One more thing before I move on: I am preparing this post ahead of time, and will publish it before we leave Tahiti. My fear is that it may be the last post I'm able to publish for awhile. One common theme that arose from our research is that WiFi on Rapa Nui is horrendous, slow at best and frequently non-existent. That's understandable; this is one of the most remote inhabited places on Earth. But I'm not certain if it's "land-bad" or "ship-bad". Or worse. If you don't hear from me until we return to the fast WiFi of French Polynesia (that's sarcasm, you know), no worries. I will continue to blog daily and will catch up upon our return to the big city of Papeete (more of the same). As for photos...I'll get them posted when I can.
So, back to today...
Once again, YouTube provided a good depiction of what it's like to fly overnight from Papeete to IPC (Isla de Pascua, the airport in Hanga Roa on Rapa Nui), and I'll post it below. We've been told that this flight, though frequently late, is never cancelled, but we would certainly appreciate an on time schedule tonight. We are going to be exhausted!
And, while you await our Tales of Rapa Nui, below is a short history lesson to tide you over, one that I actually did research and write myself, after reading two e-books about the island that I checked out from the library system using the Overdrive app.
I also purchased the Kindle Edition of the Companion Guide to Easter Island, written by James Grant-Peterkin, a Scot who moved to Rapa Nui as part of his college research and ended up staying. This was the most highly recommended guidebook and it certainly deserves that designation. While it contains a history of the island, it is really intended as a travel guide, providing fascinating insight into the culture and detailed explanations about Rapa Nui's many archaeological sites, as well as some great information on how to make the most of your stay.
There are a lot of documentaries on Rapa Nui available on Netflix and YouTube, and I think we watched every one. They were all interesting, but the ones hypothesizing how the Moai (MOH-eye), the monolithic sculptures for which the island is known were moved into place with the limited tools of 600 years ago were especially fascinating. In the end, we named this "Our Mostly Moai Summer", as it felt as if every spare moment was spent in gaining an understanding about Rapa Nui.
This is the best video of the several we viewed about the history and culture of Rapa Nui. I particularly like the way the host points out the many inconsistencies in the theories about how and when things happened on the island. The overriding single element I picked up from all my research is this: Nobody knows for sure. There are hypotheses, of course, and some have now been discounted due to modern evaluative techniques, but the many mysteries of the island still remain.
This is the best video of the several we viewed about the history and culture of Rapa Nui. I particularly like the way the host points out the many inconsistencies in the theories about how and when things happened on the island. The overriding single element I picked up from all my research is this: Nobody knows for sure. There are hypotheses, of course, and some have now been discounted due to modern evaluative techniques, but the many mysteries of the island still remain.
With so many archaeological sites to explore and considering that fact that we can say, with certainty, we will never again return to Rapa Nui, we had to plan our time on the island very carefully. First, we are fortunate to have as much time there as we will (not that we had any control over that, what with the once a week flights). People visiting by cruise ship have, at most, two days, but in reading several trip reports about the island, most travelers admit more is required to get a really good sense of all it has to offer. Five days is frequently recommended as the right amount; we'll have five days plus our travel days.
However, we also didn't want to overschedule ourselves. We are not kids, and find that we travel best when we allow ourselves some intermittent down time. We want to enjoy Rapa Nui, not simply complete a checklist of things to see. And the overriding concern was to get the most out of our time at each archaeological site; therefore, we quickly made the decision to hire a guide for our tours on the island, and one of the most recommended tour companies is the one operated by James Grant-Peterkin himself, Easter Island Spirit tours. We have arranged full day private tours on three days on the island, and a partial day tour on a fourth day. This will leave us one and a half days on our own, to explore a bit, and two days for travel.
However, we also didn't want to overschedule ourselves. We are not kids, and find that we travel best when we allow ourselves some intermittent down time. We want to enjoy Rapa Nui, not simply complete a checklist of things to see. And the overriding concern was to get the most out of our time at each archaeological site; therefore, we quickly made the decision to hire a guide for our tours on the island, and one of the most recommended tour companies is the one operated by James Grant-Peterkin himself, Easter Island Spirit tours. We have arranged full day private tours on three days on the island, and a partial day tour on a fourth day. This will leave us one and a half days on our own, to explore a bit, and two days for travel.
We've been lead to expect basic accommodations, limited and expensive food items, little English, unrelenting sun and wind, horses and dogs roaming the island, leaving behind the obvious signs of their existence, and safe, but unpalatable drinking water.
We can't wait. :-)
A Brief History of Rapa Nui
Norwegian adventurer Thor Heyerdahl in 1947 launched his Kon Tiki expedition to prove that people could have emigrated from South America to the Tuamotu Archipelago in Polynesia. He also maintained that, en route, South Americans would have populated Easter Island, and this theory was widely held for decades, but modern day DNA analysis disproves it. Instead, it is believed that the first inhabitants of Rapa Nui arrived from either the Gambier or Marquesas island groups (both currently part of French Polynesia) around 900 AD as one of the final segments of the Polynesian Migration. The island would have looked quite differently than it does today, with 70% of it covered in palm trees and edible plants.
