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Easter Island (Rapa Nui in Tahitian and today also in Rapa Nui language, Isla de Pascua in Spanish) is an island in the south Pacific Ocean belonging to Chile. The island is famous for its numerous moai, the stone statues located along the coastlines.
Easter Island was given its common name of "Easter" because the first recorded European visit, by the Dutch Admiral Jacob Roggeveen, was on Easter Sunday, 1722.[1] Island's official Spanish name Isla de Pascua is a direct translation of "Easter Island".
The current Polynesian name of the island, Rapa Nui or "Big Rapa", was coined by labor immigrants from Rapa in the Bass Islands, who likened it to their home island in the aftermath of the Peruvian slave deportations in the 1870s.[2] However, Thor Heyerdahl has claimed that the naming would have been just the opposite, Rapa being the original name of Easter Island and Rapa Iti named by its refugees.[3]
There are several options for the "original" Polynesian name for Easter Island. Most often mentioned is Te pito o te henua, or the "The Navel of the World" due to its isolation. Legends claim that the island was first named as Te pito o te kainga a Hau Maka, or the "Little piece of land of Hau Maka".[4]
Located 3,600 km (2,237 statute miles) west of continental Chile and 2,075 km (1,290 statute miles) east of Pitcairn Island, Easter Island is one of the most isolated inhabited islands in the world. It is situated at , with a latitude close to that of the Chilean city of Caldera, north of Santiago. The island is approximately triangular in shape, with an area of 163.6 km² (63 sq. miles), and a population of 3,791 (2002 census), 3,304 of which live in the capital of Hanga Roa. Easter is made up of three volcanoes: Poike, Rano Kau and Terevaka. Administratively, it is a province (containing a single municipality) of the Chilean Valparaíso Region. The standard time is six hours behind UTC (UTC-6) (five hours behind including one hour of daylight saving time).
Early European visitors to Easter Island recorded the local oral traditions of the original settlers. In these traditions, Easter Islanders claimed that a chief Hotu Matu'a[5] arrived on the island in one or two large canoes with his wife and extended family.[6] They are believed to have been Polynesian. There is considerable uncertainty about the accuracy of this legend as well as the date of settlement. Published literature suggests the island was settled around 300-400 CE, or at about the time of the arrival of the earliest settlers in Hawaii. Some scientists say that Easter Island was not inhabited until 700-800 CE. This date range is based on glottochronological calculations and on three radiocarbon dates from charcoal that appears to have been produced during forest clearance activities.[7] On the other hand, a recent study, including radiocarbon dates from what is thought to be very early material, suggests that the island was settled as recently as 1200 CE.[8] This seems to be supported by the latest information on island's deforestation that could have started around the same time.[9] Any earlier human activity seems to be insignificant, if it existed at all.
The Austronesian Polynesians, who arguably settled the island, are likely to have arrived from the Marquesas Islands from the west. These settlers brought bananas, taro, sweet potato, sugarcane, and paper mulberry, as well as chickens and rats. The island at one time supported a relatively advanced and complex civilization.
