Fig. 2.3 Ahu Tongariki, 150
meters long, as restored in the mid-1990s.
In April 1722 a Dutch expedition under Admiral
Jacob Roggeveen became the first Europeans
to set foot on Rapa Nui. They named it Easter Island as they landed on Easter Sunday. They spent
one day there, and reported that the natives worshipped huge statues with fires while prostrating
themselves to the rising sun.
Some had stretched and perforated earlobes hanging to their
shoulders, and both men and women were extensively tattooed. During a skirmish in which the
natives threatened to throw stones, Roggeveen’s men shot dead a dozen islanders before
sailing off – thereby ensuring that the arrival of European ‘civilization’ would be
a day to remember. Like subsequent European visitors, the Dutch reported seeing not only
fair-skinned Polynesians, but people of darker skin, others who were white like Europeans, and a
few with reddish skin.
In 1770 a Spanish party from Peru claimed the island for Spain.
A conflict seems to have raged
on the island before the arrival of the British navigator Captain James Cook four years later. He found a
decimated, poverty-stricken population, and observed that the statue cult seemed to have ended, as
most of the statues had been pulled down. It’s possible that some of the statues were toppled
even before the Dutch and Spanish visits but that those sailors did not visit the same sites as Cook.
The Frenchman
La Pérouse visited Easter Island in 1786 and found the population calm and
prosperous, suggesting a quick recovery from any catastrophe. In 1804 a Russian visitor reported
that at least 20 statues were still standing. Accounts from subsequent years suggest another period
of destruction so that perhaps only a handful of statues were still standing a decade later. Some of
the statues still upright at the beginning of the 19th century were knocked down by western
expeditions.
After 1800, whalers began stopping on the island, leaving behind venereal diseases. Easter
Islanders also suffered a series of slave raids, the first being led by an American captain in 1805. A
major slave raid launched from Peru in 1862, followed by smallpox epidemics, reduced the
population to just 111 in 1877, wiping out the hereditary caste of teachers and initiates (maori). In 1864
Eugène Eyraud, a French Catholic missionary, settled on the
island, and eventually succeeded in converting the population to Christianity – as well as introducing
tuberculosis.
Commercial exploitation of the island began in 1870. The Frenchman
Dutroux-Bornier began to
transform the island into a sheep farm while expelling the islanders to the plantations of Tahiti. He
was killed by the remaining islanders in 1877. In 1888 the island was annexed by Chile.
The total
population currently stands at about 4000, but it is estimated that the prehistoric population could
have reached as many as 20,000.
Traditional
Orthodox researchers believe that Easter Island was settled only once: by Polynesians in the
4th century AD. Since no seafarers in those days are supposed to have had maps, it is thought that
the island must have been discovered mainly by chance, and that such an unlikely event could not
possibly have happened more than once.
As
John Flenley and Paul Bahn put it:
‘The chances
of Easter Island being reached even once were extremely limited; to imagine it being reached
several times over vast distances is beyond belief.’1
Some of the
island’s legends, however, imply two or three different migrations. As is often the case, native
traditions are sometimes contradictory and cannot all be historically accurate, but they may offer
important clues.
According to legend, a powerful supernatural being named
Uoke, who came from a land called
Hiva, travelled about the Pacific prying up whole islands with a gigantic lever and tossing them into
the sea where they vanished beneath the waves. After destroying many islands he came to the coast
of Easter Island, then a much larger land than it is today, and began to lever up parts of it and cast
them into the sea. Eventually he reached a place on the island where the rocks were so sturdy that
his lever broke. He was unable to dispose of the last fragment, and this remained as the island we
know today.
Easter Island’s culture was founded by the legendary god-king
Hotu Matua
(‘prolific father’), who is said to have lived on a remnant of Hiva called Maori, in a
locality called Marae Renga. According to one version of the legend, he set sail for Easter Island due
to the cataclysm caused by Uoke. Another version says he was forced to flee after being defeated in
war. After a magician in Hiva called Hau Maka had made an astral journey to Easter Island in a
dream, a reconnaissance voyage of seven youths was sent there, and Hotu Matua followed later in a
double-canoe.2
The most widespread tradition today is that Hotu Matua’s homeland was a large, warm,
green island to the west of Easter Island, but a tradition told to the earliest European
explorers says that the first settlers came from a land to the east, known as
Marae-toe-hau, ‘the burial place’, which had a very hot climate.3 One tradition suggests that the first Polynesian migration, led by Hotu Matua,
was followed by a second Polynesian migration about 100 years later.
