The Easter Island (Rapa Nui - Te Pito or Te Henua)
On Easter Sunday 1722 an island appeared on the horizon... an island populated by immense stone statues called Moai. Who were the sculptors of these statues? And what secrets does the island hide?
Location and Geographical Info
At 27° south latitude, with a surface area of approximately 163 square metres, 60 km of coastline stands the legendary and mysterious Easter Island. It is about 3800 km from Chile, a state of which it belongs. It is also located almost 4263 km from Tahiti, while the closest inhabited center is the island of Pictarin, which is located approximately 2250 km to the west.
Its origin is clearly volcanic, as evidenced by the steep and dark cliffs that characterize the landscape. On the island which enjoys a typical sub-tropical climate, there are two beaches. One of these is characterized by fine white sand, while the other has sand with a fascinating slightly pink colour.
According to geologists, the island rose from the waters millions of years ago. The highest relief is Mount MAUNGA TEREVAKA, which reaches 507 meters above sea level. (If the ocean were dry, the entire island would be an immense mountain of over 3000 meters).
The Discovery of the Easter Island in 1722
It would seem that Easter Island had been known since 1686, but the islander's lack of hospitality and their anthropophagous habits kept the curious away for quite some time. On Easter Day 1722, the Dutch admiral Roggeveen spotted the island and decided to conduct a detailed exploration. He noted, among his writings, that the land he had sighted was an island whose tree vegetation did not exceed three meters in height; the rest of the island turned out to be covered by vast expanses of arid prairies.
The origins
An important contribution aimed at clarifying the origins of the Easter Island population came from Anthropology. Anthropologists have found traces of human settlements in Polynesia as early as 1200 BC. The Polynesian archipelago (part of French Polynesia) includes a group of islands called the Marquesas Islands. They have been inhabited since 300 AD. A century later it seems Easter Island was also inhabited. The political and social structure of the island went through various phases, a first phase between the 5th and 9th centuries AD. This phase was followed by a period of extreme development, in which the population reached around 15,000 units.
The Legend of Hotu-Matua
An ancient Easter Island legend tells that the first inhabitants came from an island called Marae-rengo or Hiva, much further west. This group of colonizers were led by a leader, a certain Hotu-Matua who also brought animals and vegetation to the island. Legend has it that the sea voyage took place by means of a canoe.
The tribe of Hotu-Matua settled on the island and upon his death he divided the kingdom between his sons and this is how the first conflicts began. However, the entire kingdom was pervaded by a strong and rigid hierarchy which saw the King in first place, to whom divine powers were attributed. Then there were priests, guardians of writing, of the art of divining and propitiating events. Then there were the Nobles and finally the warriors. The artisans were a class of their own, they were responsible for the construction of the mythical and disturbing Moai. Here, however, another legend opens up which embodies, regardless of the historical value it may have, the nature of the island's populations. A stubborn, strong and proud nature.
Legend has it that the island of Rapa-Nui was once dominated by the Long Ears who had the Moai and the Ahu (ceremonial platforms) built by the Short Ears. The legend continues by saying that one day, inexplicably, the Long Ears ordered the Short Ears to throw the stones (the Moai?) into the sea (was it perhaps a rebellion against the ancient institutions? A rejection of the ancient beliefs and ancient certainties?). The Short Ears, probably superstitious, opposed this order because according to them it was precisely the stones that allowed a profitable harvest of potatoes and sugar cane (local sources of primary importance). The Long Ears then decided to kill all the Short Ears and feast on their meat (perhaps the legend is intended to be a justification for the cannibalism of Easter Island? see decline of the island and cannibalism below). But the plan of the despot masters failed miserably and the Short Ears managed to defeat the oppressors and become the masters of the island. The Long Ears were slaughtered and burned in a mass grave. In support of the probable historical root of the legend, during an excavation campaign conducted on the island, a trench was found with numerous remains of human bones and charcoal, which could therefore be the place where the Long Ears ended up burned.
