Completing The Polynesian Triangle

 Since my last visit to Chile in 2001, I have been very intrigued by the prospect of visiting Easter Island, aka Rapa Nui. It is considered to be the most geographically isolated inhabited place on earth, and as such it is not easy to get to. And the more National Geographic specials you see about the history and archeology, the more mysterious and fascinating it becomes. Then, in 2010, on first going to New Zealand via French Polynesia, I learned that the Maoris, Hawaiians, and Rapanui were all Polynesian, and represented the three extreme points of expansion of the culture. This geographical distribution is called “The Polynesian Triangle”, and I felt it was my destiny to complete this triangle.

On leaving Aotearoa (the Maori name for New Zealand), we traveled back through French Polynesia, and had a four-day layover until we could catch the once weekly flight to Rapa Nui. That gave me an opportunity to sneak in a visit to Ra’iatea and its better-know neighbor Bora Bora. Ra’iatea is the second largest island in French Polynesia, and legend says that the great canoes that left for the exploration to the corners of the Polynesian world all set sail from there. It is also home of the most sacred site in Polynesia, the Marae Taputapuatea, where all the far-flung branches of Polynesia would regularly gather as one.
I knew nothing else about the isle, and booked a room in the Hotel Atiapiti because it was the closest to the marae. That turned out to be a tremendous stoke of blind luck. The hotel is run by a charming French ex-patriot Marie-Claude Rajaud, and her husband Arsene.

Marie-Claude & Arsene

Marie-Claude met us qt the airport and entertained us with all sorts of facts, legends, and supernatural stories of the island on the drive to the hotel. Her husband is a member of the local royal family, and a lot of oral history has been passed down through the ages.
At the Hotel, we had our own bungalow (with porch hammock!) overlooking the sparkling lagoon with coral and fishes galore.

 

 

 Marie-Claude is the cook, and prepared fresh and delicious meals, and the marae was maybe 50 yards away. She gave us a personal guided tour, with lots of embellishments you will not hear elsewhere.

The marae in French Polynesia are similar to sacred sites in the other corners of the Triangle; a large stone-paved rectangle with a raised platform at one end. Upright stones inside the rectangle represent places chiefs or priests sat, and wooden stakes or paddles represent various gods (or something like that).

It also happened that that night, the local community was being entertained by traditional dancers and musicians from another town.

We got a plate of food from one of nearby stands, and then were entertained for 90 minutes with non-stop dancing and chanting. It was magical, and we were about the only non-locals there.

In short, our stay in Ra’iatea was about as perfect as possible, and I wish it would have gone on for a week or two.But alas, our time was short, and it is a very short hop to Bora Bora. Fayne’s father served there in WWII, and family legend has it she might have some half-sibs there. Could be, but we didn’t find them if there are some. After the perfect time in Ra’iatea, it was likely to be a bit of a letdown, and it was. We stayed in a nice place on the main island, but Bora Bora is known for the lagoon and the distinctive profile of the mountains. You couldn’t see either from where we stayed. One day we did take a water taxi out to a small surrounding islet, or motu, and the clear turquoise waters and the view of the island were impressive.

 

 

My take-home message: if you go to Bora Bora, be prepared to pay big bucks for one of the exclusive resorts on a motu, otherwise go to a lesser-known island for equally spectacular view and beaches at a fraction of the cost.

 After four very full days, it was time for the red-eye flight to Easter Island. As with most of the island’s history, the name itself is confusing. The first documented European visit was by the Dutch on Easter Sunday, 1722, hence the name Paasch Eyland or in Spanish (since it is Chilean territory) Isla de Pascua. Tahitian sailors in the 1860’s called it Rapa Nui (Big Rapa) because it reminded them of another island now called Rapa Iti (Small Rapa). Prior to that it is unclear if the indigenous people had a name for the whole island, but some call it Te Pito Te Henua, the” Navel of the World” (more on that later).

Sign Post in Downtown Hanga Roa

The image that comes to mind of Rapa Nui is that of large, tight-lipped monolithic “tikis”, or moai, by their proper name. There is good reason for this, as these are evident everywhere on the island, such as this fellow in the center of the only town, Hanga Roa.

But as you contemplate the many mysteries of these mute monuments, there are other fascinating parts of the tragic island’s history.

We started with a visit to the local museum. They display the only eye-implant from one of the moai. Made of white coral and red volcanic rock, it is unclear whether all of the erected moai had these or not.

