Easter Island and the Mysterious Moai - Page: 5

Approximately 2200 miles from the nearest continental land mass, a volcanic speck of an island, only 46 sq. mi. in size, sits lazily in the middle of the South Pacific. In Spanish, the island is known as Isla de Pascua, to the people who live there, it is Rapa Nui. In English, we know it better as Easter Island.

The Voyagers Come

Speculation has it that ancient Eastern Polynesian voyagers inhabited the island around 400 AD. The archaeological record, however, puts the date somewhat later, at about 700 - 800 AD. For thousands of years prior to this, Polynesian traders traveled the ocean looking for new lands, exchanging obsidian for food or new types of plants. These voyagers navigated by the stars and the signs of the sea across endless expanses of ocean before stumbling upon what they thought must surely be an island paradise.

Rapa Nui legend tells the story of a powerful chief who set sail with his wife and extended family in search of new lands. This chief, Hotu Matu'a, landed on the island at Anakena Beach, some 1500 years ago. They laid claim to the land and made it a part of their culture, their religion and their lives. The people brought with them plants from their native land to cultivate in their new home. These plants are thought to have included taro root, banana trees and sweet potatoes.

In the years to come, the population of Rapa Nui (a term that has come to refer not only to the island, but also to the people and language on the island as well) flourished. The great palm forest found by the first settlers was cut little by little for use in canoe and boat building, cooking fires and in moving the giant statues the natives created in the practice of their enigmatic religion.

"What eventually made them (the Rapa Nui) distinctive is that they were so isolated from the rest of Polynesia," says Dr. Georgia Lee, an archaeologist with the Easter Island Foundation. "Once the forests were cut down, there was no more wood to make a sailing canoe, so they were basically 'trapped' on the island. Without an interchange of ideas from other island groups, they seem to have focused more and more narrowly on the religious aspects, such as the moai and the shrines upon which they were placed."

As with other powerful or influential civilizations throughout the ages, the rise of the Rapa Nui led to the fall of the Rapa Nui. At the peak of the Rapa Nui civilization around 1000 - 1600 AD, archaeologists estimate the island's seams were bulging with a population of between 9,000 and 10,000 people. That's roughly 217 people per square mile! This gross overpopulation combined with the cutting of the palm forest caused ecological destruction of the highest order to occur on the island. Centuries of raising crops and the loss of topsoil in runoff left a severely depleted land with little resources. The lack of food and resources prompted periods of intertribal warfare and, some say, cannibalism.

"Cannibalism among the Rapa Nui has been bandied about, but there is very little hard evidence," said Lee. "I think someone found a bone with cut marks, but that doesn't make it a case of cannibalism. Yet, the island legends abound with tales of who ate whom. In the rest of Polynesia, in the very early times, cannibalism was ritual. That is, the chief would eat the eyeball of a victim in order to gain his power/mana. Later on, there are documented cases of cannibalism in the Marquesas, which seem to go beyond the ritual aspect. But we have nothing firm from Easter Island, only rumors."

The year 1722 saw Rapa Nui's first encounter with Europeans. Jacob Roggeveen, a Dutch sailor landed on the island on Easter Day of that year and named the island Easter Island in honor of the event. By that time, the population on the island had already begun a steady decline. In 1722, it is estimated that there were only about 4,000 native Rapa Nui living on the island.

Some would say those that perished in the bloody civil wars before the Europeans came were the lucky ones. The next century brought raiding Spanish slavers and new diseases, like smallpox, to wipe out the rest of the Rapa Nui. By 1887, only 111 Rapa Nui remained. Their great culture was destroyed, lost forever. They had little written history and much about their ways of life and religion are still a mystery today.

Chile stopped the inevitable from happening in 1888, when they formally annexed Easter Island, leading to a stabilization of the Rapa Nui way of life. Today, the Rapa Nui of Easter Island are regarded as citizens of Chile. The population is growing and the people farm a land that is once again fertile. The Rapa Nui are governed by a mayor and council of elders who are supervised by a Chilean governor. Several movements have been made to try to gain Easter Island's independence, but none have succeeded.

