Sunday, 28 September 2014
The king of Hiva, Hotu Matu'a, had 2 big boats, so he ordered his people to put all kinds of vegetables and animals on the boat, and pack their stuff into the boat. But before he set sail, he sent 7 young men to find the island first. The 7 young men left Hiva on a canoe like boat, bringing with them chicken, banana trees and tuber. They took about a month to reach Rapa Nui, and when they landed they started cultivating the banana trees and tubers, and breeding the chickens. Thereafter Hotu Matu'a set sail, the legend is that his sister manned the other boat, and these 2 Noah's Ark like boats set sail for Easter Island. It took them 4 months because their boats were bigger, and they were nearly starving to death when they arrived, but they were saved by the food that the 7 young men managed to cultivate on the island before the mass population arrived. And apparently just when they reached the shore, Hotu Matu'a's wife gave birth to his first born son, on the shores of Easter Island so this was a sort of symbol of prosperity for the people.
And so began the population of Easter Island. Hotu Matu'a is said to have red hair, and this is seen as a symbol of nobility, aristocracy and great power. He had 6 sons who would rule different parts of the island, and their descendants carried on from there. I say 'apparently' all the time because none of these stories are recorded anywhere, they were stories told orally from generation to generation. They did have a written language called rongo-rongo, and this writing have been found in various places, but everyone who could read or write it is deceased, thanks to the smallpox epidemic that left only about 110 people on the island in the 19th century, and no one has been able to decipher this language till today. Today the people of the island speak their own language called Rapa Nui, but it is written in normal Roman alphabets. And today, the main income for the island is tourism, nearly all the locals are involved in the tourism industry in one way or another, either owning restaurants or bars, or tour agencies, or cars for rent etc.
When the first settlers arrived in Easter Island approximately in the year 400, the island was abundant with trees. The people used to clear the forests to cultivate crops, and they used the wood to build boats for fishing. Scientists say that they most probably did not have the technology to cut wood into smaller pieces, so they used the wood in their original size to make boats, which means they had pretty big boats and they most probably went deep sea fishing. They used to live in caves, usually along the ocean, which gave them natural shelter, until the population expanded and there was a need for bigger homes. So then came the 'hare paengas', or boat houses built of volcanic rocks. It was called boat houses because when it was finished, the roof of these houses looked like overturned canoes. It was a small house, just enough for sleeping, you couldn't stand upright in such a house, but that didn't matter because the people would spend most of the time outdoors anyway. There were no slaves, so people had to pay workers to build these boat houses for them, with the result that the richer people lived in boat houses (which was smaller and probably not comfortable) and the poorer people continued to live in caves (which was probably more comfortable).
The first place we visited on the tour today was Ahu Akahanga. Here we saw remnants of a boat house, and a cave nearby. Because the boat houses were so small, the people had to cook outdoors, so they built ovens on the ground about 10 metres away from the boat houses. The many generations of people who lived here used to use the same ovens over and over again, creating layers of ashes on the ground. From these ashes, scientists were able to discover what the ancient people ate over the years. So during the moai period from around the year 1100, the people lived very well and ate good food such as tuna, marlin and sharks. This was also probably due to the big ships that they were able to build from the abundant forests on the island, so they could fish in deeper waters. However, towards the 1600s, the moai era began to decline, and then the people were eating pi pi, a type of very small shellfish that are not usually eaten, but because food was scarce, they had no choice but to eat this small molluscs while hiding out in caves.
Also in Ahu Akahanga we saw what was once 12 moais on 4 ahus, but they now lay toppled over as a result of the social revolution. The moais here spanned 3 periods, from the first moai in 1100 until the last ones in 1600. The legend is that Hotu Matu'a was buried here.
And now for some history. Some time around 1100, the moai period began. Moai means statue in Rapa Nui. The Rapa Nui believed in ancestral worship, and in particular, the ancestors of noblemen, kings, wise men and aristocrats could protect the people on the island. So they began carving statues of these ancestors, usually out of yellow tuff, which is compressed volcanic ash and stone, it is of a yellowish hue and soft enough to make it easy to carve. The carving tools were made of obsidian. They would carve the statue at the mountain side itself, and then detach it from the mountain from its back, leaving a sort of keel at the back which is its last connection to the bed rock. Then the keel is removed and the moai is slid down the mountain slope into a pit, where it would be put into a standing position, and then they would carve the back portion, which is shaping the shoulders, the ears and the back. The moais consists of the head and torso, they were carved with round bellies and hands resting on the bellies, and they had very long fingers, which symbolises long fingernails as the upper class people did not use their hands to work and therefore kept their fingernails long. The big bellies also symbolised prosperity, apparently during the moai period many of the noblemen were fat and had long fingernails. But they were revered for their mental and spiritual superiority, and physical beauty played little importance.
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