Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Before I start with today’s entry, I wanted to give a bit more information from A Companion to Easter Island, by James Grant Peterkin, which describes the period in which the moai were thrown from their platforms. Feel free to skip ahead.
Down Come The Statues… (approx.. 1770 – 1838)
All of the statues on Easter Island were at one point thrown from their platforms. Many were broken, and all have suffered from being exposed to the elements and the island’s harsh climate, having been left discarded on the ground for over 200 years…
The moai were all overthrown by humans, and not by any natural disaster such as an earthquake or tsunami. When Roggeveen and the Spanish visited the island, the moai that they saw were apparently all standing, while Cook arrived four years later and noted that some, but not all, had been toppled, showing that it was a gradual process. 1838 was the final year in which any outside visitor recorded seeing an upright moai.
There are two main theories as to why the islanders overthrew these statues that had been so sacred for their ancestors. The first is that inter-tribal wars, caused principally by the lack of resources on the island and which lead to clans attacking each other in search of supplies, destroyed their enemy’s moai. Given that a village’s moai had been set up in order to offer those villagers their mana and protection, it makes perfect sense for an enemy tribe to want to overthrow them, much in the same way as invading countries topple statues of former dictators today. By throwing them over forwards, as was normally the case, the status’ faces, and particularly their eyes, were buried and no longer visible, therefore negating any power that the moai might have still possessed. The second theory is that the islanders simply lost faith in the moai, having seen generation after generation of their ancestors invest all of their time and energy into these idols, and never feel that they were receiving anything in return from the gods. With hindsight we know that the islanders’ obsession with moai production was one of the main causes of the downfall of their society, and yet at the time, it obviously wasn’t that clear.
What a fabulous afternoon! I spent this morning trying to find a tour for the afternoon. Luckily, the first place I went into, Kia Koe, had the tour I wanted for less than I expected to pay. Once I had that secured, I attempted to find a horseback riding option and ended up walking down to the tourist office. The guy the desk was extremely helpful and recommended a tour company, Rapa Nui Travel, for the full-day tour; only problem was that they close at noon and I had less than 15 minutes to walk there. I made it just in time, but as I was inquiring about space on the tour tomorrow, a woman came in and started rambling in Spanish. Long and short of it, she wanted to be on the German/English tour because she’s German. Well, there was really only one spot left, so if she switched out of the Spanish tour it would mean there was no room for me. In the end, the woman ended up putting us both on the German/English tour.
Having not eaten breakfast, by 12:30 when I’d sorted everything out, I was famished. I decided to eat lunch at Mi Kafe, since I really enjoyed their ice cream yesterday. There were a limited number of tables in the shade, so I ended up sitting with another solo female traveler, Alejandra from Concepcion, Chile. I had a delicious tuna, avocado, tomato Panini and glass of iced coffee. Of course I wasn’t about to forego ice cream and ordered chocolate café and cookies crema. Alejandra and I both wanted to have dinner at the same restaurant, so we agreed to meet there around 9:30 tonight.
With an hour to spare, I didn’t have enough time to return to the hostel and wandered my way to the tour office where I met Alexandra, my guide who’s been living on Easter Island for 16 years. The tour took in three important spots: Ahu Akivi (seven moai), Cave Te Pahu, and Puna Pau (headdress place).
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| Town square |
I was thrilled when we pulled up to Ahu Akivi and saw the seven moai standing tall on the ahu. Alex took the English speakers into the shade to tell us information about the site. There was an odd smell in the air, like old cheese, which she told me was a dead horse. Lovely. A bit about Ahu Akivi.
“Ahu Akivi was restored by William Mulloy and Gonzalo Figueroa in 1960, and as such was the first full platform excavation and restoration to take place on the island. Much is often made of the direction in which these statues are facing, and the fact that they seem to be looking out to sea as opposed to having their backs to I, but the reality is that the moai always overlooked their village and their descendants, hence their positioning here.”
“The inhabitants of these island communities used to be dedicated farmers, while those living on the coast were usually fisherman and navigators. What is fascinating about Ahu Akivi is the fact that this platform is actually aligned with the rising sun on the spring and autumnal equinoxes.”
“The platform itself is 9 meters long, while the central platform on which the moai stand, is 38 meters. The seven moai, each one over 4 meters tall, are homogenous in their design, from which we can assume that they were all commissioned simultaneously and erected at the same time.”
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| Me in the middle of the moai. Can you see me? |
After taking tons of pictures of the moai from all angles, we drove to the cave Te Pahu and walked into the first section to see the vegetation and small circular structures built inside. The cool air in the cave was a welcome change to the heat. “Te Pahu is a lava tube that stretches for over 1km in length, and whose spacious size made it an ideal place for people to live and sleep in during former times.”
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| Inside the cave |
The last stop of the tour was at Puna Pau, the site where the topknots were created.
“Puna Pau means ‘Exhausted Spring’ in old Rapa Nui, implying that this crater at one time contained water, or that water at least passed nearby. However, during the latter part of the moai period, una Pau became an important source of raw material due to the red volcanic stone found here, and the quarry from which all of the topknots, or pukao, were carved.”
“Topknots were a much later ‘addition’ to the moai culture, and there are only about 100 topknots in existence, compared to the almost 1000 moai scattered around the island.”
“Topknots are considered not to have been hats, but rather representations of the hairstyle of the time: long hair worn tied up in a bun – hence the ‘knot’ part of topknot.”
“These very latest pukao weigh up to 12 tons each, and were destined to be placed on top of the latest moai still in Rano Raraku – themselves measuring upwards of 13 meters.”
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| Topknots at Puna Pau |
Once I’d been dropped at the campsite, I had half an hour to chill before walking to Tahai for sunset. I ran into Eric and Morgan, a couple on honeymoon from the States, who I met last night and talked to them for a while. I took the coastal road into town and up to Tahai. After taking a few pictures, I sat down on the ground near another woman. We started chatting and it turned out she was staying at Mihinoa too. A couple other people joined as we watched the sun sink behind the moai and the horizon. A gorgeous sunset, perfect evening.
I left my new acquaintances when I reached Au Bout du Monde, my dinner location, at 9:20pm. There was a show about to start but I decided Alejandra and I would simply eat dinner. I sat down at a table looking into the restaurant but soon the hostess asked me to turn towards the ocean since I wasn’t paying for the show. At 10pm I was about to give up on Alejandra showing when she walked in the door. The restaurant is supposed to be one of the best in town, so we decided to share two dishes the tuna with Tahitian vanilla sauce and prawns with sweet coconut sauce. Both were heavenly and my fresh raspberry juice added a nice complement. A lovely evening and once we settled the bill, much less than I thought it might be, I took a taxi back to Mihinoa. Full day tour is tomorrow; going to be a long day.
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| Dinner with Alejandra at Au Bout du Monde |
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