I met Paul Emmerson at breakfast and we decided to have a look at some of the sights close to Hanga Roa, then visit the museum and finally go to the National Parks. There are quite a few moia in the town and just outside, and we religiously viewed them all. One of these is dedicated to the seven Polynesian explorers who set out in a canoe and traveled thousands of miles before finding Easter Island, and this at a time when Europeans were afraid of falling off the edge of the world! These exploerers may have come from the Marquesas Islands and were led by Hotu Matu'a. Whilst the Ivth century is often mooted as the date for this event, recent investigations suggest that the VII century or even XIIth century are more likely dates for the start of this colonisation. Within a couple of centuries the population of the island expanded with some rapidity, and they became organised into 10 mata or main groups, in a typical Polynesian way.
For many centuries the religious beliefs of worshiping their ancestors held sway. These were apparent in the construction of "ahe" (raised stone platforms) on which they placed the carved moai. However as with all human races, internal wars developed and over a period of 200 years or so all the moais on the island were toppled over face downards.
The Rapanui culture had a system of writing that saw lines of symbols carved out on pieces of wood, and each line was upside down to the preceeding one. The symbols were not a sound, but rather denoted items and objects. The Peruvian slave invaders in the XIXth century removed virtually all the local natives skilled in the art of reading resulting in this written language dying. Allied to diseases brought in by Europeans, this all resulted in a virtual extermination of the Rapanui people.
After our initial bout of visits we made our way to the museum, which was a longer walk than we at first anticipated. Whilst although the displays and plaques were written up in Spanish, we received a booklet with English translations of all that was there, so it was really worthwhile a visit and answered many of the questions that we had in mind. The first Europeans to make contact with the island landed there on Easter Sunday 1722, hence the name.
The two National Parks lie at opposite ends of the Islands and are both volcanic craters that helped form the Island 3 million years ago when Poike or Pua Katiki first errupted and raised itself some 3000m above the sea bed. It remained a small island for about 2 million years, when Rano Kau did likewise and then Maunga Terevaka followed suit to create the island as it is now.
Our host, Sergio turned out to be a retired archeologist, closely allied to the restoration of the moai and a man who has lectured at Cambridge University, and pretty fluent English speaker. I must say that visiting these two parks made it a memorable day, in terms of sightseeing possibly the best of the trip so far, and well worth the 30,000 pesos fee for admitance. We decided to start of with the Rano Raraku site as it was the furthest away. Although it was overcast there was no sign of rain and visibility was much better.
There were two paths leading into the national park. We were told to take the left had path first then come back down and take the right hand one. The initial path led into the volcano crater.
Returning from the crater and taking the right hand path takes you around the outside of the volcano past the largest conglomoration of moais on Easter Island.
Paul catching the moais for posterity on his camera!
A view of the Anakena ahe and moais from the side of Rano Raraku.
After completing our survey of the area we drove the 24Km of the southern coast road to Orongo. This inolved a journey along a dire stone/dirt road climbing to the top of Rano Kau volcano. The sight here was even more spectacular than at the previos sight as the volcano is virtually situated on the edge of the sea.
Just a bit further down is Orongo ceremonial village consisting of 54 houses. It was used for only a short time each year in early spring and relates to the Make-Make cult which replaced the Moai tradition. The village was however built before this cult took hold, probably from about the end of XVI century.
The winner became the known as the tangata-manu or birdman. He or his chief received the award and was acknowledged as the leader for a year. He was considered sacred and lived alone with a priest in ceremonial reclusion. He was not allowed to cut his hair and only the priest could wash him. He also could not be seen by all lesser mortals during his year in office.
We managed to do the final circuit on the island just before it got dark, but it was the least interesting one and consisted of several caves which we did not enter. After a breather at the hotel we nipped up the road for dinner and both had tuna washed down by Pisco Sours and beer. Of the list of ten songs I picked for the trip, Paul managed to find all but two, Johnny Restivo's The Shape I'm In and the Rolling Stones It's All Over Now.
These circular constructions related to some children's game, but quite what their significance was eluded me.