References are also made to several voyages being made back and forth to Hiva.
There are indications that Easter Island was inhabited even before Hotu Matua arrived. According to one tradition, when Hau Maka had his prophetic dream, he saw six men on the island. Another
mentions that Hoto Matua’s seven explorers found an inhabitant on the island, who had
arrived with another person who had since died.4
A third account says that a
burial platform was found at Hotu Matua’s landing place, and a network of
stone-paved roads built by earlier settlers was found inland.5
Francis Mazière, who conducted archaeological excavations on the island in 1963, was
told by a native elder that ‘very big men, but not giants, lived on the island well before the
coming of Hotu-Matua’.
Another related the following legend:
The first men to live on the island were the survivors of the world’s first race. They were
yellow, very big, with long arms, great stout chests, huge ears although their lobes were not
stretched: they had pure yellow hair and their bodies were hairless and shining. They did not
possess fire. This race once existed on two other Polynesian islands. They came by boat from a land
that lies behind America.6
According to another tradition, one of the early tribes (the ‘long-ears’) were about
2.5 m (8 ft) tall, and had white skin and red hair.7
The key players in the island’s traditional history are the Hanau-eepe and
the Hanau-momoko. These terms are often translated ‘long-ears’ and
‘short-ears’ respectively. However, some researchers say that this is erroneous, and
that the correct translations are ‘stocky race’ and ‘slender race’.
Hanau means ‘race’ or ‘ethnic group’. Eepe
means ‘stocky’ or ‘corpulent’, but there is also a word epe,
which means ‘earlobe’. Thor Heyerdahl says that the term was formerly spelled
Hanau-epe. Whatever the correct term may be, the people referred to certainly had
elongated earlobes. Today momoko carries the sense of ‘sharp-pointed’,
and it is assumed that the word probably used to mean ‘slender’ or
‘weak’.8
Some writers have concluded that the
Hanau-eepe were the upper class, and the Hanau-momoko the lower class.
One tradition says that Hotu Matua’s people were the ‘short-ears’, while
the ‘long-ears’ arrived in a subsequent migration. But another says that he brought
both short-ears and long-ears with him, and yet another that the long-ears arrived before the
short-ears.9 Heyerdahl saw the long-ears as the descendants of the first,
Amerindian colonizers, and the short-ears as more recent Polynesian arrivals. The long-ears are
sometimes said to have started building the great platforms, while the short-ears were the first to carve huge
images of their ancestors and place them on the platforms.
The long-ears reportedly subjugated the short-ears, until the latter finally rebelled. All the
long-ears except one were allegedly massacred in the latter half of the 17th century; after a fierce
battle the short-ears drove them into the Poike ditch, in which piles of brushwood had been set
alight.
Most researchers doubt this story, as no weapons or bones have ever been
found in the ditch. Although some charcoal excavated from it has been radiocarbon dated to about
1676, other charcoal has been dated to about 386 AD and to the 11th century, and it could all have
come from bush fires or slash-and-burn practices used in clearing the fields.
In any event, it is
unlikely that only one long-ear survived such a battle, since a period of civil war followed when all the
long-eared statues were overthrown, and there were still people with elongated earlobes alive when
the first Europeans arrived.
References
-
John Flenley and Paul Bahn, The Enigmas of Easter Island, New York: Oxford
University Press, 2002, p. 67.
-
Father Sebastian Englert, Island at the Centre of the World: New light on Easter
Island, London; Robert Hale & Company, 1970, pp. 45-8; The Enigmas of Easter
Island, pp. 64-5.
-
Thor Heyerdahl, Easter Island: The mystery solved, New York: Random House,
1989, pp. 110-5.
