The Navel of the World
Rapa Nui or Easter Island

It's raining. No, it's pouring. It's 1 o'clock at night and we are dead tired. After a five hour flight my husband and I have just landed on Easter Island together with about 100 other tourists. In our hotel we are assigned to a tiny dark chamber. The toilet seat is broken into half, in front of it two cockroaches are stretching their dead legs into the air. It's muggy, it's hot and airless, the wallpaper is peeling off the wall and the cheap foam material mattress is so soft and worn down that we prefer to sleep on the floor on our camping mattress. We definitely didn't expect such an accommodation for 95,-$ per night! Next morning breakfast is meagre, we feel absolutely whacked and I already skip through the timetable of LAN-Chile. However, of all Polynesian Islands Easter Island seems to be the most remote. Once a month there's a supply ship and once a day LAN-Chile has a stop over on the way to Thahiti. But flights are mostly fully booked so we have to survive! At least the rain has stopped.
At least the rain has stopped. The sun is shining down on us from a clear blue sky and in the distance we make out a group of statues. The main reason for our trip to Easter Island have been the statues. We take a walk in their direction. The figures are standing on low platforms made of stone - an ideal place to sit down. I take out my guide book to see what's the place is called. But as soon as we've made ourselves comfortable, a guy in uniform (guardaparque) approaches us and draws our attention to the fact that it's not allowed to sit here! "Why not," we want to know. "This is the ahu platform of Ahu Tahai a sacred place.
All moais - that are those statues looking down on us - have been raised in memory of a dead emperor. In these statues the memory of the dead is united with the family power and the power of the dead is living within the statue." We say thank-you for the detailed explanation and tell to our excuse that we've just arrived last night and that we had a miserable sleep. "Why, for gods sake, do you stay at that rotten hotel? It's the worst place on the island and will be closed next week for redecoration! My sister-in-law lives nearby, she's got some rooms to rent, if you're lucky she might have a free one. I'll take you there, if you like". His sister-in-law, Cecilia, has a free room. Bright, clean, tiled bathroom, good mattresses and - a terrace with a huge garden in front of it. It's like paradise! And even a bit cheaper! We rush back to our hotel, grab our things and leave. Then we take a seat on our terrace and start reading in a book from Thor Heyerdahl, which belongs to the inventory of our room.
Heyerdahl, the Norwegian scientist, was working on excavations on Easter Island in 1955. He held the opinion that the first inhabitants of the Island came from South America. After the destruction of the Tiahuanaco Empire (between 725 and 1000 A.C.) the defeated shall have fled onto the sea on rafts made of balsa wood. Others are certain that the first settlers were Polynesians. According to a myth two brothers were fighting who would be successor of the emperor on a Polynesian Island. The king's son Hotu Matua lost the fight and at behest of a priest he took course to a far away island. After a journey of about six weeks Hotu Matua could have arrived on Easter Island.
Whoever those first inhabitants may have been, they reached the Island approximately 500 A.C. At 164 qkm the archipelago is smaller than Malta. It's 3.700 km till the South American coast and Tahiti is even more than 4.000 km away. For the inhabitants this small piece of land in the middle of the wide ocean was the centre of all being. They named their island: Te Pito o Te Henua - the Navel of the World.
In 13th or 14th century new immigrants reached the Navel of the World. The new owns were welcomed by the old inhabitants. A busy building activity began with moais becoming bigger and bigger. Because of the enormous increase of population food supply became critical. A war broke out between those two groups and the old inhabitants were annihilated. With this incident the construction of the moais comes to an end.
Few years later, on Easter afternoon 1722, the Dutch captain Roggeveen and his companions are the first European visitors of the Island. The Navel of the World is changed to Easter Island. Roeggeween saw an island covered with forest and well-fed, friendly people. As the Dutch want to set sail again one native is shot on the boat because of a misunderstanding and a dozen others die on the shore. That's how the first contact to the others in the world comes to an end.
50 years later the next visitors arrive, this time they are Spaniards. With two priests and an impressive number of soldiers they march to the top of a hill, mount three crosses, sing, fire a salute and claim the Island to be Spanish property. It's new name is San Carlos Island. Only a few years later the English arrive with Captain James Cook. Only few natives are to be seen. Cook tells of a deforested, bold island. The English seamen, being stricken by scurvy, only manage to buy some sweat potatoes from the natives and they are cheated: the big and heavy baskets had a top layer of potatoes but only stones underneath.
What had happened? A few thousand people were living an absolute secluded life on the small island. Because of continuous fight for power and survival, only sufficient offspring could guarantee power. The agricultural yields were poor and could only be replenished with chicken, fish and shells from the near shore. The people were not able to leave the island because all wood which could have been used for shipbuilding, was gone. Cases of cannibalism occurred increasingly. The next visitors were slave raiders who abducted the islanders one after the other. The total amount of native inhabitants decreases to 110. 1888 Chile annexes San Carlos Island; it's now renamed Easter Island. The control is given to English sheep breeders and the inhabitants are better slaves again. They were forced to settle in the main village Hanga Roa which was fenced so that the sheep could run free on the remains of the island.
Today, the cheep breeders are gone. About 4.000 people live in Hanga Roa. There is a governor, a priest, a church, a hospital and a school. The islanders are allowed to speak their own Polynesian dialect and they call their island: Rapa Nui (Big Island). There are few cars, most people use motor bikes or horses for transport. We get in contact quite soon with those horses. They roam free and one morning they plunder Cecilias nice flower field in front of our terrace. All this may give the impression of an ideal world, but satellite TV and Internet deliver the remainder of the world straight to Rapa Nui. There are problems with unemployment, alcoholism and in 1991 the fist AIDS patient was reported.
