Easter Island - Ahu Tongariki

 

I made my way down the hill where I came upon Ahu Vinapu, a ceremonial platform with incredibly precise stonemasonry that once used to carry Moai statues. The Moai were knocked down between the 18th-19th centuries during the warring periods between clans. Six of them are visible, face down on the ground. Nearby is a buried Moai from which only the head protrudes.

Travelling along the southern coastline of the island, my next stop was Akahanga, an ancient village where Hotu Matu’a is said to have been buried. Here, the ahu, a 59ft (18m) long platform with 13 toppled statues has been left unrestored to illustrate the decline of Rapa Nui culture. 

The ahu were sacred platforms dedicated to ancestor worship. On top were the famous Moai statues, each with its own name. When a king died, a statue was erected in his name. 

The largest platform is at Ahu Tongariki, about 5mi (8km) east of Akahanga. At 330ft (100m) in length the ahu holds 15 Moai of varying heights and sizes. The tallest is 28ft (8.6m) and weighs 86 tonnes. Originally all the statues had a pukao (ceremonial hats) but only one remains with it on. 

The statues have a minimalist, consistent form. Column-shaped, they have an elongated head, long ears, long nose and protruding lips. The eyes are sunken and hollow but at one time the eyes were filled with coral and black obsidian or red scoria as the pupils. The body is squatting with arms in various positions and without legs. 

The Moai are made of tuff quarried from the nearby Rano Raraku, a volcanic crater. Most of the carving occurred at the quarries by chipping away at the rock until most of the sculpture emerged. It was then smoothed with pumice and prepared for transportation. Evidence indicates that ropes and wooden sleds on rollers pulled by a large group of islanders were used to transport the statues to their ahu. A stone ramp with levers was then built to help push the Moai into position. Once upright the carvers would complete the back of the statue, and the ramp and levers were removed. 

A significant amount of finished and unfinished statues remains in the main quarry, with hundreds more scattered on the grounds, buried up to their necks. For a long time and many still think that the heads were all there was to the statues. However, following an extensive study, archaeologists excavated two statues revealing their hidden bodies. The statues with only the heads visible are a result of the island’s natural erosion. A build up of rocks and sediment over centuries buried the statues, preserving their torsos and the etched petroglyphs on their back. 

With nearly 1,000 statues discovered, the task of carving, transporting and placing them all over the island would have been a monumental and physically wearing task.

Easter Island - Hanga Roa

The island of Rapa Nui, commonly known as Easter Island, is one of the most isolated places in the world, located 2,180mi (3,500km) west of continental Chile in the South Pacific Ocean. A UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1995, Easter Island is famous for its collection of monolithic statues, known as Moai and the unusual Birdman Cult. 

The island’s beginning is a little sketchy with most of what is known obtained either from oral recordings or archaeological excavations. Settled by Polynesians, radiocarbon dating suggests arrival around 1200 AD, however, some scholars posit that colonisation may have occurred as early as 700 AD.

Oral history tells the story of Hotu Matu’a, a tribal chief from somewhere near the Marquesas Islands (about 2,000mi / 3,200km northeast of Easter Island), who had a dream about an island called Te Pito ‘o te Kāinga, meaning “the centre of the earth”. Gathering a scouting crew, Hotu sent them on a voyage to search for the island, eventually finding Rapa Nui. After a short rest they returned to tell the chief the news, who then left in a double-hulled canoe and landed at Anakena beach.

Over time the islanders split into two major clans who were often in conflict with one another, competing in who could build the bigger Moai and when that didn’t help resolve their issues, they would turn to war and toppling each other’s statues.

The first European contact was in 1722 when Dutch explorer, Jacob Roggeveen landed on the island on Easter Sunday, which is how the island got its name.  He was followed by the Spaniards in 1770, Captain Cook in 1774 and the French in 1786. 

With the exception of a few passing ships, the next round of visitors were Peruvian slave-traders who in 1862 carried off 1,500 islanders, about half the population. Only a dozen of the islanders returned to Rapa Nui bringing smallpox with them, which decimated the remainder of the population including the bearers of the island’s culture, history and rongorongo script experts. 

Christian missionaries arrived in 1864 with the aim to stamp out the islanders’ culture by banning how they dressed, their tattoos and their body paint, essentially destroying their history, leaving little record of their past. By 1878 only 111 native people existed on the island. Annexation to Chile in 1888 all but sealed the islanders’ fate and their Rapa Nui culture had vanished.

The local natives continued to live under severe controls until the mid-20th century when the tourist trade and commercial interests from around the world began to turn things around for the population. Extensive archaeological studies on the island have been ongoing for over a century with special interest in the Moai statues. 

This journey begins in Hanga Roa, the capital of Easter Island. I will be travelling west to Orongo where the story of the birdman cult will unfold; then south to Ahu Tongariki with its 15 standing statues; swinging northwest to Anakena, the landing place of legendary tribal chief Hotu Matu’a; and finally, heading west through the centre of the island back to Hanga Roa. 

Time to head to Orongo.