The Norwegian ethnographer Thor Heyerdahl pointed out many cultural similarities between Easter Island and South American Indian cultures which he suggested might have resulted from some settlers arriving also from the continent.[10] According to local legends, a group of long-eared[11] unknown men called as hanau epe[12] had arrived on the island sometime after Polynesians, introducing the stone carving technology and attempting to enslave the local Polynesians.[13] Some early accounts of the legend place hanau epe as the original residents and Polynesians as later immigrants coming from Oparo.[14] After mutual suspicions erupted in a violent clash, the hanau epe were overthrown and exterminated, leaving only one survivor.[15] The first description of island's demographics by Jacob Roggeveen in 1722 still claimed that the population consisted of two distinctive ethnical groups, the other being clearly Polynesian and the other "white" with so lengthened earlobes that they could tie them behind their necks. Roggeveen also noted how some of the islanders were "generally large in stature". Islanders' tallness was also witnessed by the Spanish who visited the island in 1770, measuring heights of 196 and 199 cm.[16]
The fact that sweet potatoes, a staple of the Polynesian diet, and several other domestic plants - up to 12 in Eastern Island - are of South American origin indicates that there must have been some contact between the two cultures. Either Polynesians have travelled to South America and back, or Indian balsa rafts have drifted to Polynesia, likely never being able to return due to their inferior navigational skills and less enduring ships - or both. Polynesian connections in South America have especially been seen among the Mapuche Indians in central and southern Chile.[17] The Polynesian name for the small islet of Sala y Gómez (Manu Motu Motiro Hiva, "Bird's islet on the way to a far away land") east of Easter Island has also been seen as a hint that South America was known before European contacts. Further complicating the situation is that the word Hiva ("far away land") was also the name of the islanders' legendary home country. Unexplicable insistance of eastern origins of the first inhabitants was unanimous among the islanders in all early accounts.[18]
Today, the mainstream archeology is skeptical about non-Polynesian influence on the island's prehistory, although the discussion has become very political around the subject. DNA sequence analysis of Easter Island's current inhabitants offers strong evidence as to their Polynesian origins, a tool not available in Heyerdahl's time. However, as the number of islanders that survived the 19th century deportations was very small, perhaps just 1-2% of the peak population, this mainly confirms that the remaining population was of Polynesian origin.
Accoring to legends recorded by the missionaries in the 1860s, the island originally had a very clear class system, with the ariki, king, yelding absolute god-like power ever since Hotu Matua had arrived on the island. The most visible element in the culture was production of massive moais that were part of the ancestral worship. With a strictly unified appearance, moais were erected along entire coastline, indicating a homogenous culture and centralized governance. In addition to the royal family, island's habitation consisted of priests, soldiers and commoners. The last king, along with his family, died as a slave in the 1860s in the Peruvian mines. Long before that, the king had become a mere symbolic figure, remaining respected and untouchable, but having lost any say on the earthly matters.
For unknown reasons, a coup by military leaders called matatoa had brought a new cult based around a previously unexceptional god Make-make. In the cult of the birdman (Rapanui: tangata manu), a competition was established in which every year a representative of each clan, chosen by the leaders, would dive into the sea and swim across shark-infested waters to Motu Nui, a nearby islet, to search for the season's first egg laid by a manutara (sooty tern). The first swimmer to return with an egg and successfully climb back up the cliff to Orongo would be named "Birdman of the year" and secure control over distribution of the island's resources for his clan for the year. The tradition was still in existence at the time of first contact by Europeans. It ended in 1867. The militant birdman cult was largely to blame for the island's misery of the late 18th and 19th centuries. Each year's winner and his supporters short-sightedly pillaged the island after the victory. With the island's ecosystem fading, destruction of crops quickly resulted in famine, sickness and death.
At one point of time, every single Moai on the island had fallen on the ground. European accounts from 1722 and 1770 still saw none but standing statues, but by Cook's visit in 1774 many were reported toppled. The huri mo'ai - the "statue-toppling" - continued until late 1830s as a part of the fierce wars. Before modern reconstructions, no records of standing statues exist after 1838. During a period of 60 years, islanders had deliberately destroyed the main part of their ancestors' heritage.[19]
The first European contact with the island began on 5 April 1722 (which was Easter Sunday) when Dutch navigator Jacob Roggeveen found 2,000 to 3,000 inhabitants on the island, although the population may have been as high as 10,000 to 15,000 only a century or two earlier. The civilization of Easter Island was long believed to have degenerated drastically during the century before the arrival of the Dutch, as a result of overpopulation, deforestation and exploitation of an extremely isolated island with limited natural resources. For no clear reasons the Dutch killed several natives and shortly went away, not having explored the island at all.
The next foreign visitors came on 15 November 1770; as two Spanish ships, San Lorenzo and Santa Rosalia, sent by the Viceroy of Peru, Manuel Amat, and commanded by Felipe González de Haedo spent five days in the island, performing a very thorough survey of its coast and land, named it Isla de San Carlos, took possession on behalf of King Charles III of Spain, and ceremoniously erected three wooden crosses on top of the island hills.[20]
Four years later, in 1774, British explorer James Cook, reached in his turn Easter Island.
