Not
only are the destinations magical and relaxing, but the Pacific Island cultures
are amazing and beautiful. All have similarities and all have many unique
differences that make them their own cultures. From the beautiful dances of the
Hawaiians, the hip-shaking dances of the Tahitians, to the aggressive posturing
and dances of the Maori in New Zealand.
These island cultures are all in the
Polynesian cultures, but the Pacific Island cultures span out to areas of Micronesia
such as the Marshall Islands, who incidentally have just created the world’s
largest shark sanctuary!
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| Marshall Islands |
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| Marshall Islands Shark Sanctuary |
These areas also go far into the other direction to
include places such as Easter Island, Chile. This will be the topic of this
special holiday edition of History’s Mysteries. It was difficult to find
references to mysteries happening on Easter, so I decided to tell you about a
mystery that was originally discovered on Easter Sunday.
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| Easter Island |
Easter
Island is located off the coast of South America and is an annexed island by
Chile. It is in the most southern point of the Polynesian Triangle. Easter
Island holds the attention of many due to its mysterious large statues known as
the “Moai” that were created by the indigenous Rapa Nui peoples of Easter
Island. There are approximately 887 different Moai statues on the island with
most of the statues on the perimeter of the island. There are mysteries
inherent with the island and its past inhabitants, including the Moai.
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| Moai Locations on Easter Island |
Easter
Island is believed to have been inhabited by the first settlers, the Rapa Nui
between 700AD and 1,100AD. Over the centuries, the population flourished and a
thriving civilization was created, only to have disappeared almost entirely
with some theories existing, but no definitive answer known.
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| Rapa Nui People |
By about 1722 when
the Island was discovered by Europeans, there were only about 2,000-3,000 Rapa
Nui left, when only about one-hundred-years earlier, there were an estimated
15,000 Rapa Nui. What happened to them all?
To make matters worse for the
2,000-3,000 Rapa Nui left, they were enslaved by the Europeans and European diseases
were introduced and by 1877, there were only 111 Rapa Nui left on the island.
Today
Easter Island is still remote and is inhabited by about 5,800 people and about
two-thirds of them are Rapa Nui descendants.
As mentioned earlier, the name for
Easter Island was dubbed by Dutch Explorer Jacob Roggeveen on Easter Sunday,
April 5th, 1722. Roggeveen was searching for Davis Island and
happened accidentally upon Easter Island and in his native tongue is “Paasch-Eyland.” Chile has their own
translation for the island which is, “Isla
de Pascua,” which also means Easter Island.
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| Jacob Roggeveen |
Currently the Polynesian name
of the island is, Rapa Nui (Big Rapa), but was originally called Te pito o te kainga a Hau Maka which
translates in English to, “the little piece of land of Hau Maka,” and can also
translate to “Navel of the World.” There is also another Polynesian name given
to the island, Mata ki te rangi,
which means, “Eyes looking to the sky.”
The
first settlement of Easter Island was a village called, Anakena. The was
theorized after a survey of the land was completed and the landing point of
Caleta Anakena was the best and most sheltered landing area for the entire
island, and would have been an ideal spot to start a settlement.
Herein lies
the first mystery. After some more extensive scientific research, including
radiocarbon dating, scientists discovered that other settlements, such as Tahai
were settled earlier, some by centuries.
There is some debate as to where the
first settlers of the Easter Islands came from. Some posit that they traveled
from the west, most likely from the Mangareva and Marqueses Islands, but others
posit that they may have originated from South America as there is evidence of
sweet potatoes in their cultivation that would likely have had to come from
South America.
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| Mangareva Islands |
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| Marquesas Islands |
However, there is still other evidence lending back to the
peoples coming from the west. This is substantiated by a Polynesian crewmember
who traveled with Captain James Cook. According to history, this Polynesian
crewmember was from Bora Bora and could speak with the Rapa Nui and understand
their language.
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| Captain John Cook |
Also, the Mangarevan language is the most closely related to
the Rapa Nui, and by sea travel in the traditional Polynesian way, Mangareva
can be reached in nineteen-days.
Of
course, the most iconic spectacle of the ancient Rapa Nui, are the large
statues they fashioned and moved from quarries in the center of the island, the
Moai. Most beliefs and theories about the meaning of the Moai are that the statues
were built to honor ancestors or to be guardians of the island. This is
difficult to substantiate as there is no written traditions of the Rapa Nui,
and the oral traditions are skimpy at best.
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| Moai |
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| Moai |
The
Moai are believed to have been built between 1250AD and 1500AD. The Moai were
carved at the Rano Raraku quarry. There are a large
number of Moai in various stages of completion still at the quarry, but most
were moved to the perimeters of the island and set on ceremonial platforms
called, ahu.
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| Rano Raraku Quarry |
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| Moai on ahu |
There has been mystery as to how these ancient indigenous peoples
would move these Moai that ranged in weight with the heaviest estimated at
86-tons. That’s 172,000 pounds! They had no modern cranes and other modern
devices to assist them in moving these giant monoliths, so how did they do it?
There have been many theories over the years ranging from rolling them on logs,
to the giant Moai actually “walking.” It has even been posited that some of the
deforestation could have happened because of the logs needed to move these
structures.
There
may be some validity to the giants “walking” according to a documentary. This
documentary is called “The Hidden Secrets of the Statues on Easter Island,” and
they showed how these giants could actually walk. They had three groups of
people all holding three ropes, two to the side and one straight back, and with
fairly easy effort, they were able to make a 10-ton Moai replica walk over
100-yards in forty-minutes.
It was impressive to see this statue moving down
the road and it actually appeared that it was walking. Oral histories from the
Rapa Nui indicate that the giants walked and they represent it by keeping their
legs together and shift side-to-side while moving themselves forward.
Another
mystery that I recently learned, though it had been discovered some time ago
is, that the Moai a bit more inland that look like mere Moai heads sitting on
the landscape, are actually attached to full stone bodies! Some time back,
researchers dug around some of the heads and dug down multiple feet to
unearth all of the Moai fully intact and standing erect.
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| Unearthed Moai |
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| Unearthed Moai |
So,
again, what happened to the Rapa Nui?
There are many theories to the demise of
this once thriving people. Many of the theories hinge around ecological
disasters that were man-made. It is posited that there was massive
deforestation that occurred to move the Moai, but many speculate that alone
wouldn’t have caused the collapse of the civilization.
Another theory is that
the Rapa Nui were farmers (which has been established) and that they slashed
and burned much of the forest land to make their farms and over time they
depleted too much of the natural forests.
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| Slash and Burn Deforestation |
Another theory that fits in with this
as a potential means of deforestation is that the indigenous sea-birds were
hunted and killed and couldn’t repopulate. Without these birds, or more
specifically, their poop, the ground couldn’t be re-fertilized and the trees
died out.
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| Island Seabird |
Another theory that fits in with this is that Asian/Pacific rats who were
stowaways on boats traveling the Pacific Islands, multiplied and without any natural
predators quickly exploded to a population of 1,000,000 in just over a year.
They found their favorite food source, the palm nuts from the trees and the
trees couldn’t replenish themselves.
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| Pacific Rat |
The reality is that likely a combination of all these
factors, maybe except for the logs to roll the Moai, were contributing factors
to the decline and eradication of the Rapa Nui culture.
Another fine example of
History’s Mysteries.
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