-
Francis Mazière, Mysteries of Easter Island, London: Collins, 1969, pp.
44-5; José Miguel Ramírez and Carlos Huber, Easter Island: Rapa Nui, a land
of rocky dreams, Alvimpress Impresores, 2000, p. 28.
-
Easter Island: The mystery solved, p. 125.
-
Mysteries of Easter Island, pp. 45, 63.
-
David Hatcher Childress, Lost Cities of Ancient Lemuria & the Pacific, Stelle,
IL: Adventures Unlimited Press, 1988, p. 292.
-
http://www.rongorongo.org/vanaga/a.html; Island at the Centre of the World, pp.
88-93; Easter Island: The mystery solved, p. 127; Mysteries of Easter Island,
pp. 60-2.
-
John Macmillan Brown, The Riddle of the Pacific, Kempton, IL: Adventures
Unlimited, 1996 (1924), pp. 44-5; Easter Island: The mystery solved, pp. 122, 126.
Back to Contents
Polynesian archaeology appears to be dominated by a small, zealous group, who will not
permit any points of view other than their own. ... We must bear in mind that nobody, absolutely
nobody has the right to claim to know the whole truth about the past; for there are simply too many
elements of uncertainty involved.
– Øystein Kock Johansen1
Norwegian explorer and anthropologist
Thor Heyerdahl, who led archaeological expeditions to
Easter Island in 1955-56 and 1986-88, opposed the conventional view that Easter Island was first
peopled from the west (Polynesia), and argued that it was first settled from the east (South America),
as one of the island’s early traditions suggests. He held that the sweet potato, bottle gourd,
and totora reed were introduced to the island from South America, while the chicken, banana, and
sugar cane, for example, were introduced from Polynesia.
He thought that a pre-Inca society had
reached Easter Island from Peru, by making use of the prevailing westerly trade winds. In 1947 he
demonstrated that such voyages were feasible when he sailed his balsa raft Kon-Tiki
from South America to Raroia Atoll, in Polynesia’s Tuamotu archipelago.
Heyerdahl originally proposed that Easter Island was initially settled by South Americans
around 400 AD, and that the Polynesians arrived centuries later, massacring most of Amerindian
population. However, he later modified his opinion: he felt that the Polynesians had largely
abandoned their own distinct faith and culture after arriving on Easter Island, and concluded that they
had probably been brought there against their will by people from South America.
During the 12th
century the Incas rose to power in Peru, bringing about considerable unrest and the expulsion of
many earlier settlers. Heyerdahl speculated that some of these Peruvians sailed west and brought
Polynesians to Easter Island, either through force or cunning. In his view, history was repeating itself
when, in 1862, Peruvian slave raiders sailed to Easter Island and put an end to the aboriginal
culture.2
Most researchers dismiss Heyerdahl’s theory of a South American source
for Easter Island’s culture, arguing that not a single South American artifact has ever been found in 50
years of intensive archaeology in Polynesia, and that there is no trace of a sudden influx of new
cultural influences at any point in Easter Island’s history. They describe his theory as
‘a tottering edifice precariously based on preconceptions, extreme subjectivity, distortions and
very little hard evidence’.3
They do, however, concede that there
must have been at least sporadic contacts between Polynesians and South America, though they think it was probably the Polynesians who went to South
America rather than the other way round.
Contacts of some kind are needed to explain how the sweet potato, for example, reached
Polynesia, and why the Inca quipu – a system of knotted cords for remembering facts and
especially numbers – is used on many island in Polynesia and Melanesia, into Indonesia and
through China. There is archaeological and linguistic evidence that Polynesians landed on the north
coast of Chile, among a tribe known as the Mapuche.
In graves at Rio Negro in Argentina,
human remains have been found that do not belong to any race of South America, but to those of
Polynesia. Maori stone implements have been discovered at Cuzco in Peru and at Santiago del Estero in Argentina. Carved wooden clubs similar to those of the Marquesas have been found in
Peru, Chile, Columbia, and Ecuador.4 The possibility cannot be ruled out
that influences may have gone back and forth between Polynesia and South America over vastly
longer periods of time than orthodox theories allow.
