Easter Island

an island in the S Pacific, W of and belonging to Chile. ab. 45 sq. mi. (117 sq. km): gigantic statues. Also called Rapa Nui. Spanish, Isla de Pascua.

* * *

Spanish Isla de Pascua native Rapa Nui

Island (pop., 2000 est.: 3,618), eastern Pacific Ocean.

Located 2,200 mi (3,600 km) west of Chile, it has an area of 63 sq mi (163 sq km). Initially inhabited с AD 400 by Polynesians from the Marquesas, Easter Island has long been famous for its monolithic stone statues in human form. They are 10–40 ft (3–12 m) high, and some weigh more than 50 tons. They were probably erected с 1000–1600 AD. War and disease decimated the island's population over the succeeding centuries, and the statues' origins were forgotten. Annexed by Chile in 1888, the island has been declared a World Heritage site.

Sculptures cut from volcanic rock, Easter Island.

Ernest Manewal

Shostal

* * *

▪ island and province, Chile

Introduction

Spanish  Isla de Pascua,  also called  Rapa Nui (World Heritage site)  

 

Chilean dependency in the eastern Pacific Ocean, the easternmost outpost of the Polynesian island world. It is famous for its giant stone statues. The island stands in isolation 1,200 miles (1,900 kilometres) east of Pitcairn Island and 2,200 miles west of Chile. Forming a triangle 14 miles long by seven miles wide, it has an area of 63 square miles (163 square kilometres); its highest point, Mount Terevaka, is 1,969 feet (600 metres) above sea level.

      To its original inhabitants the island is known as Rapa Nui (“Great Rapa”) or Te Pito te Henua (“Navel of the World”). The first European visitors, the Dutch, named it Paaseiland (“Easter Island”) in memory of their own day of arrival. Its mixed population is predominantly of Polynesian descent; almost all live in the village of Hanga Roa on the sheltered west coast. Pop. (2002) 3,304.

The land

Relief

 The small and hilly island is not part of a sunken landmass but is a typical oceanic high island formed by volcanoes rising from the seafloor. Geologic and oceanographic evidence shows that no perceptible emergence or submergence of the island's coastline has taken place since the last fall in sea level, which occurred less than 10,000 years ago. Three extinct volcanoes chiefly composed of tuff (a porous rock formed of compacted volcanic fragments) and joined by their own lava flows give the island its characteristic triangular shape. Parasitic tuff craters and cones (i.e., craters and cones formed on the side of, or near, volcanoes after the original vent has become plugged up) are interspersed in the landscape, which is otherwise dominated by eroded lava fields in which obsidian is commonly found. Most of these fields are thickly packed with both large and small lumps of cellular and tuffaceous lava that is either black or rusty in colour. Stoneless surface soil is sparse; it is suitable for extensive cultivation mainly in the Hanga Roa and Mataveri area in the southwest, at Vaihu and on the plain southwest of the volcano Rano Raraku, and on the prehistorically cleared Poike peninsula in the eastern corner of the island. Rain collects in the partly bog-covered crater lakes of the volcanoes Rano Kao, Rano Raraku, and Rano Aroi. One intermittent stream, fed by the Rano Aroi crater lake, flows down Mount Terevaka's slopes before disappearing into the porous soil. Water from the extremely deep crater of Rano Kao, which is about 3,000 feet wide, is piped to Hanga Roa. The coast is formed by soft, eroded, ashy cliffs, with a vertical drop of about 500 to 1,000 feet; the cliffs are intercepted by long stretches of low, hard, and rugged lava formations. There is no natural harbour, but anchorage is found off Hanga Roa on the west coast; off Vinapu and Hotu-Iti on the south coast; and off Anakena and in the Bahía la Perouse on the north coast. Notable among the few small offshore islets are Motu-Nui, Motu-Iti, and Motu-Kaokao (which figured in a local bird cult) near the southwest cape. The only true sand beach is at Anakena; most other beaches are of gravel. Caves abound, many consisting of subterranean rooms joined by narrow tunnels extending far into the lava beds.