French explorer, Jean François de Galaup La Pérouse visited Easter Island in 1786 after coming from Cape Horn, Chile. During his time there, he made a detailed map of Easter Island. He then continued his journey to the Hawaiian Islands and later to Japan and other Asian countries.
Easter Island was approached many times during the 19th century, but by now the islanders had become openly hostile for any attempt to land, and very little new information was reported before the 1860s.
Series of misfortunes destroyed almost the entire population of Easter Island during a period of 15 years.
In December 1862, "recruiting" ships looking for labor to work in the Peruvian mines landed on Easter Island. Violent abductions continued for several months, eventually capturing or killing around 1500 men and women, about half of island's population. International protests erupted, escalated by Bishop Florentin Jaussen of Tahiti. The slaves were finally freed in autumn, 1863, but by then most of them had already died of tuberculosis, smallpox and dysentery. Finally, a dozen islanders managed to return from the horrors of Peru.
The remaining population was soon infected by deadly diseases brought on the island by the returning survivors. For the next three years, smallpox epidemic decimated island's population so that all the dead were not even buried any more. Contributing to the chaos were violent clan wars with the remaining people fighting over the newly available lands of the deceased, bringing further famine and death among the dwindling population. In 1867, tuberculosis raged over the island, taking the last member of the island's royal family, the 13-year-old Manu Rangi, to an early grave.
By 1871, little over 500 people lived on Easter Island. Half of them immigrated for Mangareva on board of Sir John Burgoyne, most of them never returning. Those who remained, were for the large part older men. Six years later, there were just 111 people living on Easter Island, and only 36 of them had any offspring.[21] From then on, the island has slowly recovered.
Easter Island was annexed by Chile in 1888 by Policarpo Toro, by means of the "Treaty of Annexation of the island" (Tratado de Anexión de la isla), that the government of Chile signed with the native people of the island.
Until the 1960s, the surviving Rapanui descendants were forced to live in a settlement at the outskirts of Hanga Roa because the island was rented to a Scottish sheep company. Since being given Chilean citizenship in 1966, the islanders have re-embraced their ancient culture, or what could be reconstructed of it. [22] A yearly cultural festival, the Tapati, celebrates native pastimes.
Recent events have shown a tremendous increase of tourism on the island, coupled with a large inflow of people of European descent from mainland Chile which threatens to alter the Polynesian identity of the island. Land disputes have created political tensions since the 1980s, with part of the native Rapanui opposed to private property and in favor of traditional communal property (see Demography below).
Mataveri International Airport serves as the island's only airport. The airport's single 3,318 m (10,885 ft) runway was lengthened by the U.S. space program to serve as an alternate emergency landing site for the space shuttle, and features in a 1980 novel by American author G. Harry Stine (Lee Correy), Shuttle Down.
Easter Island, together with its closest neighbour, the tiny island of Sala-y-Gomez 400 km further East, is recognized by ecologists as a distinct ecoregion, called the Rapa Nui subtropical broadleaf forests. Having relatively little rainfall contributed to eventual deforestation. The original subtropical moist broadleaf forests are now gone, but paleobotanical studies of fossil pollen and tree molds left by lava flows indicate that the island was formerly forested, with a range of trees, shrubs, ferns, and grasses. A large palm, related to the Chilean wine palm (Jubaea chilensis) was one of the dominant trees, as was the toromiro tree (Sophora toromiro). The palm is now vulnerable, and the toromiro is extinct in the wild, and the island is presently covered almost entirely in grassland. A group of scientists partly led jointly by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and the Göteborg Botanical Garden, are making efforts in order to reintroduce the toromiro to Easter Island. An interesting fact is the presence of the bulrush nga'atu which is also found in the Andes (where it is known as totora); there are indications that nga'atu was not present before the 1300s-1500s.[23] Before the arrival of humans, Easter Island had vast seabird colonies, no longer found on the main island, and several species of landbirds, which have become extinct.