The official thinking today is that the Easter Islanders are Polynesians, with no admixture of any
other groups. However, the ‘scientific’ evidence is ambiguous. H.L. Shapiro found that
Easter Islanders deviated significantly from the Polynesians in the shape and dimensions of the
cranium, but proposed that this might be due to ‘selective migration followed by isolation and
inbreeding’; the Easter Islanders have been said to be just plain Polynesians of ‘a
somewhat specialized and exaggerated type’.5
The rocker jaw is the most characteristically Polynesian skeletal trait. Its frequency of
occurrence on almost all islands from New Zealand to Hawaii ranges from 72 to 90%, but it is
extremely rare among Amerindians; the figure for Easter Island is 48.5%. One researcher found that
the Easter Islanders show a few minor Amerindian traits, and suggested this could be due to some
Marquesans having sailed to South America. Some investigators think that the most likely homeland
of the Easter Islanders is Mangareva (Gambier Islands) or the Tuamotus, though a small genetic
element from South America remains a possibility.6
All the giant statues on Easter Island have long ears, and some islanders still
practiced ear
elongation at the time the first Europeans arrived. The custom was also
practiced in the Marquesas
Islands in Polynesia, and in Peru; the Incas said they had inherited the custom from their divine
ancestors.
The oldest known practice of ear extension was among the mariners in the prehistoric Indus
Valley harbor-city of Lothal, where large numbers of big earplugs of the type used in ancient Mexico,
Peru, and Easter Island have been found. Hindu rulers subsequently adopted the custom, but it was
restricted to members of the royal families and images of the Hindu gods. Buddha images with long
ears are found all over Asia, and long-eared stone statues have also been dug up in the Maldives in
the Indian Ocean.
The most
skillfully carved statues, regarded by some researchers as the oldest, had long
tapering finger nails. The practice of letting the nails grow also existed in China and among initiated
Incas, and symbolized knowledge, thought, and exemption from manual labor. Certain children on
the island used to be shut up in caves to preserve the whiteness of their skin; they were required to
remain celibate and let their nails and hair grow. The same custom existed both in the Andes and on
the Polynesian island of Mangareva in the Gambier archipelago.7
Easter Island’s language (Rapanui) is usually said to be derived entirely from Polynesian.
However, in 1770 the Spanish visitors compiled a vocabulary which included words clearly of
Polynesian origin along with others which were clearly not; the numerals from 1 to 10 were totally
different.
Conventional researchers emphasize that the Spaniards were unfamiliar with Polynesian
languages.
Captain Cook, who visited the island four years later, had a Tahitian with him who could
converse with the islanders to a limited extent; a list of 17 Polynesian words was compiled, and also
correct proto-Polynesian words for 1 to 10. Heyerdahl says that the loss of the original language of
the coastal cultures of western South America prevents any comparison with the non-Polynesian
words in the Spaniards’ list.8
Robert Langdon and Darrell Tryon argued that at the time of contact, Easter Island’s
language was made up of three elements: one of west Polynesian origin, one from east Polynesia,
and a third of unidentified origin, probably from the east. Other researchers hold that there is no
satisfactory evidence for the existence of a pre-Polynesian language or second wave of Polynesian
immigrants, and that the Rapanui language is a member of the eastern Polynesian
subgroup.9
The Easter islanders had their own writing system, known as
Rongorongo (see section 7). The
orthodox view is that either the islanders invented it after the arrival of the Europeans, or
that they brought it with them from another Polynesian island, even though no Polynesian tribe is
known to have possessed the art of writing. Heyerdahl points out that a variety of writing systems
were in use in pre-Columbian America.
Some plants on Easter
Island clearly come from South America, such as the islanders’ staple food the
sweet potato
(which is known by its Quechua name (kumara)), and also manioc and gourd.10 As already mentioned, mainstream researchers prefer to believe that the
Polynesians made contact with the South American mainland and returned with the sweet potato.
They also point out that
the island had no maize, beans, or squash – which are staple resources in South America.