Next day Cecilia rents us her car and we drive about 10 km till the volcano crate of Rano Raraku which was the quarry for the statues. On the slopes of the quarry the eyeless heads stare at us. But we soon learn that those are not only heads but huge statues which have been buried in a stone avalanche. On top of the hill we recognize heaps of more or less finished statues laying all over the place. The Guardaparque at this site is very helpful as well. As soon as he notices that our knowledge of Spanish is more than 20 words he starts explaining with enthusiasm: "With simple stone chisels and water taken from calabashes they worked the tuff. It took about one year for 30 stonemasons to finish a statue of the average height of 5 to 6 m. As soon as the statue was ready it was pushed down the slope and had to wait for transport to its destination site. There is a total of 276 statues waiting for transport to one of the ahu-plattform on the coastline." "How did these statues get to those ahu-platforms? We know that those people neither had any draught animals nor cranes and these are distances of 10 to 20 km!" They native say: 2They just walked!" Well, the scientists have several theories, but nobody can tell exactly.
There are 240 ahus along the coastline; one of the most beautiful is the Ahu Nau-Nau in Anakena bay. The moais have been set upright on their altar platform. Placed on their heads are huge red stones like a kind of hat. With black eyes made of obsidian they look down on us. Anakena bay has one of two sandy beaches on Easter Isalnd. An ideal place to rest for a picnic. As desert we've brought a baby pineapple from the market. They grow on the island and their taste is exquisite.
One of the most impressive ahu-platforms is the Ahu Vinapu. Cut like cheese, without joints or holes those huge stone blocks stuck together precisely and build a single wall. The dimensions of those stone blocks are enormous: length of 2.85 and heights of up to 1.60 m are usual. Only in the South-American highland comparable buildings are found. However, Ahu Vinapu is the only ahu on Easter Island which was build with such precision. Ahu Vinapu lies on foot of the Rano Kao; we'll hike there tomorrow.
As it gets rather hot in the afternoon we decide to start our trip at 6.30 a.m. It's still pitch dark outside, but we are well equipped with flashlights. A happy group of teenagers approaches us singing loudly. They are on their way home from a nice party and make fun those crazy tourists who are hiking with backpacks at this time of the day. We leave the village behind and march on a dark mud path. It's absolutely silent not even a bird is singing. There's a ditch on the right hand side and a field with banana plants on the other side. Suddenly, out of nowhere, three huge dogs leap out of the ditch and jump on us barking like hell. I almost wet myself in fright, but all three of them wag their tails and it seems they're just happy to meet us. We keep hiking and try to ignore the dogs, but they are not impressed. They have adopted us and accompany us for the remains of the day. After about two hours walk uphill we reach the edge of the 1000 m wide crate of the volcano Rano Kao. In the lake on the crate's ground totora-gras is growing. Our destination today is situated on the edge of the crate. It's a cultural centre of absolute high range: the ceremonial centre of Orongo. Ceremonies took place here until 1876. 48 oval buildings have been placed on the slope. However, the main attraction are 150 so called bird-men chiselled into the stones. The bird-men have human bodies toped with a birds head and sometimes they hold an egg in one hand. What did it mean? Once a year high dignitaries from all tribes living on the island met in this place for the election of the religious leader the so called bird-man. He was responsible for the protection of the island and for peace and wealth. The date of the election met with the start of the breeding season of the terns which nest on the offshore rock Moto Nui. As soon as the first tern was seen, the fight for the first egg began. Selected men hurled themselves into the surf, stole an egg, swam back and climbed the steep cliffs to reach the 300 m high plateau of Orongo. The fist to reach Orongo with an unbroken egg was to be bird-man for the next year. The bird-man was the highest religious authority; he was mediator between mankind and the god Make-Make. Make-Make was known as creator of the world. The new bird-man lived in complete loneliness in Orongo for one year. We are surprised by the number of those petroglyhs but a legend tells that every priest elected as bird-man was chiselled into stone. Other petroglyphs can be found all over the island. They appear as animals known to the islanders: a sea turtle, flying birds, a wale or shark and the god Make-Make.
After we gave an account of our trip to Cecilia she tells us that beside Make-Make there exist many devils and witches as well as good and bad demons. Cecilia was born on the island; she's not a Chilenian from the mainland. "In the past" she says - every family had their own guardian ghost called Aku-Aku. To escape from bad influences people carved wooden figures with a deep religious meaning. The Aku-Aku keeps off bad demons and welcomes good ghosts. You'll find Aku-Akus in the museum of Sebastian Englert right next door". In this small museum we learn more about the living of the people of Rapa Nui. Only few pieces of the only written evidence the so called rongorongo-tablets are still existing. All of them are not older than 250 years. On orders of the first missionaries most of the rongorongo-tablets have been burned. Until today no scientist has managed to interpret the characters. Neither language in which the texts are written nor the ideograms are clearly known. Still there are many riddles and there's a lot to do.
Our time on the island passed too quickly. Cecilia takes us to the airport. To say good-by she puts a beautiful necklace of dried beans and shells - as a lucky charm -around our necks and to remind us to come back. We happily promise that.

Literature: - T. Heyerdahl, Aku Aku - The Secret of Easter Island - T. Heyerdahl, Easter Island - The Mystery Solved - H. Gatermann, Die Osterinsel - Lonely Planet: Chile and Easter Island