Easter Island

EASTER ISLAND
The Eternal Vigil

For information on the origin of these monuments, go to the Current Theories section. Otherwise, continue on to Ollantaytambo.

Figure 1: Easter Island Moai crowned with their gigantic topknots.

Known to its inhabitants since ancient times as Te-Pito-O-Te-Henua, "The Navel of the World", and as Mata-Ki-Te-Rani, "Eyes Looking at Heaven", Easter Island is literally covered with the statues depicted in figure 1, all holding an eternal vigil across to the west. Many in ancient times had painted eyes, painted white with black pupils, that gave the impression that they were not only gazing towards the setting sun, but also upwards towards the heavens, as depicted in figure 2.

Admiral Roggeveen, who came upon the island on Easter Day in 1722, gave this place its current name, Easter Island. It is over 3,200 kms from the nearest population centre (Tahiti and Chile). As such, much speculation has been involved in the origin of the inhabitants of this isolated place. Thor Heyerdahl proposed that the people who built the statues were of Peruvian descent, due to a similarity between the islanders' and Incan stonework.

The island is part of a massive subterranean escarpment known as the East Pacific Rise, which reaches almost to the surface at several points.

The oldest local traditions describe Easter Island as having once been part of a "much larger country" (Maziere 1969). In the mythical past:

"a potent supernatural being named Uoke, who came from a place called Hiva...travelled about the Pacific with a gigantic lever with which he pried up the whole islands and tossed them into the sea where they vanished under the waves. After thus destroying many islands he came at length to Te-Pito-O-Te-Henua, then a much larger land than it is today. He began to lever up parts of it and cast them into the sea [but] the rocks of the island were too sturdy for Uoke's lever, and it was broken against them. He was unable to dispose of the last fragment, and this remained as the island we know today". (Engelbert 1972)

In addition to the statues, the islanders possessed the Rongorongo script; the only written language in Oceania.

Originally, the writings were formulated by people known as Ma'ori-Ko-Hau-Rongorongo. the term Ma'ori, not to be confused with the Maori of New Zealand, within this context literally means "Master of Special Knowledge" (Engelbert 1972). These people came to the island, according to the myths, with the original inhabitants, lead by Hotu Matua, after leaving Hiva, the mysterious island that was swallowed up by the sea. They were scribes, literate men. Their function was to recite the sacred words written on 67 wooden tablets that Hotu Matua had brought with him from Hiva and, when the originals became rotten or worn out, to recopy the writings on to replacement tablets.

Figure 3: Petroglyphs found on the cliffs at Orongo.

Figure 2: Moai with traditionally painted eyes, seemingly gazing skywards.

The island is also home to many petroglyphs (rock carvings), as seen in figure 3. Many represent animals, notably birds or anthropomorphic birdmen.

One of the major peculiarities of the island is that one would expect evidence of experimentation or trial-and-error in erecting these great statues. Far from it though, we find that the artistic and elaborate nature of these structures are fully developed at the beginning of the statue-making phase, with the very best of these statues being the earliest ones. The same goes for the massive stone platforms, known as "Ahu", on which many of the Moai stand. Once again, we see that the earlier examples tend to be far superior to those built later. Oddly reminiscent of Egypt and the pyramids of the 4th Dynasty in comparison to those of later dynasties.

Even archaeologists acknowledge that "the classic statue form was already well-developed" by the time the first inhabitants arrived (Bahn and Flenley 1992).

Figure 4: Example of the wooden tablets upon which the Rongorongo script is carved. Click for example of the text.

Figure 5: A sample of the Rongorongo script that has been redrawn to highlight the figures used. This form of writing bears a striking resemblance to the forms of heiroglyphics used in ancient Egypt and the Indus Valley civilisations.

This is not a myth: 24 of these tablets survive to date (see figure 4). They take the form of flat wooden boards, rounded at the edges, shiny with use and age. Inscribed on these boards are hundreds of different symbols - animals, birds, fish, and abstract shapes (see figure 5). Linguists point out that there are far too many shapes to be a phonetic alphabet or syllabary, and argue that they are fully developed hieroglyphic script similar to that of ancient Egypt or the Indus valley civilisations (Engelbert 1972).

The only people that could read this text, the Ma'ori-Ko-Hau-Rongorongo, were finally to become extinct when, in 1862, slave raiders took the last of these people away. The last thread of tradition that may have given us an insight into deciphering these texts was then severed.

To balance these viewpoints, a report tabled by Steven Fischer, Ph.D. is hereby provided, with a corresponding critique and general overview offered by Jacques Guy, Ph.D. Although these are useful and well-researched assessments, they do not conclude the origin of these texts, nor how they were developed. The truth remains that today we can only guess at the content of these scripts and wonder why, for so long, they were attributed such reverence by the Easter Islanders.

Figure 6: 15 Moai on a temple platform, or "Ahu".

REFERENCES:

Bahn, P., Flenley, J.; (1992) Easter Island, Earth Island, Thames & Hudson, London, p 56, 149.

Englebert, Father S.; (1972) Island at the Centre of the World, Robert Hale & Co., London, p 45, 74-6.

Maziere, F.; (1969) Mysteries of Easter Island, Collins, London, p 41.