and weighs about 80 tons.  There is a 60 foot moai that was left unfinished in the quarry weighing an estimated 160 tons.

One of the most photographed spots is Ahu Tongariki, where 15 moai have been re-erected.  In the 1960's a huge tidal wave, caused by an earthquake in Chile hit Rapa Nui in this spot washing the moai inland hundreds of feet.  Prior to the tidal wave, the moai had not been re-erected, but instead were laying on the ground where they had fallen centuries earlier.  Archaeologists used earlier photographs of the moai to determine their proper location on the ahu and then re-erected them.

The tops or ‘hats’ for the moai were all carved from a different quarry many miles from the moai quarry.  The hats were moved to the platform and placed on the moai before being put on the platform.

The eyes to the moai were not carved until they reached the platform.  Once they were erected on the platform the eyes were carved and inlaid with a black onyx-like stone so that the moai could "watch over" the family.

The Rapa Nui people wasted little material.  The quarry is a maze of carved structures – back to back, side by side  works in process statues.  Old moai were sometimes used as part of the platform.

The island has had a difficult history.  Much of what we know about the history is the result of guesswork because there is no written history except some petroglyphs, about which the interpretations are disputed.

In the early 1860’s slave traders came to Rapa Nui and took away hundreds of people, including the king, to sell into slavery in Peru.  A missionary convinced the Peruvians to send back the slaves in the late 1860’s.  But the returning people brought new diseases (e.g. small pox. leprosy, etc) to the island that killed many people.  In 1871 only 111 people remained on Rapa Nui.  This is also part of the reason much of the history is lost.

Isla De Pascua

(56-32) 100 299

reshangaroa@panamericanahoteles.cl