On the other hand, the French visitors of 1786 brought maize and various domestic animals with
them, but they were never seen again by subsequent visitors. The first settlers apparently did not
introduce pigs or dogs, which conventional researchers admit is surprising if they came from
Polynesia.
Two species of freshwater plants, found in Easter Island’s crater
lakes but nowhere else in the Pacific, and both useful to man, come from South America. One of
them was the totora reed, which dominated the banks of South America’s Lake Titicaca and
was cultivated in vast irrigated fields in the desert valleys on the coast below; it was used for making
mats, houses, and boats.
The other was known to the islanders as tavari, and was used
as a medicinal plant. Like the totora, it grew in Lake Titicaca. The most useful wild tree on Easter
Island was the toromiro tree, which was used for carving. It is so close to its continental Chilean
relative that it could be considered the same species; no other closely related species existed in
Polynesia.11
Pollen analysis shows that
totora has been present on Easter Island for at least 30,000 years,
contradicting native traditions that it was brought by the Polynesian Hotu Matua. Mainstream writers
suggest that seeds could have been transported to the island by the wind, ocean, or on birds’
feet. Another possibility is that they were brought by an earlier ‘Hotu Matua’.
Heyerdahl points out that the cultural elements usually considered indicative of Polynesian culture are the grooved wooden mallet for making bark cloth (tapa), the bell-shaped pounder for making poi (food paste made from the
taro root), and the wooden bowl for the kava-drinking ceremonies, but that none of them had found their way to aboriginal Easter Island.
Most researchers see the total absence of woven textiles and pottery on Easter Island as
damning evidence against it having had any significant links with Peru, since these are the two most
characteristic and abundant products of Peruvian culture. (Double standards are at work here, since
prehistoric pottery has been found in the Marquesas but this doesn’t stop many researchers
believing that Easter Island was originally settled from there.)
A further argument against a strong
South American influence is the complete absence of the pressure-flaking technique on stone tools
throughout Polynesia (involving ‘pushing’ flakes off a core as opposed to striking
them), and the total absence of South American metalwork on Easter Island.
Note, however, that no
one has yet demonstrated how tough basalt blocks could have been cut without metal
tools (see section 6).
Stonework and carvings
Stone statues (or tiki) with hands on their bellies are found on other islands of
eastern Polynesia, often standing on ceremonial platforms. They tend to be fairly crudely made, and
statues of reasonable size are found only in the Marquesas Islands, where the tallest is 2.4 m (fig.
10.18), and on Raivavae, where the tallest was 2.8 m (fig. 10.13).
However, these figures look nothing like those
on Easter Island. Monolithic human statues are also found in western South America, from San Augustin in Colombia to
Tiahuanaco (Tiwanaku) by Lake Titicaca in Bolivia.
But they are usually far
more ornate than those on Easter Island and again the resemblance is very poor.
|
 |
Fig. 3.1 Statues at San Augustin (left) and Tiwanaku (right).1 |
John Macmillan Brown, who spent five months on Easter Island in 1923, nevertheless believed
that the stone giants of Easter Island were closely related to those of South America and that the
differences were due to stylistic and artistic variations. He thought that the inspiration for the Marquesan statues probably came from the tropical regions of Colombia, while those of Easter
Island are more akin to the art of Tiahuanaco.
But, as said, there are notable differences, and the
question of who might have inspired whom is unsettled. Sir Clements Markham and Argentine
ethnologist J. Imbelloni thought that Easter Island could have inspired the pre-Inca culture.
When proof was found in 1978 that some of the Easter Island statues once had inlaid eyes, it
came as a shock to many researchers, who had opposed the idea on the grounds that this was not a
Polynesian custom. Inlaid eyes were a common feature of many of the oldest images of the Middle
East, from Egypt to the Indus Valley. The seafaring Hittites, for example, adopted the practice from
the Sumerians. Many prehistoric American stone statues also had inlaid eyes.
Easter Island’s platforms are usually compared to the marae of Polynesia,
though none of the latter are as impressive as the island’s best platforms. Heyerdahl says that
Easter Island’s platforms resemble the huaca platforms found in the Andean
region, while the marvelous stonework at Ahu Vinapu is reminiscent of the finest pre-Inca masonry
in Peru (see
section 6).
