Rapa Nui (Easter Island)

Rapa Nui is a small volcanic island in the eastern Pacific that marks the southeasternmost extent of the Polynesian Triangle, the northernmost point being Hawai'i, and the southwesternmost being New Zealand. within the area described by these three points, Polynesians coming from West Polynesia settled virtually every island: Samoa, Tonga, and Fiji. Rapa Nui is currently part of Chile and is the only Polynesian island with this status. As one of the world's most isolated land masses, Rapa Nui has exerted fascination over the Western world for over a hundred years. This is primarily because of the moaithe huge monumental stone heads that are unique to that island. What is remarkable about Rapa Nui, and indeed about all Polynesian islands, is the amount of differentiation (material, cultural, and linguistic) that occurred among islands and archipelagos following colonization around 1,000 years agoa relatively short time span for such extraordinary developments to take place.

Rapa Nui was first discovered by Europeans in 1722 and named “Easter Island” because it was spotted on Easter Sunday. Archaeology has revealed that Rapa Nui was settled roughly at the same time as virtually every other island in East Polynesia, around the 11 th or 12th century CE. The Polynesians who settled the remote little island may have reached it by accident, but scholars are generally agreed that, once it was colonized, no return voyages were made to the “home” island. As they always did, the Polynesian colonists brought with them as many useful plants and animals as they could. However, few of these transplants survived both the long journey and the inhospitable terrain of the island. The only animals that endured were the chicken and rat (pigs and dogs not having been successfully transferred), and the sweet potato was the only crop that grew; the land was unsuitable for coconuts, breadfruit, and taro. The sweet potato is of South American origin (all other Polynesian plants and animals originally derive from Asia), so it is certain that Polynesian seafarers reached the American continent and transported the plant all over the Triangle.

Several centuries following colonization, the islanders began to quarry the soft volcanic tuff and to carve out the moai, the largest of which is 10 meters tall. Almost 900 of these statues have been inventoried on the island in various states of completion. The moai were highly standardized through the centuries and originally wore red tuff-carved topknots on the top of their heads and had inlaid coral and stone eyes. They are thought to be the representations of deified ancestors, and, while the moai are unique to Rapa Nui, stone and wood “tiki” statues are found throughout eastern Polynesia, pointing to an ancestral concept. However, nowhere else in Polynesia does anything exist to parallel the size of the moai. They are interesting because the Polynesians, using only stone tools and no machinery, were able to quarry, carve, transport, and erect these massive statues. Theories about how it was done abound, and experimentation has produced interesting results. Nevertheless the controversy continues and forms part of the island's allure. Probably before and certainly after Rapa Nui was discovered in 1722, the islanders began toppling the moai, sometimes in such a way as to break off the head from the shoulders. It is thought that this was done during the intense warfare that characterized life on the island; by the late 1800s no statues were left standing. Those that stand today have been restored in modern times.

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