"The overall picture for Easter is the most extreme example of forest destruction in the Pacific, and among the most extreme in the world: the whole forest gone, and all of its tree species extinct."[24] Diamond's conclusions of direct native influence as the underlying cause have been challenged by Hunt (2006) (see reference list). After his research, Hunt concluded that the original immigrants arrived ca. 1200 CE, three to four hundred years later than the generally accepted date and that immediately upon arriving the polynesians began to fell their forests. This would imply that the islanders did not live for a period of time in an idllyic balance with their environment. Hunt also asserts that the trees were lost because rats which came on the settler's rafts or boats ate the seeds, and much of the population loss was due to capture by slave traders.
Hunt's conclusions, however, are themselves questioned by another researcher of polynesian history, Patrick V. Kirch, archaeologist at the University of California at Berkeley. "A first arrival on Easter Island around 900 AD would fit well with Polynesians' first arrival on the nearest neighbouring islands of Mangareva, Henderson and Pitcairn.... Kirch thinks Hunt and Lipo may have been too free in discarding studies for minor methodological problems, thus rejecting valid dates in this range. 'For me, they don't make a convincing argument that we can eliminate the earlier dates, especially in light of the broader regional context'" [14]. In addition, Hunt (2006) elaborates at length on his claim that mainly Polynesian Rats were responsible for the extinction of the endemic palms. His argument is flawed for two reasons: First, he simply assumes that because the small Polynesian rats are known to have made a major impact on Hawaiian Pritchardia palms which have fleshy fruits and small seeds, they were able to have the same impact on the rather distantly related Easter Island palm with its very hard endocarp. Second, he entirely ignores the results of Hunter-Anderson (1998) who showed that at least in the Chilean Wine Palm (which is closely related to the Easter Island species), mechanical abrasion actually faciliates seed germination. Hunt rather nonchalantly implies that the "gnawed" palm seeds on Easter Island were indeed all "eaten" without providing evidence for this assertion, whereas the available evidence points to the net impact of the rats having been minor (some seeds were likely eaten, but others would have germinated more easily). Toromiro seeds are probably very toxic (as usual in Sophora species) and thus probably were not eaten by the rats in numbers.
Trees are sparse on modern Easter Island, rarely forming small groves. The island once possessed a forest of palms and it has generally been thought that native Easter Islanders deforested the island in the process of erecting their statues. Experimental archaeology has clearly demonstrated that some statues certainly could have been placed on wooden frames and then pulled to their final destinations on ceremonial sites. Rapanui traditions metaphorically refer to spiritual power (mana) as the means by which the moai were "walked" from the quarry. However, given the island's southern latitude, the (as yet poorly documented) climatic effects of the Little Ice Age (about 1650 to 1850) may have contributed to deforestation and other changes. Jared Diamond disregards the influence of climate in the collapse of the ancient Easter Islanders in his book Collapse. The disappearance of the island's trees seems to coincide with a decline of the Easter Island civilization around the 17th-18th century. Midden contents show a sudden drop in quantities of fish and bird bones as the islanders lost the means to construct fishing vessels and the birds lost their nesting sites. Soil erosion due to lack of trees is apparent in some places. Sediment samples document that up to half of the native plants had become extinct and that the vegetation of the island was drastically altered. Chickens and rats became leading items of diet and there are (not unequivocally accepted) hints at cannibalism occurring, based on human remains associated with cooking sites, especially in caves.
In his article From Genocide to Ecocide: The Rape of Rapa Nui, Benny Peiser notes evidence of self-sufficiency on Easter Island when Europeans first arrived. Although stressed, the island may still have had at least some (small) trees remaining, mainly toromiro. Cornelis Bouman, Jakob Roggeveen's captain, stated in his log book, "...of yams, bananas and small coconut palms we saw little and no other trees or crops." According to Carl Friedrich Behrens, Roggeveen's officer, "The natives presented palm branches as peace offerings. Their houses were set up on wooden stakes, daubed over with luting and covered with palm leaves," indicating living palm trees were still available, though these were likely coconuts (self-)introduced after the extinction of the native palm, and the reliability of Behrens as a source is questionable. Peiser however considers these reports to indicate that considerable amounts of large trees still existed at that time, which is explicitly contradicted by the Roggeveen quote above.
