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Published: April 23rd 2008
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You've seen the doco's, read the stories and seen the pictures - but nothing really prepares you for seeing the real thing on Easter Island (Isla de Pascua in Spanish, or Rapa Nui in the local tongue). We hope you enjoy this - our last blog for our round the world trip.
We arrived on Easter Island about 8pm local time on 13 April - on time and in good shape for our last world travel adventure (for this trip anyway!). We were met by Paul, the owner of our self contained cottage. God - what a luxury after so many months - our own little house! It was wonderful to have almost a whole week in one place (no packing up), which was cleaned regularly (by someone else!), breakfast was delivered in style, and town was just a short walk away.
We spent our first couple of days just getting into island relaxation mode - it was wonderful. Island lifestyle - nowhere to be, no pressure to go anywhere, our own relaxing verandah for just us - pure paradise. Then it was time to get serious, tourist style. We warmed up by spending an afternoon in the local
museum and then we asked Paul to give us a day tour of the island, and it was well worth it. He has great knowledge of many of the sites having worked as part of an archeological team as a 16 year old boy back in the 60s, and has since married a Rapa Nui woman, E'i (pronounced A-ee), who has (along with her family) shared many of the island's stories with Paul.
The island is literally covered with archeological sites - about 30 or so formal ones and many more non-visited sites. The main sites that are most familiar to people are the ahu's (sort of like altars) with the moai (mo-ah-ee) statues on top. Some have been restored while others have been left in their natural state to show what damage has been done over time. That is one of the tragedies of the island - all of the moais are rapidly deteriorating from erosion - and no one has yet come up with an idea of how to stop it.
So what are the moai's? Well, the history as we understand it, is that the island has only been inhabited since about 400AD. The islanders
came from somewhere else in Polynesia to this, the most isolated island in the Pacific. The people formed a society around approximately 10 different tribes. Each family grouping would build ceremonial structures (ahu's), which is also where all cremations were performed. At some point in time the islanders began to carve moais and place them on the ahus.
The moais are all created from the side of a volcano - Rano Raraku (the moai quarry or "nursery"!). The moais are commemorative images of a chief of a family generally thought to be commissioned by the chief or his descendants. That is why all the moais on the island are of different shapes and features. The mastery and size of the moais likely reflected the status and prestige of each family group. The moais were carved out of the side of the volcano, then moved to their final site for completion. As to how the moais were moved all over the island, Evan favours some type of sled idea, while I am partial to the idea that the moai "walked" to its ahu. No one really knows. Once the moais were completed they were said to hold "manu" - much
Rano Raraku ("the nursery")
Walking amonst the unfinished moais is an unbelievable experience power. This power would be lost if the moais neck was broken.
There are still about 397 unfinished moais in and around Rano Raraku, which we understand were in the middle of creation. It is likely that work stopped after the war between the clans, during which time many of the ahus and moais were destroyed. At the moai quarry there is also a statue of a hermaphrodite. In the Rapa Nui society hermaphrodites are singers, and the keepers of the oral stories of the people. Paul tells us that there is still one hermaphrodite on the island who keeps this tradition.
The biggest moai erected is about 10m tall, but at the quarry they were in the process of completing one that would have been 21m tall!!
Aside from the ahus and moais, there are also about 600 caves scattered all over the island, formed from volcanic action. We were lucky enough to be able to go into some of these caves. Many had very large openings and were used as additional shelter for families during wet periods and for agriculture. However, later in time many of the large entrances were covered and small holes were
used instead. This was to protect the inhabitants from slavers who started coming to the island. We visited one cave which had two openings overlooking the western side of the island - they were used by lookouts watching for the slavers.
Easter Island is a wonderful place, but it is a place of contradictions and like many places is struggling with a quite sudden change in circumstances. Back in the 60s the island only had about 3 cars and about 70000 horses! - now most people on the island have at least one car (a population of about 3000 locals and 1500 Chileans). They are dealing with TV, alcoholism, sexual diseases - all the problems of the modern world seemed magnified here. In addition to the cultural issues on the island, there are environmental issues too. All the "occupiers" of the island have done their bit to damage it. For instance, introduced fauna (in the early 1900s the island was rented to the British and they used it for sheep grazing for meat for their navy) and flora (lots of different plants including the good old eucalyptus which seems to have made its way around the world - mostly
for good we think, but in this case, it has caused damage to some archeological sites). Then there are the stupid tourists - apparently just last week one guy from Finland climbed a moai and decided to try to cut its ear off! All he got was an ear lobe, but he managed to turn it to dust and it is not replaceable.
Despite these problems, the islanders seem to be a pretty hardy people and Easter Island is a wonderful beautiful interesting place to visit. We were very lucky to have such a wonderful place to stay for our last week of travelling.
We were even luckier when we returned to Santiago, Chile and were able to get on a flight in three hours back to Australia! Luckier again when we got to Sydney and were able to get a flight to Perth that same day. So - yep - we are home!! And very happy to be here. Looking forward to catching up with all of you sometime soon.
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