Climate

      The climate is subtropical: i.e., sunny and dry. The warmest months are January through March, when the average temperature is 73 °F (23 °C), and the coolest months are June through August, when the average temperature is 64 °F (18 °C). Average annual precipitation is about 49 inches (1,250 millimetres) but with considerable annual variation. September is the driest month, and the heaviest rainfall occurs in June and July in accordance with the passage of austral winter fronts. Winds in June and August are irregular; during the rest of the year trade winds from the east and southeast are dominant. From September through March the Peru (Peru Current) (or Humboldt) Current, which has an average temperature of about 70 °F (21 °C), flows against the island.

Plant and animal life

      Indigenous plants and animals are few. At the time of European arrival the toromiro tree, endemic to the island, was the only wild tree and the Carolina wolfberry the only wild shrub, the vegetation being predominantly herbaceous. The toromiro tree was overexploited by the island wood carvers, and the last local specimen died in the 1950s. The species was saved from extinction, however; the Norwegian Archaeological Expedition collected seeds and planted them in the Gothenburg Botanical Garden, and saplings from the garden were reintroduced to Easter Island in 1988. Analysis of pollen deposits has revealed that other trees and shrubs, among them the giant Chile palm (Jubaea spectabilis), were formerly present on the island until exterminated by extensive fires occurring at the time of aboriginal human settlement. Today only 31 wild flowering plants, 14 ferns, and 14 mosses are reported. Grass and small ferns dominate the barren landscape, whereas the boggy crater lakes are thickly covered by two imported American species, the totora reed (an important building material) and Polygonum acuminatum (a medicinal plant). A number of cultivated species of plants were also introduced partly from America and partly from Polynesia before the arrival of Europeans; of these the principal species was the sweet potato, which was cultivated in extensive plantations and formed the staple diet. Bottle gourds, sugarcane, bananas, taro, yams, and two useful trees (i.e., the Asiatic paper mulberry, with bark used for cloth manufacture, and the American Triumfetta semitriloba, with bark used for rope making) were of aboriginal importation, as also probably were the husk-tomato, a small variety of pineapple, and the coconut.

      Before the arrival of human beings, the only vertebrates were either fish or seabirds capable of long flights. The animal life on land was otherwise restricted to a very few species of isopods (an order of crustaceans), spiders, insects, worms, a snail, and a centipede. Vast quantities of flies, large cockroaches, and a small scorpion were introduced recently. A small, long-legged chicken reported to have laid blue eggs was introduced in pre-European times but later interbred with European varieties. The aboriginal edible Polynesian rat was subsequently replaced by larger European species. Sheep, horses, cattle, and pigs were introduced by the missionaries who established themselves ashore in 1864. Sheep were especially numerous for almost a century after foreign ranchers began commercial ranching in 1870; sheep ranching came to an end in the mid-1980s, but cattle ranching was enhanced. A large wild cat, living in caves, is of unknown introduction. A Chilean partridge, a quail, and a small hawk have been added to the wildlife since 1880. Sea turtles and seals are now rare curiosities, but crayfish and various coastal and deep-sea fishes abound around the coast.

The people

      The island's population represents the easternmost settlement (Easter Island) of a basically Polynesian subgroup that probably derived from the Marquesas group. The original Rapa Nui vocabulary has been lost except for some mixed Polynesian and non-Polynesian words recorded before the Tahitian dialect was introduced to the decimated population by missionaries in 1864. Today Spanish is generally spoken. In their traditions, the islanders consistently divide themselves into descendants of two distinct ethnic groups, the “Long-Ears” and the “Short-Ears” (see below). Intermarriage is common, and an influx of foreign blood has become increasingly dominant in recent years.

The economy

      Whereas the aboriginal economy was based on the cultivation of sweet potato, chicken raising, and coastal fishing, the island has shifted to a cash economy based on tourism. The opening of an airport at Mataveri near Hanga Roa has permitted an increasing influx of tourists since the 1960s, and a few small hotels have been built in the village area, where many islanders and settlers from continental Chile also have accommodations in their homes. The ties to continental Chile are strengthened through twice-weekly flights from Santiago and the building of schools, hospitals, and a large community hall for sports and performances. A well-organized Chilean national park system provides guided tours and security for the unique archaeological monuments. Reforestation projects have been successfully initiated, including eucalyptus plantations at Vaitea and coconut groves in Anakena Bay.