The historical origins
Legends aside, the most pressing question is how, but above all where, did the inhabitants of this island come from? The debate was born in the aftermath of the exploration and remained alive and in very strong tones for over 250 years. The discussion was particularly heated on some points. Many were skeptical that the first settlers were Polynesians. In fact, they had always been attributed with a rather primitive technology which would not have allowed them to reach the remote Easter Island, nor could the Polynesians have been the sculptors of the immense statues symbolizing the island. On the basis of these premises which seem to want to exclude the Polynesian origin of the island's civilization, the Norwegian Thor Heyerdal moved in the 1950s, proposing an original theory according to which the colonizers of Easter Island were American Indians. These would have emigrated - according to Thor - from the regions near Lake Titicaca (Bolivia/Peru), towards Polynesia and also towards Easter Island. To validate his thesis, to give it the right amount of credibility, he attempted a similar crossing of the Pacific.
The Kon Tiki
The Kon-Tiki was a raft built with 7 balsa logs, designed by Thor to emulate the exploits of the ancient Indians of his theory. The name Kon-Tiki was the name, according to legends, of the mythical leader of these fearless transmigators of oceans. In 101 days of sailing Thor managed to land on an atoll, the Raroia Atoll of the Tuamotu Islands. This crossing could demonstrate that the ancient colonizers of the island were Indians but the medico-legal and anthropological studies conducted on the oldest human remains found on the island ineluctably demonstrate that the ancient inhabitants of Easter Island were Polynesians. They presumably advanced from Asia moving eastward.
Moreover, even Captain Cook, who had the opportunity to come into contact with the natives of the island, noticed that the linguistic group was clearly Polynesian. Furthermore, the rudimentary weapons found on the island, the fishing hooks and other tools are of a distinctly Polynesian style. Some years ago, in 1994 to be precise, studies conducted on the DNA of the human remains of the first inhabitants of Easter Island demonstrated a great compatibility between the DNA of the bones found on the Island and that of modern Polynesians. These tests, which are otherwise difficult to refute, they silenced - perhaps definitively - the imaginative rumors about the origins of the island's population. Even those who called Extraterrestrials into question.
Modern studies
Modern studies are offering great satisfaction and, finally, great certainties thanks to the contribution of some fundamental sciences. Among them, an exceptional contribution came from Palynology (= the study of fossil pollen).
Palynology is a particularly effective science. Its applications are multiple. Using it it is possible to advance hypotheses about eating habits, flora, climatic and environmental conditions of ancient civilisations. Essentially there must be a pond, a swamp, in which to dig vertically in order to measure the geological age of the sediments with carbon 14. These are then analyzed under the microscope trying to understand their nature.
The discoveries of Palynology
According to Palynology, about 30,000 years ago, Easter Island was covered with dense subtropical vegetation. There were low-stemmed plants, different types of grass and myriads of ferns. Pollen from "hau hau", the rope tree, and from "toromiro" burning tree were found.
An immense quantity of tropical palm pollen was also found, which however has now totally disappeared from the island. The presence of the palm also suggests some dietary hypotheses of the ancient indigenous people.
Dolphin bones were also found in some pits. The dolphin is a mammal that moves in the relatively open sea, reachable with agile and fast boats and, obviously, resistant like those that can be obtained from palm wood.
Palynology has continued its surprising discoveries, also providing dates that can be considered more than reliable. Around the year 800 AD, it seems that the disappearance of the dense vegetation began. In the sediments analyzed, there is a large quantity of traces of burned trees precisely in correspondence with the layer relating to that period. As the date increases, the pollen of palms and tall trees begins to decrease, at the same time there is a progressive and, almost, proportional increase in pollen from various herbs.
In the sediments after around 1400, there is no longer any trace of Palma.
The presence of the Hau hau tree and the Toromiro on the island has decreased considerably, again in relation to the sediment dated 1400.
Ultimately, palynology has highlighted how during the 1400s (15th century), an entire sub-tropical forest was lost on Easter Island.
A sinister omen
From the above text it is possible to hypothesize a breakdown in the food chain that has been crystallized for centuries. The continuous fomenting of new wars has given great impetus to the production of weapons. These were made with wood from the island. The excessive consumption of such woods produced a sudden shortage of food for some bird species. These partly began to emigrate, partly to die and therefore to become extinct.
These species were also mainly responsible for pollination between plants, which therefore accentuated their process of disappearance. The island's eco system was already compromised.
A sudden and unexpected proliferation of mice dealt the final blow to the already compromised balance of the island. In fact, these mice did not have much food available - while man continued his activity as a hunter and warrior regardless of what was happening - they therefore shifted their ravenous attention to the tender and appetizing fruits of the palm, effectively preventing this from producing new sprouts. Thus, in short, the palm trees disappeared from the island.