In his book "A Short History of Progress", Ronald Wright speculates that for a generation or so, "there was enough old lumber to haul the great stones and still keep a few canoes seaworthy for deep water". When the day came the last boat was gone, wars broke out over "ancient planks and wormeaten bits of jetsam". The people of Rapa Nui exhausted all possible resources, including eating their own dogs and all nesting birds when finally there was absolutely nothing left. All that was left were the stone giants who symbolized the devouring of a whole island. The stone giants became monuments where the islanders could keep faith and honour them in hopes of a return. By the end, there were more than a thousand moai (stone statues), which was one for every ten islanders (Wright, 2004). When the Europeans arrived in the eighteenth century, the worst was over and they only found one or two living souls per statue.
Easter Island has suffered from heavy soil erosion during recent centuries. Largely, this condition emerged as a result of massive deforestation. However, this process seems to have been gradual and may have been aggravated by extensive sheep farming throughout most of the 20th century. Jakob Roggeveen reported that Easter Island was exceptionally fertile, producing large quantities of bananas, potatoes and thick sugar-cane. In 1786 M. de La Pérouse visited Easter Island and his gardener declared that "three day's work a year" would be enough to support the population.
Rollin, a major of the French expedition to Easter Island in 1786, wrote, "Instead of meeting with men exhausted by famine... I found, on the contrary, a considerable population, with more beauty and grace than I afterwards met in any other island; and a soil, which, with very little labour, furnished excellent provisions, and in an abundance more than sufficient for the consumption of the inhabitants." (Heyerdahl & Ferdon, 1961:57).
The fact that oral traditions of the islanders are obsessed with cannibalism is evidence supporting a rapid collapse. For example, to severely insult an enemy one would say: "The flesh of your mother sticks between my teeth." This suggests that the food supply of the people ultimately ran out.[25]
The most important myths are:
The large stone statues, or moai, for which Easter Island is world famous were carved during a relatively short and intense burst of creative and productive megalithic activity. According to recent archaeological research, 887 monolithic stone statues have been inventoried on the island and in museum collections. Although often identified as "Easter Island Heads", the statues actually are heads and complete torsos. Some upright moai, however, have become buried up to their necks by shifting soils.
The period of time when the statues were produced remains disputed, with estimates ranging from 1000/1500 CE to 1500/1700 CE. Almost all (95%) moais were carved out of distinctive, compressed, easily-worked volcanic ash or tuff found at a single site called Rano Raraku. Only a quarter of the statues ever made it to the coastal ahu platforms, with nearly half still remaining in Rano Raraku and the rest elsewhere on the island, probably on their ways to final locations. Moving the huge statues seems to have been laborious and very slow.
All currently standing statues, some 50 in total, have been re-erected in modern times.
Evenly along all coastlines, with the exception of Orongo and Poike peninsula,[26] the alleged dwelling place of the mysterious hanau epe, one can find stone platforms called ahus. They had their origins in the traditional Polynesian altar, which was gradually developed to much greater dimensions. Biggest ahus contained 20 times as much stone as a moai, and actually required even greater resources to build.
Of the 313 known ahus, only 125 carried a stone moai. Others probably had statues made of wood, now lost. Majority of the rest had just one moai, probably due to the shortness of the moai period and difficulties in transporting them. The ahu in Tongariki, one kilometer from Rano Raraku, had the most and biggest moai, 15 in total. Other notable ahus with moais were Ahu Akivi, Naunau at Anakena and Tahai.
A few stone statues not similar to standard moais have been excavated on the island, in most parts badly eroded and broken. These are believed to predate the better-known moais, including a kneeling statue with hands on its knees, parts of a statue with clearly carved ribs and a headless, rectangularly shaped torso. Similarities to Indian stone statues around Lake Titicaca in South America are striking, whether this is accidental or not. Fragments of earlier statues have also been used as a building material of ahus.[27]
Another example of high quality stone work on Easter Island are the famous walls in Vinapu, made without building mortar by shaping rocks of different sizes to match each other exactly. These have a clear counterpart in Inca era stone walls in South America mainly from the 15th century.[28]
Some 1,233 prehistoric stone "houses" called as tupa in earlier times[29] and hare moa ("chicken house") later, are more conspicuous than the remains of the prehistoric human houses which only had stone foundations. Stone houses were some 6 meters wide, with a cylindrical structure and vaulted ceiling. The entrance was very low, and getting in was only possible by crawling.