Recent archaeological and anthropological efforts to learn more about the Rapa Nui culture have led to many discoveries and along the way pieces of the Rapa Nui history that were once lost have been restored. The outrigger canoe was successfully re-introduced on the island and today enjoys some measure of popularity among the Rapa Nui. Perhaps this is the full circle for the Rapa Nui.

The Magnificent Moai

The first image to enter your mind when someone mentions Easter Island is likely the great stone sentinels that punctuate the island's landscape. The island's head-on-torso statues, called moai by the Rapa Nui, number almost 1000 in population. At times, the great moai outnumbered the Rapa Nui.

"It is estimated that there are around 1000 moai on the island," said Lee. "More than 900 have been counted, and so many parts of the island remain unexcavated that we don't know the actual count. Even in the quarry, whenever anyone digs a hole, they find more statues."

At the height of their prosperity, it seems the Rapa Nui became obsessed with making moai. Standing on the pinnacle of their mountain of success, they could look down the other side and see that the island could not support their way of life for very long. With their food and resources dwindling, they turned to religion to save them.

"They made the statues to represent their chiefs, who were descendants of the gods," Lee said.

Many archaeologists believe the moai were created to secure a bond between the heavens and the earth, between the gods and common man. To the ancient Rapa Nui, the moai may have represented an actual connection to the gods, a way to communicate between heaven and earth, but no one knows for certain.

The moai were carved by Rapa Nui artisans. It is believed that only the most skilled carves were engaged in the sacred production of the moai. The figures are exclusively male, in the image of the Rapa Nui chiefs and gods, and some sport a sort of top knot, called a pukao, which may have been a status symbol of some sort.

"They used basalt picks to cut the statues out of the volcanic tuff," said Lee. "They carved the fronts first, then cut down the sides, finally cutting them loose from the rock and sliding them down the slope, standing them in a prepared depression and then finishing the backs."

Most moai began life at Rano Raraku, the main quarry on Easter Island. Looking around the quarry, one can observe moai in various states of completion, from mere faces in the rock walls to finished moai on the slopes of the quarry which were apparently in the process of being moved to their final destinations.

Rano Raraku has been described as a vast moai graveyard by some. Moai can be found buried up to their heads and noses, many have been broken. They lay on their sides, on their faces and on their backs. Approximately 397 moai have been identified still in the quarry. It's as if the bomb went off during the height of the moai production. It looks like the work was simply abandoned. The carvers just threw down their tools and walked away.

Even though the abrupt abandonment of the quarry at Rano Raraku is somewhat disturbing, (Why did they stop? What compelled them to just leave the statues in their half-finished or halfway there states? Where did the carvers go?) it can also be considered fortuitous. If it were not for this "time lapse photograph" we have of moai production, even the carving methods may have been forgotten. This site enables archaeologists to determine how the moai were carved and cut down within the quarry and it allows them to speculate further about how the moai were transported to their shrines, or ahu.

Why and how the Rapa Nui transported the moai to their respective ahu has always been a point of controversy between researchers. Think about the task. The largest moai, El Gigante, lies in Rano Raraku quarry. El Gigante is almost 72 ' tall and is estimated to weigh between 145 and 165 tons. The average moai would stand over 13' tall and weigh almost 14 tons. What would it take to move and erect a statue of this size?

The ceremonial sites where the moai were intended to stand, called ahu, were typically built along the coastline of the island. Most of the ahu are flat stone mounds or platforms on which the moai stand. The average height of the ahu on Easter Island is 4' tall. Moai were placed on the ahu with their backs facing the waves. The masonry work involved in the building of the ahu has been compared by some, most notably Thor Heyerdahl, to the stonework of the Peruvian Incas.

Recently, NOVA presented a series called Secrets of Lost Empires. This series sought to reproduce the mystery building, construction and engineering methods of many ancient civilizations. Some of the segments had teams building a trebuchet, a Chinese wooden arch bridge, erecting an Egyptian obelisk, engineering a Roman bath and transporting an Easter Island moai. These feats were achieved by modern men and women using only the ancient tools and methods. Quite an amazing thing to see by today's standards. Things that would be an easy task for a bulldozer, a crane and a chain saw are accomplished in this series using hand planes, simple levers and manpower.

