Easter Island covers roughly 64 square miles in the South Pacific Ocean,
and is located some 2,300 miles from Chile's west coast and 2,500 miles
east of Tahiti. Known as Rapa Nui to its earliest inhabitants, the
island was christened Paaseiland, or Easter Island, by Dutch explorers
in honor of the day of their arrival in 1722. It was annexed by Chile in
the late 19th century and now maintains an economy based largely on
tourism. Easter Island's most dramatic claim to fame is an array of
almost 900 giant stone figures that date back many centuries. The
statues reveal their creators to be master craftsmen and engineers, and
are distinctive among other stone sculptures found in Polynesian
cultures. There has been much speculation about the exact purpose of the
statues, the role they played in the ancient civilization of Easter
Island and the way they may have been constructed and transported.
Early Settlement
The first human inhabitants of
Rapa Nui (the Polynesian name for Easter Island; its Spanish name is
Isla de Pascua) are believed to have arrived in an organized party of
emigrants around 300-400 A.D. Tradition holds that the first king of
Rapa Nui was Hoto-Matua, a ruler from a Polynesian subgroup (possibly
from the Marquesa Islands) whose ship traveled thousands of miles before
landing at Anakena, one of the few sandy beaches on the island's rocky
coast.
The greatest evidence for the rich culture developed by the original
settlers of Rapa Nui and their descendants is the existence of nearly
900 giant stone statues that have been found in diverse locations around
the island. Averaging 13 feet (4 meters) high, with a weight of 13
tons, these enormous stone busts–known as moai–were carved out of tuff
(the light, porous rock formed by consolidated volcanic ash) and placed
atop ceremonial stone platforms called ahus. It is still unknown
precisely why these statues were constructed in such numbers and on such
a scale, or how they were moved around the island.
Phases of Island Culture
Archaeological
excavations of Easter Island reveal three distinct cultural phases: the
early period (700-850 A.D.), the middle period (1050-1680) and the late
period (post-1680). Between the early and middle periods, evidence has
shown that many early statues were deliberately destroyed and rebuilt as
the larger and heavier moai for which the island is most famous. During
the middle period, ahus also contained burial chambers, and the images
portrayed by moai are thought to have represented important figures that
were deified after death. The biggest statue found dating to the middle
period measures about 32 feet tall, and consists of a single block
weighing about 82 tons (74,500 kilograms).
The late period of the island's civilization was characterized by
civil wars and general destruction; more statues were toppled, and many
mataa, or obsidian spearpoints, have been found dating to that period.
Island tradition claims that around 1680, after peacefully coexisting
for many years, one of the island's two main ethnic groups, known as the
Short-Ears, rebelled against the Long-Ears, burning many of them to
death on a pyre constructed along an ancient ditch at Poike, on the
island's far northeastern coast.
Outsiders on Easter Island
The
first known European visitor to Easter Island was the Dutch explorer
Jacob Roggeveen, who arrived in 1722. The Dutch named the island
Paaseiland (Easter Island) to commemorate the day they arrived. In 1770,
the Spanish viceroy of Peru sent an expedition to the island; the
explorers spent four days ashore and estimated a native population of
some 3,000 people. Just four years later, the British navigator Sir
James Cook arrived to find Easter Island's population decimated by what
seemed to have been a civil war, with only 600 to 700 men and fewer than
30 women remaining.
A French navigator, Jean-Francois de Galaup, comte de La Perouse,
found 2,000 people on the island when he arrived in 1786. A major slave
raid from Peru in 1862, followed by epidemics of smallpox, reduced the
population to only 111 people by 1877. By that time, Catholic
missionaries had settled on Easter Island and begun to convert the
population to Christianity, a process that was completed by the late
19th century. In 1888, Chile annexed Easter Island, leasing much of the
land for sheep raising. The Chilean government appointed a civilian
governor for Easter Island in 1965, and the island's residents became
full Chilean citizens.
Easter Island Today
An
isolated triangle measuring 14 miles long by seven miles wide, Easter
Island was formed by a series of volcanic eruptions. In addition to its
hilly terrain, the island contains many subterranean caves with
corridors that extend deep into mountains of volcanic rock. The island's
largest volcano is known as Rano Kao, and its highest point is Mount
Terevaka, which reaches 1,969 feet (600 meters) above sea level. It has a
subtropical climate (sunny and dry) and temperate weather.
Easter Island boasts no natural harbor, but ships can anchor off
Hanga Roa on the west coast; it is the island's largest village, with a
population of roughly 3,300. In 1995, UNESCO named Easter Island a World
Heritage site. It is now home to a mixed population, mostly of
Polynesian ancestry and made up of the descendants of the Long-Ears and
Short-Ears. Spanish is generally spoken, and the island has developed an
economy largely based on tourism.