Germans excavated some of the houses in 1882 and found human remains from inside. Locals told them that they were resting places for the ariki, Eastern Island kings and chiefs. Each house had two small holes - if a hostile spirit entered through one, the spirit of the deceased could escape through another. As such and also by their old name, the stone houses are seen similar to Indian chullpas in Peru and Bolivia.[30] Noteworthy is that the remaining numbers of the stone houses and moais are quite close to each other, possibly meaning that for each person buried in a stone house, a moai was immediately constructed. Usage of stone houses as graves seems to have ceased around the same time when production of moais ended and ancestral worship declined. During the turmoils of the late 18th century, the islanders seem to have started to bury their dead among the ruined ahus, the moai platforms, and use the stone houses as chicken shelters. There are no human remains in any of them any more.
Easter Island has one of the richest collection of rock art in all Polynesia. Around 1000 sites with more than 4000 petroglyphs are catalogued. Designs and images were carved out of rock for variety of reasons: to create totems, to mark territory or to memorialize a person or event. Petroglyphs are common also in the neighboring Marquesas islands.
The Rongorongo scripture probably draws from the petroglyph corpus, the collections of images having clear similarities.[31]
The undeciphered Easter island script called Rongorongo is often suspected to be one of the very few writing systems created ex nihilo, without outside influence. The existence of Rongorongo was first reported by a French missionary Eugène Eyraud in 1864. At that time, several islanders still claimed to be able to understand the scripture, but all attempts to read them turned out to be unsuccessful in more detailed examination. According to traditions, only a small part of the population was ever literate, Rongorongo being a privilege of the ruling families and priests. This contributed to the quick disappearance of the Rongorongo knowledge during 1862-3, when the island's elite was annihilated by deportations and illnesses.
Of the hundreds of wooden tablets and staffs reportedly having Rongorongo writing carved on them, only 26 survive,[32] all in museums around the world and none remaining on Easter Island. Decades of numerous attempts to decipher them have been mostly unfruitful. The scientific community can not even agree on if the scripture is actual writing or not.
Rongorongo probably originates on Easter Island, even though the legends claim that Hotu Matu'a had the original tablets with him when he first arrived on the island. However, as there is not a single line of Rongorongo carved on the stone despite thousands of Polynesian petroglyphs and other remarkable stonework, the scripture seems to belong to a rather late period. It is speculated that islanders' brief but very visible exposure to Western writing during the Spanish visit in 1770 inspired the ruling class to establish Rongorongo as a religous tool.[33]
Population at the 2002 census was 3,791 inhabitants, up from 1,936 inhabitants in 1982. This increase in population is due mainly to the arrival of people of European descent from the mainland of Chile. Consequently, the island is losing its native Polynesian identity. In 1982 around 70% of the population were Rapanui (the native Polynesian inhabitants). At the 2002 census however, Rapanui were only 60% of the population of Easter Island. Chileans of European descent were 39% of the population, and the remaining 1% were Native American from mainland Chile. 3,304 of the 3,791 inhabitants of the island live in the town of Hanga Roa.
Rapanui have also migrated out of the island. At the 2002 census there were 2,269 Rapanui living in Easter Island, while 2,378 Rapanui lived in the mainland of Chile (half of them in the metropolitan area of Santiago).
Population density on Easter Island is only 23 inhabitants per km² (60 inh. per sq. mile), much lower than in the 17th century heyday of the moai building when there were possibly as many as 15,000 inhabitants. Population had already declined to only 2,000-3,000 inhabitants before the arrival of Europeans. In the 19th century, disease due to contacts with Europeans, as well as deportation of 2,000 Rapanui to work as slaves in Peru, and the forced departure of the remaining Rapanui to Chile, carried the population of Easter Island to the all time low of 111 inhabitants in 1877. Out of these 111 Rapanui, only 36 had descendants, and they are the ancestors of all the 2,269 Rapanui currently living on the island.
The mayor of Easter Island is Mr. Pedro Pablo Edmunds Paoa (PDC)
The Councillors are:
()остраў Пасхі
(R)apa Nui
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