by Katie Butler Johnson
One of the world’s most remote yet continuingly inhabited islands is Rapa Nui. You probably know Rapa Nui by the name given it by Dutch Admiral Jacob Roggeveen, the first European Explorer to reach it. Upon landing there on Easter Sunday, April 5, 1722, he dubbed it: “Easter Island.”
It's been seventeen years since I traveled to Easter Island. Seems like it was just yesterday. I remember horses roaming over the island as dogs roam over rural areas where there’s no leash law. I remember the Island Inn’s cocky rooster announcing tomorrow’s arrival well before I’d slept off my yesterdays. There were BBQs on the beach with new friends who’d traveled across more time zones than I had to get to that 63 square mile island where we sat in the sun watching the South Pacific’s waves lap in and wondering what it would be like to have been born an Islander. I learned many things about the island including two perplexing choices Rapa Nui forbearers had made: Their embrace of an ancestor worship cult and the method they chose to govern their island.
The first people to colonize Easter Island came from Western Polynesia. Sailing east in wooden outrigger canoes and guided across the Pacific Ocean by the stars, they landed on the island around 400ce. It was lush with trees and plants. For hundreds of years, the island provided more than enough resources for the Islanders needs.
Then, between 1400ce and 1600ce, the Islanders became obsessed with a cult of ancestor worship. They built those massive volcanic stone statues called “moai.” You’ve probably seen pictures of them in books or magazines. They’d chiseled volcanic rock into 1,043 moai - each averaging around 13 feet high and each weighing up to 95tons (as much as a 737 plane!) They believed these statues would capture the spirit of their deified ancestors who’d then protect them.
They decided to move some moai from the volcanic quarry where they’d been sculpted to prominent points around the island. To assist this, they cut down the islands’ trees. The trees were used as a kind of rolling surface on which they could maneuver the statues. They used rope wrapped around the moai to pull them along. Then they positioned them to face inwards towards the islanders and watch over them.
Cutting down all the trees caused the soil to dry out. With no trees to block the sun, the sun dried the soil and the wind blew around and battered planted crops. With no trees for nesting birds, the birds stopped coming to the island and the natives lost access to the bird eggs as a food source. This brought on famine and intertribal wars. Jarad Diamond calls this “exocide.” He explains it all in his 2005 book - “Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed.” Diamond uses Easter Island as a prime example of “exocide”.
Today, one can see partially buried moai scattered all across Easter Island. The heads are visible, but torsos reaching deep below are not. And there are many moai left unfinished.
When the moai period ended, the Islanders went through unrest which split them into warring tribes. Eventually they came up with what is known as the Birdman Competition to pick one top tribe to rule. It determined the island’s ruler for a year at a time. It sounds to me like a quirky system for deciding on a leader - kind of like governing by the results of an episode of Survivor.
The sooty tern would nest yearly on a rocky islet just off the island. A representative chosen from each island tribe would swim out to that islet where the birds were nesting. The first to retrieve an egg, swim back and bring in to his tribal chief without it breaking the egg would win the title of “tangata manu” or Birdman for his chieftain which would make his chief and his tribe rulers of the island till the next year’s competition. That yearly competition lasted till the mid 19th Century.
What about the islanders today? Chile annexed Easter Island in 1888 and the Islanders were made full citizens of Chile in 1966. In 1995 UNESCO named Easter Island a World Heritage Site.
Although it’s been 17 years since that Easter Island trip, I’ve revisited it many times since then - with my memory. Traveling is not a “one and done” activity. It’s a “one and forever after you have memories to revisit” activity. There’s only one essential thing you must do to have memories.
You’ve got to take that trip in the first place!
Happy Trails!!
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