Easter Egg Hunting

I was planning to write only one Rapa Nui blog, but today’s tour was so interesting, I wanted to write about it. A brief history is required.

- As I mentioned the island was first settled in around 1200 by visitors from what is now French Polynesian. The island was ruled for many years by the descendants of the original king who first discovered the island.

-The gods that the people originally worshipped weren’t doing much on their behalf so they decided to rely on something a bit less remote so started worshipping their ancestors. The moai are representations of those ancestors and were carved and transported across the island by the various clans who commissioned them to protect their particular village. 

-This took place until about 1600 when things on the island started going downhill. Overpopulation and deforestation led to resource shortages and put a huge strain on the society. People no longer had faith in the king to run things so all hell broke loose with clans raiding villages and toppling their moai as a way of removing their power.  Eventually, all the moai were toppled but the Rapa Nui had a much bigger problem with the arrival of Europeans in the 1700s. 

-The people knew that they had to unite against a common enemy but had no good way of choosing a leader or a head clan. So they decided to call upon Makemake, the creator god and fertility deity to help figure out who should lead.

-They concocted  a crazy competition that took place at Orongo, a ceremonial village on the cliffs of one of the volcanos overlooking the sea. One competitor was chosen from each clan. Each competitor had to climb down the cliff, swims several kilometres to a little islet which is really just a rocky outcrop. The goal was to retrieve the first sooty tern egg of the season and bring it back unbroken. The difficulty of this task can’t be overstated, and many competitors died in the process, but the successful one was rewarded with a one year term of leadership for his clan. The photo above was taken from the top of the cliff that was the starting point and shows the islet that they swam to and from.

- The “birdman” served as the middleman between Makemake  and the people. The practice continued until the 19thy  century with the arrival of Christian missionaries who discouraged the ritual. By then though, the Rapa Nui civilisation was already being decimated by European contact, slavery and disease.

I know that’s a lot to talk about, but you can still see carvings of the birdman and the almost impossible task these men had to undertake.  It was sobering. I found it fascinating to think about what was happening in Europe from the 13th to 19th centuries, and compare it to Rapa Nui.  At first thought, one might think that the Rapa Nui civilisation was terribly primitive, and relatively speaking, I suppose it was. But, think about how far this island is from everything. They had only the resources on the island to work with. There is no source of metal to develop more sophisticated tools, There are no nearby islands to trade with. They did extraordinary things with very limited resources, and that is hugely impressive.

Rapa Nui is one of the few places on this trip where I have had to be part of group tours.  I fear that I have become a total misanthrope with little patience for many of my fellow tourists.  Some carry on loud side conversations whilst the guide is talking. Others complained about and were unable to walk what were pretty short distances to see the sights. One man from Dangenham kept calling me “honey” and repeatedly tried to help me off the bus which I didn’t need.  Maybe I am just cranky from having travelled for such a long time, but I really found everyone super irritating today. It’s probably a good thing I start heading home tomorrow.  My final blog from this series will focus on all the things I’ve learned on this trip.