LECTURE: EASTER ISLAND

Out lecturer, James, who has been with us the entire journey lived on Easter Island for 20 years so he was intimately involved with the evolution and discoveries over the years on Easter Island. James first went to Easter Island 30 years ago to learn the language, Rappanui, while studying linguistics. There were less than 4,000 people but he felt accepted and welcomed in and he learned a language that is only spoken here. The 3 craters provide excellent water collection sites.

Easter Island, named by a Dutch explorer that discovered it on Easter Sunday on 1722, is a 60 square mile, 1 road, 1 mile around volcanic island in the South Pacific and known for 1,000 monumental statues (moai), created between 11-17th Centuries by early Polynesians to represent their ancestors. A quarry still contains 400 unfinished moais, (possibly due to shifts in societal and religious interest in these statues) all carved with stone tools. This Chilean island is over 2,000 miles from Chile and not near any other Island which is why it does not share any of its culture with other parts of the South Pacific. About 9,000 people live here of which half have ancestors that created the moais. The written language here was written in Rongo Rongo which looks like pictures and geometric shapes and read in reverse order. Unfortunately, no one can read it and there are only 2 dozen surviving texts to still work with and decipher, remaining a mystery.

Although often identified as "Easter Island heads", the Moai statues have torsos, most of them ending at the top of the thighs; a small number are complete figures that kneel on bent knees with their hands over their stomachs. Some upright moai have become buried up to their necks by shifting soils. Statues on pedestals and facing inward in your town to provide protection These appear to be “heads” but are finished with bodies buried and not seen. A single moai took a team of 5 men about a year to complete and represents a deceased head of an ancestor. At the moment of an ancestor death you would “mana” (Rapa Nui), the spirit or energy or wisdom and protection. It could only be passed on by building a moai statue to the recent deceased.

Trees are sparse on the Island and it may be that in erecting and moving the statues, all trees were used and it deforested the area. Although it is not supposed to be the same as manna form heaven, I think there are similar divine powers associated with both items.

There is a book called “Collapse” by Jared Diamond is about failed culture mostly from environmental damage and inadequate resources. Another book “Easter Island, Earth Island” by Paul Bahn about the mystery of the Moai.Weiterlesen