Heyerdahl’s expedition to Easter Island in the 1950s uncovered a number of unusual
statues which he believed strengthened the South American connection. A unique discovery at
Rano
Raraku was the kneeling statue Tukuturi, which was almost completely buried. With a total height of
3.67 m, the figure kneels with its hands on its knees and its buttocks resting on its heels. Its round,
upturned face has short ears and a goatee beard.
Another complete but badly eroded kneeling
statue has been found inside the crater.2
Fig. 3.2 Tukuturi.
Heyerdahl compares Tukuturi to the smaller kneeling stone statues that were typical of
Tiahuanaco. Conventional researchers compare it to a small squatting stone
statue from Tahiti.3
There are notable differences in both cases, and
again the question is who, if anybody, inspired whom.
Orthodox writers point out that ribs were
an essential feature of the kneeling statues from Tiahuanaco, but Heyerdahl countered that
fragments of a kneeling image were found buried deep in the sand by the great ahu at Anakena, one of
which had clearly marked ribs.
Fig. 3.3 Kneeling statue from Tiwanaku.
In the sunken temple plaza at Vinapu, Heyerdahl’s team found a rectangular block
of red scoria, representing a body with its arms resting on the stomach and stunted legs. A deep hole
had been cut into the region of the heart and the head was broken and missing, but when set up the
image fragment still stood 3.5 m (11.5 ft) tall.
Heyerdahl points out that the cross section of the pillar-like figure has the rounded, rectangular form so characteristic of the pre-Inca stone giants of the
Tiahuanaco area.4
Fig. 3.4 Red-scoria statue.
The Easter Islanders used to make an incredible variety of curious lava sculptures (moai
maea), and wooden figures (moai toromiro), including moai
kavakava or ‘statues of ribs’, and weird monsters and creatures, showing
unbridled imagination and creativity. Petroglyphs on the island also display a wide range of
imaginative motifs. They include bizarre human masks and eye motifs, birds and birdmen, turtles,
fish, whales, spiders, lizards, monsters, boats, and strange symbols.
Heyerdahl says that this artistry
stands in sharp contrast with the rest of Polynesia, and archaeologist Henri Lavachery, who spent six
months on Easter Island in 1934, drew comparisons with the imagination and variety displayed by
the pottery motifs of the early Mochica art in Peru (dating from the first few centuries AD).
Conventional researchers speak only of ‘superficial’ resemblances.
Fig. 3.5 Lava sculptures.5
|
Fig. 3.6 Moai kavakava: each figure has a large curved nose, protruding cheekbones, extended earlobes, a goatee beard, and protruding ribs in a sunken abdomen; they are said to represent akuaku, or ‘spirits’. |
 |
Birdman cult
The gods
Tiki, Tane, and Tangaroa were common to all Polynesia and regarded as the
progenitors of the royal lines of divine descent. But none of these principal
Polynesian gods were originally known to the Easter Islanders.1 Their
creator-god was Makemake (pronounced: mackay-mackay), whose representative on earth was not
a hereditary king, but an annually selected birdman.
Makemake does not exist anywhere else in
Polynesia.
The birdman cult used to be
practiced at the ceremonial village of Orongo, perched on the
400-m-high rim of the Rano Kau crater. The village comprises about 50 oval houses with 2-m-thick
walls of horizontal stone slabs and corbelled roofs, between 1 and 2 m high inside. An annual
birdman contest was held there each September (the month of the spring equinox in southern
hemisphere). Young men, acting on behalf of noble patrons, competed to find the first egg laid by the
sooty tern on the small bird island of Motu Nui, about a mile to the southwest of the Orongo
headland.
The contestants had to clamber down the cliff face, paddle out to the island on small reed
floats, and then look for a tern’s egg and return with it to their patron, who would be declared
the tangatu manu or birdman, and was favored with privileges comparable to those
enjoyed by the king until the next year’s competition.
The last ceremonies took place in 1866.