At that point the man had to radically change his eating habits. Palynology once again tells us that around the year 1500, there were no more dolphin bones in the sediments. Precisely because of the impossibility of building new boats with the palms.
The natives then intensified poultry farming but, in the end, they had to abandon themselves to anthropophagy.
Once again it is palynology that comes to us and reveals this sinister epilogue. Many human bones have been found in the sediments of the last period.
Even some oral traditions, however it must be said for the record, disavowed and not recognized by the descendants of the islanders, speak precisely of this practice, in use among the once again palynology that comes to us and reveals this sinister epilogue. Is this a warning to us? Is this a way of warning us of those who before us have experienced first-hand the disastrous results of indiscriminate land deforestation?
The cult of the birdman
The transition from one phase to another, heavily marked by ecological disasters, meant that the religion of Easter Island also underwent a drastic revolution. From the cult of the Moai (we will talk about these shortly) we moved on to the cult of the birdman, whose symbol was the egg. The egg, according to the Rapa-Nui religion, was the incarnation of the god Make-Make, and the Birdman ceremony was dedicated to it. The nerve center of the ritual was the village called Orongo, it was located on the edge of a crater called Rano-Kao. The ritual was similar to a hunting trip and followed, more or less, these times. At first the warriors aspiring to the title of Bird Man sent one of their observers onto a rock so that he could notice the moment in which the Manu-Tara birds they laid the first egg. As soon as one of the servants noticed the deposition, he swam to the island with the egg tied to his forehead and, dodging the waves and the ravenous sharks, placed this egg on the head of his master who became, in effect, the birdman.
The birdman enjoyed many privileges, among them that of being supported for the whole year (until the next ceremony) at the expense of the tribe and that of naming the year after him. After all the celebrations, a nice ritual featured the chicks born from some of those eggs. These were raised and then freed with a profound and therefore heartfelt mission, which was concretized with these ritual words: <<...fly away, far away, on other lands...>>. The birdman ceremony profoundly marked the souls and above all the culture of the entire population during the period of decline of the island. The first of these ceremonies apparently dates back to around 1500, while the last documented ceremony dates back to 1878.
Easter Island is best known for its titanic sculptures, the Moai. But there are many and varied mysteries that make Easter Island one of the most mythical places on the planet. Before moving on to examine the mysteries of the Island, a mention certainly deserves a dark prophecy, which defines Easter Island as the "navel of the world" (nb: the name of the island, Te pito or Te Henua, can be translated as Navel of the world).
This prophecy says more or less these words:
<<...great upheavals will devastate the earth, forcing man to start over from scratch. Only one island will remain, in the center of the world it will remain. And when it too will be swallowed up by the ocean, then that will be the end of the Times...>>
The Moai
The first visitors who arrived on the island were amazed by what they called the stone giants, the Moai, carved in the rock taken - presumably - from the Ranu Raraku volcano. According to the most ancient tradition, the Moai were the effigies of the ancient ancestors of the island's populations. They represented a sort of semi-gods, they were venerated and loved, but then - suddenly - their cult fell into heavy decline and several of those statues were torn down. In all likelihood the decline of the Moai cult must be traced back to the time when food and plant resources began to run out on the island. A sort of distrust towards traditions, probably, he attacked the natives who revolted against their gods and embraced the new religion of the Birdman (see previous parts). The Moai that populated the island were very often - as well as with their backs facing the sea (this perhaps tells us that the first colonizers came from the sea itself) - positioned on platforms called Ahh.
These were large slabs of rock with clear ceremonial functions.
On the island there are several Ahu which vary in length from 80 meters to 150 meters for an average height of 3 meters. The most important function in which the Ahu were protagonists was related to the cult and veneration of the deceased. On a terrace located near the Ahu, the bodies of the island's deceased were displayed for about two or three years. After this period the bodies - or what remained of them anyway - were buried in small cells created under a flight of stairs leading from the Ahu up to the statues. This was to respect a dating back tradition which wanted the deceased to wander around the platform for a certain period of time before reaching the night ("po" in the indigenous language), the place from which all the ships of the ancestors had departed.