The method of transportation considered most likely today, by archaeologists including Jo Anne Von Tilburg and Georgia Lee, is the creation of a moai highway or railroad. It is thought that the moai were probably laid on their backs, strapped to a sledge and rolled or pulled along log rollers to the waiting ahu. (Keep in mind, this is a very simplified explanation of the transportation method and further reading is suggested for those wishing to understand the concept more fully.) Once they arrived at the ahu, the moai were likely pulled up a specially constructed ramp and then raised. At about the halfway point in the raising procedure, the pukao was probably set atop the moai's head and then the whole structure was finally raised together.

Easter Island's Most "Mindblowing" Sites

Easter Island has many impressive moai sites today, mostly located on the southern coastlines. If you ever get a chance to visit, pay special attention to sites like Rano Raraku, Ahu Akivi, Anakena Beach and Ahu Tongariki.

Rano Raraku, as mentioned previously, is the island's main quarry and one of few sites located inland, near the eastern tip of the island.

Lee indicated she feels Rano Raraku is "probably the most mindblowing" site. "It is just beyond belief to see them all around the slopes, in the matrix of the rock, still attached, in all stages of being carved."

Ahu Akivi is about nine miles west of the Rano Raraku quarry. Archaeologists estimate the moai here were erected after 1400 AD. Like Rano Raraku, Ahu Akivi is an inland site, originally intended to overlook a Rapa Nui settlement. This site was restored in 1960 by William Mulloy, an American archaeologist. The site features seven moai standing side by side on their ahu.

Anakena Beach, the rumored original landing place of Hotu Matu'a and his family, is a white sand beach bordered by a large stand of palm trees. The ahu at Anakena Beach holds six moai. These moai are significant because they are some of the few moai standing with their pukao, or top knots, in place.

Ahu Tongariki originally displayed 15 standing moai. A 1960 earthquake in Chile caused a tidal wave which swept over the southern coastline of Easter Island, effectively destroying the ahu at Ahu Tongariki and scattering the multi-ton moai across the nearby landscape. The site was recently restored by Chilean archaeologist, Claudio Cristino and is today another of the most impressive sites on the island.

Easter Island Research Today

"Current archaeological efforts involve searching for the very 'early' or 'first' sites that were occupied," said Lee. "In the past, the focus was on the shrines and statues, and rebuilding them, etc. Now archaeologists are trying to determine early dates, methods of growing food, findings carbonized plant materials in ancient earth ovens, as a means of determining diet and dating by radiocarbon methods."

Archaeological research efforts on Easter Island have been seriously hampered by the fact that no one is quite sure where to dig for these early sites, Lee indicates. Many have suggested the work be concentrated on unexcavated northern coastal areas, which would have been likely sites for settlements. However, there are few roads into the northern territory of the island and much of the soil that might have yielded artifacts has been eroded away.

Lee also mentioned "there have been some recent studies on human bones, studying morphology of the skulls to determine racial characteristics; DNA studies have been done and are on-going. To date, everything points to Polynesia only. No evidence that anyone from South America got there."

"Unfortunately, of the many 'restorations' of the ahu, few were done with any methodological skill," Lee said. "They were just put back up. Many were pretty trashed and many stones taken for other buildings, so they were basically piles of rubble."

In spite of this, Easter Island's moai remain one of the great intriguing archaeological phenomenons in the world today. To stand and look upon the faces of the Rapa Nui's massive moai reminds one of the things that can be accomplished when humanity works together with one mind and one purpose. The ultimate lesson, though, to be learned from Easter Island. . .

"Take care of Mother Earth," Lee concluded.

Perhaps that is a lesson the Rapa Nui of today have taken to heart.

For further information on this topic, take a look at the following sites. Easter Island Photographs

Nova Online: Secrets of Easter Island

Easter Island Home Page