History

 The first European to land on Easter Island was the Dutch admiral Jacob Roggeveen, who paid it a single day's visit in 1722. He and his crew found a population that they described as being of mixed physical types who worshiped huge standing statues with fires while they prostrated themselves to the rising sun. Some of them, said to be “white men,” had their earlobes slit and hanging to their shoulders, a distinctly non-Polynesian custom.

      An expedition dispatched by the Spanish viceroy of Peru rediscovered the island in 1770. The Spanish spent four days ashore and were the first to report that the aborigines had their own local form of script. They estimated a population of some 3,000 persons.

      A civil war seems to have raged on the island before the arrival of the British navigator Captain James Cook in 1774; a decimated, poverty-stricken Polynesian population of only about 600 or 700 men and fewer than 30 women was found by the Englishmen, who also observed that the large statues were no longer venerated, most of them having been deliberately overthrown. In 1786 the French navigator Jean-François de Galaup, comte de La Pérouse (La Pérouse, Jean-François de Galaup, comte de), arrived and found some 2,000 people on the island; he tried in vain to introduce domestic animals. A number of sailing vessels, including whalers, visited the island from 1792 onward. By 1860 the population was about 3,000, but a major slave raid launched from Peru in 1862, followed by smallpox epidemics, reduced the population to 111 in 1877. At the end of the 19th century it began to increase once more. In 1864 Brother Eugène Eyraud, a French Catholic missionary, became the first foreigner to settle on the island; as a result, the population became converted to Christianity by 1868. Settlers from Tahiti began to raise sheep in 1870. In 1888 the island was annexed by Chile, which leased nearly all its territory for sheep raising; in 1954 the Chilean navy administration took over the sheep range. In 1965 a civilian governor was appointed by the Chilean government, and the islanders became full Chilean citizens. Within a single generation the Easter Islanders successfully responded to a complete acculturation to continental standards without losing their pride in their own ancestors and their skills and customs. Annually in February old and young of both sexes meet in contests to revive the arts and practices of the island's past, including carving, tattooing, reed-boat building, and traditional singing and dancing.

Archaeology

  The island is famous for its gigantic stone statues (Western sculpture), of which there are more than 600, and for the ruins of giant stone platforms (ahus) with open courtyards on their landward sides, some of which show masterly construction. Archaeological surveys were carried out in 1886, 1914, and 1934; archaeological excavations were initiated in 1955. The excavations revealed that three distinct cultural periods are identifiable on the island. The early period is characterized by ahus at Tahai, Vinapu, and Anakena, carbon dated to c. AD 700–850. The first two were admired and described by Captain Cook; the wall in Anakena remained hidden below ground until it was excavated archaeologically in 1987. The excavations in Anakena have revealed that a variety of statues were carved in the early period, among them a smaller prototype of the middle-period busts, which mainly differ from the latter by their rounded heads and stubby bodies. Another type was a realistic sculpture in full figure of a kneeling man with his buttocks resting on his heels and his hands on his knees, in one case with his ribs exposed, all features characteristic of pre-Inca monuments at Tiwanaku in South America. In the middle period, c. 1050–1680, statues were deliberately destroyed and discarded, and all ahus were rebuilt with no regard for solar orientation or masonry fitting. The sole desire seems to have been to obtain strong platforms capable of supporting ever taller and heavier busts, the classical moai (moai figure) of the middle period.

      Burial chambers also were constructed within the ahus in the middle period. The sizes of the statues made were increased until they reached stupendous dimensions; the slim and lofty busts also had huge cylindrical pukao (topknots) of red tuff placed on top of their slender heads. Most middle-period statues range from about 10 to 20 feet in height, but the biggest among those formerly standing on top of an ahu was about 32 feet tall, consisted of a single block weighing about 82 tons (74,500 kilograms), and had a pukao of about 11 tons balanced on its apex. The largest statue still standing partly buried in the deep silt below the quarries is about 37 feet tall, and the largest unfinished one with its back attached to the rock is about 68 feet tall. Traditions, supported by archaeology, suggest that the images represented important personalities who were deified after death.

