The enigma of Easter Island

Rapa Nui (Easter Island), Chile

After a sudden and violent gust of wind and anxious looks all round, the Lan Chile Boeing 767 lurches towards the 3km track of Mataveri airport. The track, barely visible in the sleeting rain, was lengthened to allow for the emergency landing of American space shuttles: an investment of 7 million dollars, entirely financed by the United States.

The tarmac glistens in the rain. There are few tourists in March, the start of the wet season. After five hours and 4,000km of ocean since our departure from Fa’aa airport in Tahiti, we gratefully lift our faces to the salty sea air and drizzle. In the small hall of the air terminal, we wait alongside native Easter Islanders for the arrival of our belongings. In the absence of a true port on the island, supply is maintained by weekly flights: two from Tahiti and five from Santiago.

The island is a small pin in the vast ocean: 24km long and 12km wide. The nearest inhabited place is the even tinier Pitcairn Island 1,900km away (site of the infamous Bounty mutineers). It was in 1722, on Easter Sunday, that Jacob of Roggeveen, a Dutch sailor, discovers this tiny volcanic land. He named it Easter Island (Paasch Eylandt). Its modern Polynesian name is Rapa Nui. Historians believe its original name is Te-Pito-Te-Henua, the navel of the world.

The archaeological relics left by the ancient islanders are so disconcerting that they remain one of the most intriguing enigmas of history. Silent witnesses of this past time, the colossal Moais made the fame of this small island. Their incongruous size contrasts with the tiny land stripped of resources which shelters them. These gigantic stone sentinels, turning their backs to the sea and staring blindly at the sun with their hollow orbits, stimulate all kinds of speculation about their origin. In the beginning, the Polynesians turned up in long canoes full of animals (dogs, pigs and chickens) and plants (sweet potatoes, breadfruit, bananas and coconuts). They also brought worship, rituals and the construction of remarkable monuments. The question is why and how these people built, transported and erected these impressive sculptures. Yet another mystery is that of stone slabs covered with signs (Rongo- Rongo) which we still cannot decipher. These symbols are perhaps the most puzzling, as writing was not a part of Polynesian culture.

Easter Island is also a striking example of the way in which human societies are dependent on their environment and the consequences that involves the irreversible damage that they cause. What happened for this civilization to disappear so suddenly? Theories abound from attacks by foreign slavers, the diseases they brought with them, overuse and destruction of natural resources leading to famine and death, to inter-tribal warfare and persecution. Legend states that King Hotu Matua of the ‘Long Ears’ tribe went to war with the ‘Short Ears’. The Short Ears won, banquets were held and enemy corpses were consumed. (Cannibalism ended after the introduction of Christianity in the 19th century.) Whichever of these events prevailed, by the early 19th century there remained only a hundred or so natives out of the twenty thousand at its peak.

For now, our host Ramon cheerily greets and welcomes us with a garland of colourful hibiscus. He and his wife Josie are experienced guides, Josie being the granddaughter of William Mulloy, the American archaeologist who came to Easter Island in the 1950s to resurrect the Moai. Ramon takes us to his family home/guesthouse, but not before taking us on a tour of the only town, Hanga Roa, population 4,000. He points to this and that, where to eat, where not to eat, the football pitch, the church, the Chilean Navy outpost and so on.

Impatient to discover the island and its mysteries, we rent a 4x4 and leave at once. What strikes us are the colours of the landscapes. The ocean is a deep, vivid blue. The powerful waves of the Pacific crash thunderously white against black cliffs. Brave young islanders can be seen surfing not far off the coast. Contrary to popular belief, there are trees, lots of them, but most of the island is covered in grassland and there are gently sloping hills all around. It is green and pleasant, rather like England on a hazy summer’s day. Semi-wild horses trot about and there are cattle roaming and criss-crossing the roads.

We begin our exploration following red volcanic ground tracks, and we soon arrive at the foot of Rano Raraku, the quarry which provided the raw material to carve the bodies of Moais. Its aspect suggests an abrupt interruption of work. A hundred statues remain unfinished and others look forlorn, abandoned all around the crater. The sight of toppled Moais ‘sleeping’ on their bellies is arresting. Once hewn from the brittle basalt rock, they were transported towards their Ahu (the altars on which the statues stand), sometimes tens of kilometres away. This question will continue to haunt us during our stay: how people managed to carry over such long distances these enormous blocks of volcanic rock (the largest Moai measures 21m and weighs nearly 100 tons). Various theories abound. Some believe in the mystic (the statues were transported by Mana, the spiritual force of the tribal chiefs), the eccentric (extraterrestrials transported the statues using laser beams) or the rational (progress was made by swinging or rolling on beams). But the statues carry no trace of blows or scrapes to guide us.

The slow degradation of Moais is alarm- ing. Modern techniques make it possible to delay the erosion from 30 to 50 years. But these techniques are costly and a burden to the local economy. Will the Western world help to preserve the ruins of a civilization it once helped destroy?

We visit Orongo, site of the huge Rano Kau crater. It is dedicated to Make Make, the God-Bird. At the beginning of southern spring, when terns come to lay their eggs on an offshore outcrop, the elders organized a contest for the search of the first tern egg. After having climbed down an impressive cliff-face and swum a shark- infested sea, the winner could claim to be Birdman, an incarnation of a god, for one year.

The Birdman cult ended with the arrival of Christianity, the island was annexed to Chile and in 1888, leased to a British company to raise sheep. This exploitation lasted until the mid-20th century when the island was finally connected to the rest of the world by regular air flights and by the advent of modern tourism.

After five full days on the island we were sorry to leave, our hearts heavy and our heads still full of unanswered questions, but happy to have had a glimpse of a truly extraordinary culture and a magical land.

Text & photos: Sophie Jameela Handy