The carving of the statues for which the island is known began as a form of ancestor worship, stemming from the belief that an important person's spiritual power, or mana, could influence things long after their deaths (sounds a lot like Catholic saints to me). In Rapa Nui, when a chief or important member of a tribe died, a statue was carved from the quarry at Rano Raraku and transported back to his village where it was erected, not looking out to sea, as one might expect, but facing inland, to watch over their people. Just when these statues were carved is open to debate, but most archaeologists place the peak period from 1000 AD to 1600 AD.
On Easter Sunday 1722, Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen became the first European to spot Rapa Nui; hence, its name of Easter Island (with no consideration to what the Rapanui had been calling it). Due to rough weather, they spent only one day on the island to restock and left for Tahiti. The next European explorer, Felipe Gonzalez de Haedo of Spain, arrived on the island in 1770. He had the Rapa Nui sign a contract claiming the island for Spain (they had no idea what it said or of its significance), stayed for six days and left. No one from Spain ever returned to follow up on the claim.
Four years later, in 1774, British Captain Cook arrived, in need of supplies and fresh water. He and his crew were ill, and spent only four days on the island, but noted that it was in considerably worse condition than had been reported just four years earlier in de Haedo's journals. The Rapanui were dwindling in number and health, and many of the statues had been toppled, probably due to tribal warring. The journals of these three explorers are the only written history of the island from that time that exist today.
The Rapanui were then left to their own devices for the next 60 years or so, but it is obvious that something quickly changed. What effect, if any, the arrival of the Europeans had on the islanders will never be known, but sometime between Roggeveen's visit and 1838, all of the moai were thrown from their platforms. Those that are standing today have only been re-erected since 1955. It has been proven that the moai were pulled from their platforms, not toppled by a natural disaster such as a tsunami.
There are two theories as to why the moai were toppled. The first states that diminishing island resources caused inter-tribal warfare and that the statues were pulled down by attacking enemies. The second is that the Rapanui simply lost faith in them. Generation after generation saw the effort and dismissing natural resources that were spent carving and erecting them, and felt they were receiving nothing in return.
But if things were bad, they were about to get worse. In 1862, the first slave traders arrived and, in a series of raids, kidnapped 1500 Rapanui to work in agriculture in Peru. The impact on the Rapanui culture was devastating. The chiefs and elders who could still read the written history of the island were among the first taken. Many of the islanders died en route to Peru, and only 15 were ever returned, bringing with them smallpox, further decimating the population. From a high of perhaps 12000 people, only 111 remained in 1877.
In the midst of this crisis, the first Catholic missionary, Eugene Eyraud, arrived from Tahiti. While he was not very successful in converting the Rapanui to Christianity, he did get word out that the island was in a desperate state and, in 1866, a permanent Catholic mission was established. To the missionaries' credit, many Rapanui artifacts were preserved; unfortunately, they also put an end to several of the islanders' belief systems.
International interest in the island heated up again when England, anxious that France not expand its Polynesian holdings beyond Tahiti, encouraged Chile to lay claim to Rapa Nui. In 1888, a document written in Spanish was presented to the island's king, giving Chile "full and entire sovereignty" over the island forever. The Rapa Nui translation of this document, however, only offered "friendship and protection". This duplicitous translation lies at the heart of much of the anti-Chilean sentiment found on the island today.
Friendship and protection was also the stated intent of Scottish/Chilean nitrate and sheep farming company Williamson, Balfour & Co., who acquired the island on a 25 year basis in 1903 and set up the Easter Island Exploitation Company (Seriously? They were so brazen as to actually name it that??). 7000 sheep roamed the island freely while the Rapanui were fenced into Hanga Roa to prevent them from stealing the sheep. Simulating Scotland, rock walls were built all over the island, the rocks, of course, coming from the dismantling of ceremonial platforms. Despite several uprisings from the islanders, the contract was extended until it was finally revoked in 1953, when control of the island was handed over to the Chilean Navy.
The Chilean Navy offered dubious aid to the island by first outlawing the native language of Rapa Nui in favor of Spanish. But, more frequent ships to the island as well as the introduction of air travel allowed the Rapanui to have greatly increased exposure to the world beyond their shores and its sometimes self-serving practices, and, as a result, a strong autonomous movement was begun. In 1965 the Rapanui were allowed to elect their own mayor and in 1966 became full Chilean citizens. Today, there are several economic benefits granted to citizens of Rapa Nui that other Chilean citizens are denied (no income tax, subsidized travel, free schooling) in the interest of maintaining a civil relationship.
In 1995, the Rapa Nui National Park, comprising 40% of the island, was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site, giving it access to greater financial and conservation resources. The increased interest in tourism has given Rapa Nui a voice in Chile, and an improved infrastructure is seen as proof of Chile's commitment to the island.