Easter Island - Anakena

Heading north, I passed Poike, an extinct volcano and the oldest of the main three on the island. Poike used to be an island initially until it was joined by lava flows from Taraveka, the biggest volcano located north of the island. 

Following the bend in the road, I turned left and carried on to about halfway between the bend and Anakena Beach. A dirt road led to the Te Pito Kura archaeological complex in front of the Bay La Pérouse where the tallest, once-standing, Moai known as Paro lies. Believed to be commissioned by a widow for her late husband, Paro is 33ft (10m) tall and weighs about 80 tonnes. His ears alone are 6.5ft (2m) long. Unfortunately, Paro was toppled face down during the tribal wars and he split in two. His 10 tonnes pukao (hat) lies beside the head. 

A short distance from Paro is a large egg-shaped stone about 80cm in diameter, referred to as Te Pito O Te Henua, meaning “navel of the world”. Legend says that Hotu Matu’a, brought the stone with him from his native land because it was believed that it held a supernatural energy called mana. 

Back on the road, I continued to Anakena Beach where Hotu Matu’a made his first landing. Anakena is a pristine white beach with turquoise seas lapping on its shores. In the centre of the beach is the beautifully preserved Ahu Nau Nau, topped with seven Moai of which four are fully intact and wearing the pukao. They were restored in the late 1970s and placed back on the ahu. Because the statues were toppled prior to restoration, over time they were covered by sand. This in turn protected them from erosion and saved the detailed engravings on their back. 

To the right of the beach is a singular Moai known as Ahu Ature Huki. This was the first statue to be re-erected using traditional methods. Explorer Thor Heyerdahl, stayed on the island in the mid-1950s and he encouraged the islanders to raise the statue. Using wooden poles, stones and ropes, it took a dozen men eighteen days to place the statue back on the ahu.

Anakena was also an important gathering place for the masters of the rongorongo scripture, a writing system based on glyphs carved on wood or tablets. There are theories about its origins but there is no evidence to substantiate any of them. It is an interesting writing style because the odd lines are written left to right and the even lines are written right to left and upside down. In order to read the even lines, the tablet has to be turned 180 degrees. No one has been able to decipher the system yet. The majority of the tablets were destroyed and the few that survived, about 27, reside in museums around the world. No original pieces are left on Easter Island. 

Leaving the sunny beach of Anakena, I began my westward journey back towards Hanga Roa with a stopover at Puna Pau.

 

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.