But what were the Moai? According to some traditions they were monsters used to defend the island, but this does not explain why the gaze of the Moai is directed towards the interior of the island and not towards the sea. The theory according to which they were hoisted to eternally mark the burial place of the island's noble personalities seems to be considered more truthful.
They are, however, statues, more precisely they are the sculpted representation of human heads. The somatic features appear to be Indo-European.
The Moai Rock
The Moai are built or rather carved on tuff-based rocks. The origin of these rocks is the area adjacent to the Rano Raraku volcano. In this place a very interesting discovery was made: a quarry was found, from which the tuff was extracted to sculpt the stone giants, which still contained within it approximately 400 Moai in the process of being worked on. It was a great discovery that allowed us to understand the manufacturing techniques of these statues, which were also based on very simple tools, but it also allowed us to put forward some hypotheses regarding their transportation which is not an element to be underestimated at all.
Hypotheses on the transport of Moai
According to the traditions of the island, the Moai moved thanks to the "Mana" of the great and mythical leader Tuu-ko-ihu. He infused his spirit into the statues which came to life and reached the place of installation on their own. In scientific terms, the first person who posed the problem of transporting the Moai was an archaeologist, Katherine Routledge. According to her thesis, the colossi were erected thanks to ramps built with rounded pebbles on which the statue was slid. In order not to damage the statue during transport, since rubbing would have consumed a large part of it, these ramps were sprinkled with crushed potato pulp which acted as an excellent lubricant, limiting the damage caused by friction enough. Once at the installation site, again according to the scholar, the Moai was erected thanks to a system of wooden levers. The thesis has a strong probability of being true as there are numerous stone ramps with rounded pebbles found next to the platforms.
According to another scholar, however, the Moai were simply transported with the aid of trunks on which the statue was slid. A bit like what is done today to beach small boats with the help of those rubber rollers on which the keel of the boat slides. According to the scholar's thesis, the trunks came from the sea, as the island did not have sufficient vegetation. Another interesting hypothesis comes to us from an American archaeologist, Mulloy.
His thesis was essentially based on the idea that the Moai were dragged by placing them on their belly side on an enormous sled. Then a sort of fork was placed on the statue and a rope was tied around the giant's neck. This rope fixed to the top of the fork poles would have produced a slight swing which, thanks also to the sled, would have moved the statue.
Applying this - complicated in some ways - hypothesis to concrete facts, in about 20 days, with the help of a dozen Easter residents, he managed to transport and hoist a 10-ton Moai 4 meters high.
The Moai and the legends
The Moai, although they are not the only mystery of Easter Island, have always stimulated the collective imagination of those who observe them. But few perhaps know that once upon a time they too had their own sight which over the years was lost mainly due to bad weather.
In 1986 an archaeologist, native of the island, managed to reconstruct the ancient eyes of the Moai from the fragments of coral scattered around the statues, giving them back the charm of the past. But then, after so much care, why did the cult of these ancestors suddenly decline? Why were they shot down? There is no certainty, but only hypotheses. Once it seems that the island was full of these Moai. But then, as demonstrated by the discovery of the quarry with the statues under construction, the work was suddenly abandoned. The only plausible explanation seems to be that the customs of the island changed due to the upheavals that the depletion of the land was bringing. The natives, feeling abandoned, sought redemption in the revolt against the gods. Or perhaps a legend that barely circulates on the island is true, a legend that speaks of magic and spells.
It is said on the island of the Moai sculptors fed on special fish caught for them by fishermen. One day the fishermen managed to catch a huge lobster and brought it to the sculptors. These, not knowing how to cook it, turned to a sorceress who offered to cook it in exchange for a portion of the crustacean. Having started cooking the lobster, the sorceress left the fire for personal matters. Upon returning, the lobster had been completely eaten by the sculptors who - according to them - needed a lot of nourishment because they were working on a very demanding Moai. But the sorceress didn't want to listen to reason and he cursed them:
<< ... while you are standing, you fall! And you, sculptors, you will never steal food again, freeze!>>
Thus the Moai fell and could no longer be replaced because the sculptors became made of stone. This legend is certainly fascinating, but doesn't it contain a moral? What if the lobster was the symbol of the island's prosperity? What if the sculptors represented the ancient inhabitants?
