Margaret’s Travel Log 2: Easter Island

Rapa Nui (as the locals refer to it) – or Easter Island as it is known to the rest of the world – lies almost mid-way between Tahiti and the South American coastline. Totally isolated in the Pacific Ocean, it is one of the three key compass points of Polynesian culture, the others being Hawaii to the north and New Zealand to the south. The island is small, with only one population centre, Hanga Roa, and roughly 4000 permanent residents.

Tourists who expect the sophistication of resort-based holidays, such as you’d find in Tahiti, will be disappointed. Hanga Roa’s streets are paved with bricks; there’s only one tarred road and most of the roads are in such poor condition that the locals drive SUVs, step-through motor scooters or ancient utes and vans. Alternatively, they walk or ride one of the thousands of horses that appear to run wild all across the island.

Hanga Roa from the coastline near the Tahai ahu and moai site.
We were amazingly lucky with the weather when we arrived and it stayed fine until the day of our departure, which was wet. On our arrival, we were met by our main tour guide, a Rapa Nui local named Sabrina (a name she confessed to hating, being very proud of her culture and origins). Sabrina turned out to be a mine of information about both the island and its occupants (she seemed to be related in one way or another to almost all of them).

Our guide, Sabrina’s appearance showed many characteristics of her Polynesian ancestors.

The island’s history is shrouded in mystery. Nobody knows where the original inhabitants came from, although Fatu Hiva in the Marquesas Islands group is viewed as a likely place. Legend has it that a tribal chief sent out two expeditions of explorers, the first consisting of three men and the second of seven, who followed the instructions of the tribal shaman who ‘dreamed’ of a place to the south where the three pioneers could be found and described to the chief some of the geographical identifiers that would lead future expeditioners to it.

Apparently the seven ‘brothers’ made the trip successfully and somehow information reached the chief, leading him to pack up the entire tribe and migrate. They settled in the northern part of the island. Shortly afterwards, his ‘sister’s’ tribe followed, occupying the southern part. By agreement, the island was divided laterally and each tribe kept to its own area.

The seven ‘brothers’ moai and ahu at Ahu Akivi. This is the only place where the statues look towards the sea.

The two tribes prospered and soon had sufficient resources to be able to devote time and tribespeople to cultural activities and the building of the moai (statues) commenced. There has been considerable dispute about the ‘meaning’ of these giant statues but local tradition says each of them represents an important individual from the period in which they were built. The ‘ahu’ or platforms, on which they stand, are generally agreed to be burial places for important members of the tribe they represent.

In most cases, ahu and statues stand facing inland and overlooking what was once a settlement. Their eyes look skywards, seeing power and spiritual enlightenment (‘manu’) from the regions above. Larger and wealthier communities appear to have been able to afford more moai than smaller settlements. In a benign climate, with abundant resources from both land and sea, the small communities flourished.

This is the only moai that still has eyes. Because the eyes were made from coral, they have eroded more quickly than the stone. The eyes on this moai have been recreated to show visitors what the originals looked like. This moai also has a pukaki (top-knot), which is made from a red volcanic rock. It’s not the original pukaki (which now lies in the local cemetery) but is a satisfactory replica.

The quarry where the red pukaki (top-knots) were created.
However, this prosperity was Rapa Nui’s undoing. By approximately 1000 A.D, the populations of both tribes had grown to the point where resources were insufficient to support them and competition led to inter-tribal warfare. Rival tribes demonstrated their superiority by knocking down other tribes’ moai and destroying their ahu. We know this took place over several hundred years because Captain Cook visited the island in the late 18^th century and made drawings of one of the largest moai, which was still standing.

The only moai that are erect today are those that have been restored, initially by Thor Heyerdahl in the 1950s and subsequently through overseas grants, from Japan and the USA.

The arrival of Europeans brought the standard diseases – measles and syphilis – which decimated the remaining population. Slavers also visited the island, at one point reducing the population to around 110. It is from this base that the current population has been re-created.

As part of the regeneration of the society, the separate tribes had to be unified, without destroying their individuality. So a new cult was created, based on the arrival of migratory sea birds. A young man from each tribe was selected and prepared for a race to the offshore islets at the south of the island in search of the first egg from the migratory sea birds that nest there. The winner received the reward of a virgin girl as a wife, while the chief of his tribe became king of the island for a year and was responsible for creating peace and prosperity.

The off-shore islets at Orongo, the centre of the bird culture. Young men had to swim out to these islands (assisted by reed rafts) and return with the first egg of the migrating sea birds.

Petroglyphs (rock carvings) at the Orongo crater site show some of the art works associated with the bird cult.

Should he be unjust – or unsuccessful – the following year, another chief would be likely to succeed him and his tribe would be poorly treated. So it was in the interests of all for kings to rule justly and well.

After our evening meal, my partner and I walked back to the Tahai site to take some long exposures of the ahu and moai. The aim was to obtain pictures of star trails with the moai in the foreground. I mounted my EOS 400D with the 10-22mm lens on my compact tripod and (with some difficulty due to the darkness) framed each shot using a point-and-guess strategy. The camera was set to full manual operation, including manual focus. I used an aperture of f/5.6 and set the shutter speed to bulb, using a remote trigger to achieve an exposure of roughly 30 minutes. During the exposure time, I ‘painted’ the moai in the foreground with light from my LED torch. The result is shown below.

The 30 minute exposure shows long star trails behind the moai but the shot is very noise-affected, due to the relatively high ambient temperature (18-20 degrees) and the long exposure time.

A second, 5-minute exposure was taken of the group of moai on the platform, with the lights of Hanga Roa in the background. Image noise is less in this picture – but still evident and it will be interesting to compare these shots with similar exposures taken in the high Andes, where night temperatures will be close to zero – assuming the opportunity arises to take them.