 Statues of the middle period were all quarried from the special yellow-gray tuff found in the crater walls of Rano Raraku. Inside and outside the crater bowl numerous unfinished statues and thousands of crude stone picks are scattered about, bearing witness to a sudden interruption of the sculptors' work. The unfinished images show that each statue had its front and sides completed to a polish before the back was detached from the bedrock. The image was then slid away to be raised at random in the rubble below the quarries to have the back finished before being moved to some distant ahu. Eye cavities and topknots were added only after the monument was erected; recent discoveries have revealed that these concavities had inlaid eyes of white coral with a dark stone disk as pupil. From one to a dozen completed statues would stand in a row on a single ahu, always facing inland.

      Experiments based on island traditions in 1955–56 showed that the numerous basalt picks left in the quarries were perfectly suitable for carving the hard tuff. Reenactments showed that 12 islanders were able to lift a 25-ton statue about 10 feet off the ground and to tilt it on end on top of an ahu; this work took 18 days with no tools other than two wooden logs that were used as levers. Stones of all sizes were wedged under the statue one by one to form a slowly rising cairn in order to lift the giant monoliths upright. Tradition claimed that the statues had “walked” across the terrain to their distant destinations, but in the experiment 180 islanders were able to pull a medium statue over the ground. A renewed experiment in 1986 revived the tradition and discovered that 15 men sufficed to move a medium-sized statue over the ground in upright position by jerking it ahead with a system of ropes.

 The middle-period busts clearly evolved from a local prototype and have no counterpart elsewhere. Also peculiar to the middle period was a bird cult with attendant birdman rites that survived into the third, or late, period. Its ceremonial centre was the village of Orongo, on top of Rano Kao, which consisted of stone houses with roof vaults built as false arches. These houses and contiguous circular masonry dwellings with roof entrances are characteristic of the early and middle periods on the island; while unknown elsewhere in Polynesia they are common in the adjacent area of South America.

Traditional culture

      The late-period Easter Islanders dwelt in boat-shaped pole-and-thatch houses or in caves. This period was marked by internal wars, general destruction, and cultural decadence. The mataa, or obsidian spearpoint, which was mass-produced, is the characteristic artifact of this period. Wood carving and small crude stone figurines replaced monumental art. Written wooden tablets covered with incised signs (called rongo-rongo) placed in boustrophedon (a method of writing in which the lines run alternately from right to left and from left to right) were copied from earlier specimens merely for ritual purposes; their proper reading was forgotten, and—despite many claims—modern attempts at deciphering them have failed. During this period art treasures were hidden in secret family caves, while the upright ahu images were successively overthrown. Silt from the abandoned quarries descended to the chests of the blind and unfinished busts standing at the foot of the volcano, rendering their overthrow impossible and thus securing for posterity the eyeless heads that have given the island its fame.

      Tradition maintains that destruction began after a period of peaceful coexistence between two people of different culture and language—the Long-Ears and the Short-Ears. The latter, tired of toiling for the former, all but exterminated them in a pyre along an ancient ditch at Poike on the far northeastern coast. Carbon dating and genealogies concur in placing this event and the beginning of the late period at about AD 1680. The original construction of the artificial Poike ditch, according to carbon dating, took place in about AD 380.

      The First International Science Congress convening on Easter Island in 1984 agreed on a resolution defining the island as the site of a pre-European civilization. The recent excavations, which reveal that the earliest settlers arrived with previously developed architectural concepts and a highly specialized megalithic masonry technique, support island traditions, which claim that the first ancestors arrived in an organized party of emigrants and not merely as casually wind-driven fishermen. Easter Island was added to UNESCO's World Heritage List (World Heritage site) in 1995.

Thor Heyerdahl

Additional Reading

A comprehensive introduction is provided in Norwegian Archaeological Expedition to Easter Island and the East Pacific, 1955–1956, Reports, 2 vol. (1961–65). History and culture are outlined in Grant McCall, Rapanui: Tradition and Survival on Easter Island (1981). See also Sebastián Englert, Island at the Center of the World: New Light on Easter Island (1970);Thor Heyerdahl, Aku-Aku: The Secret of Easter Island, trans. from Norwegian (1958, reprinted 1988), Sea Routes to Polynesia (1968), Art of Easter Island (1975), a survey of art in collections throughout the world, with more than 300 plates of photographs, and Easter Island—a Mystery Solved (1989).César N. Caviedes

* * *