The ancient inhabitants, too busy with their business, their rituals, believe that everything is due. Their behavior makes them selfish to the point of depopulating the island of every source of nourishment (= the sculptors eat lobster), to the point of impoverishing it. So, when the mechanism has already started, all that remains is to deny the old traditions (= the sorceress who casts her curses) in the hope that in the future no one will ever make the same mistakes again.
The Rongo Rongo tablets
Another interesting mystery that populates Easter Island is that relating to the so-called Rongo Rongo tablets. These are wooden tablets (hence the name talking wood) which bear hieroglyphic inscriptions. Most of these tablets, however, have been lost due to the indiscriminate purge work that the colonizers undertook.
Starting from Rapanui's own observations we can say that it most likely derives from archaic Polynesian. From 400 AD onwards it developed its own words while keeping alive the derivation from the "Austronesian" linguistic stock.
But if, nevertheless, we know relatively much about the language of the island, nothing has been equally understood about the obscure writing of the Rongo Rongo tablets.
The fact that can be defined as disconcerting in this regard is the similarity of the hieroglyphic signs contained in the tablets with hieroglyphic signs found in the Indian city of Mohenjo-daro. Only 21 tablets have survived to this day for a total of approximately 14,000 signs. Of these we only know, from the oral traditions of the island, that they were used by singers to recite auspicious words during rites, or to cast or remove curses.
The fact that the writing contained in the tablets resembles that of an Indian city is undoubtedly dismaying. It is so unlikely that the same way of expressing oneself could have developed in two places so far from each other. It is as if these two cultures have come into contact with each other, as if their distance was canceled by a bridge, or by a large continent.
Mu
The map below is the reconstruction of a careful scholar, Churchward, of what the lost continent of Mu could have been.
At the south-eastern tip of this continent Easter Island is clearly seen. If this continent really existed it does not seem at all difficult to admit finding points of contact between the cultures of Rapa Nui and cultures that flourished in southern Asia. Moreover, during his travels, Churchward himself had the opportunity to notice other disconcerting similar coincidences.
This is the case of the so-called Niven tablets from Mexico which, according to the scholar, reported signs that he himself had the opportunity to see on texts preserved in some Indian monasteries.
Origins of the name Mu
Ernest Hackel, a German naturalist, in the 1870s concentrated on the study of what appeared to him as a strange phenomenon. The Lemur, a monkey found in Madagascar, in internal Africa and India, had the characteristic of having reached the same level of evolution in each of these places, precisely in areas that are geographically separated by huge ocean masses.
According to Darwin's theories, the animal should have evolved only in one of those regions and therefore the presence of a land mass, of continental dimensions, which acted as a bridge between the different places was "indispensable". This mass of land would then have sunk, bringing with it what Hackel called << Le - mu - riani >>, the first inhabitants of the world.
This theory, however, was dismantled by Wegener who proposed his theory of continental drift, which were once all united in Pangea, therefore no bridges of emerged lands, but they are a mass of land which over time has given life - dividing very slowly - to the current continents. This is how the Lemur was able, according to this theory, to evolve and distribute itself in the various places where it can be found today.
But Churchward borrowed the syllable Mu to coin the name of what he believed was the true homeland of humanity.
According to his research, Mu extended westwards towards the Ladrones Islands, eastwards towards Easter Island, northwards towards Hawaii and southwards towards the island of Tonga. The people inhabiting this continent were skilled and advanced in navigation. Traveling around the world he brought with him the culture that he spread among the peoples and lands he visited.
This is why the strange coincidences between different cultures. In particular Churchward studying the Nacaal Tablets in Tibet, (place of discovery of the Crystal Skull), the continent of Atlantis and Egypt. Regarding this continent he stated that the god Osiris was native to Atlantis but was educated in Mu due to the greater culture of that land. And from those lands also came the god Thoth, father of writing, who gave the world the secret of hieroglyphics.
Immense underground tunnels
If this continent really existed then Easter Island with its silent Moai still has a lot to say, and perhaps the enormous, dark tunnels present in various parts of the island have a lot to say. Actually there is no reason for such tunnels to be present on an island just 10 km wide (from coast to coast). Ancient legends say that these tunnels lead directly to Asia and America and that they were dug by the ancient inhabitants of a land which also included Easter Island, to escape an imminent catastrophe.
Perhaps the only ones who know the truth are the timeless and fearless faces of the Moai who saw their island shine and dissolve helplessly.
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