The museum and adjoining library were inspired by the work of William Mulloy, a tireless American anthropologist who reconstructed many sites from 1955 until his death in 1978. Adjacent to the museum is the Tahai Complex, with three reconstructed ahu (platforms or altars) and multiple re-erected moai,

 as well as foundation for upside-down boat-shaped large houses, called hare paenga.

 When the Spanish explorer Don Felipe Gonzalez visited in 1770 he noted the moai were intact and venerated, but a mere four years later in 1774 the ubiquitous Captain Cook visited and recorded that most of the moai and ahu were knocked over, broken, and defaced. Why? Nobody knows for sure. Make up your own theory. I did.  This much is clear:

1)      A huge amount of time, resources, and energy were spent carving, transporting, and erecting these stone monuments to ancestors/gods.

2)      This went horribly wrong and the manufacture and use of these abruptly stopped.

3)      A new, more populist religion arose in the yearly Birdman competition to select a new island leader.

4)      That also petered out.

5)      Contact with European diseases and rule in the 19^th and 20^th century and raids by Peruvian slavers nearly eliminated the native Rapanui, reducing their number to 100 or so, severely disrupting or destroying local customs, writing, and oral history, and language.

In 1994, Kevin Costner produced, but did not star in, a film made on the island, aptly titled “Rapa Nui”. It was a well-deserved commercial flop, but if you are coming here it is worth seeing. It may not be in NetFlix, but does play 4 times a week at the Hotel Manavai in Hanga Roa. We saw it, of course, not for the dialogue or the acting (but some of it qualifies as a guilty pleasure),  but the filmmakers had access to many historic sites, and it makes an effort to compress major events in the island’s history (you will shed a tear as the last tree is chopped down, Loraxlike), and to have some accuracy in costuming. Scholars and movie critics have lots of nits to pick, but the depiction of the Birdman competition is stirring.

(Sorry for the didactic segment above. I’ll return to the travelogue.)

Rono Raraku

The single most amazing sight is a visit to Rono Raraku, the ancient quarry of volcanic tuff used to make most moai. There are over 900 known moai on the island, 400 still confined to the quarry and crater area. Many are partially moved, halted in various stages on the trip to their altars, half-buried in sand. No one knows how they were transported to the ahu, but the Rapanui insist the “walked”.
A famous one has a European sailing ship etched on its belly (certainly a later addition),

Detail of ship

And the Kneeling Moai is unique, rotund and bearded. My story: a retirement gift for a beloved master carver/teacher, instead of a gold watch. Can you disprove it?

There are many in process of creation in stone,

 

including El Gigante, the largest at 65 feet and 270 tons.

 

A walk over the rim into the crater reveals a lake and multiple more moai. The guides insist they were made outside in the quarry then dragged in. Why? One suggested it may have been a “showroom”, like caskets at a mortuary, for prospective “buyers”.

Inside the crater: the little dots are moai

One has a pukao (headdress) carved and white lichen looking like eyes.

Down the slope from the quarry at the seaside is Ahu Tongariki, where the ahu and 15 moai have been reconstructed.

Almost all of the moai are next to the coast, and all but one looks inland. Eye sockets (with or without inlays) were carved only after to moai were erected, to unleash the spirit or mana  (My theory: only one eye inlay has been found because at the time of the defilements, they were destroyed to destroy the moai’s bad mana.) At the same site was the Traveling Moai, so named because Thor Heyerdahl experimented with moving it, and it went to a Japanese trade fair in Osaka.

Lord I was born a traveling moai

Most sites have not been restored. Five miles west is Akahana, where you can see what Captain Cook found, with moai toppled and the ahu vandalized.

One last stop that day was back on the other side of the island at Puna Pau, the crater where the red volcanic scoria was quarried, mostly to make the pukao, or topknots crowning the most magnificent moai, and like at Rano Raraku, unused carvings are scattered about.

After that full day, it was time to visit the southwest corner of the island, the center of the Tangata manu, or Birdman religion which replaced the ancestor worship of the moai. There is evidence of some major civil wars on the island, but details are not clear. What is clear is that some point there was a new religion in town.
Once a year, representatives of various island groups would climb up Rano Kau volcano past the crater and gather at 'Orongo sacred village. One of the most notable reminder of the cult is the many petroglyphs scattered about the island, but especially around 'Orongo.

Rano Kao Crater with a petroglyph of the Birdman in the foreground.

Closeup

From thebigvoyage.com

One contestant per group is chosen by a seer to compete. The task is to scramble 1,000 feet down the lip of the notch in the crater, jump into the ocean, swim 1 mile to the islet of Motu Nui, collect the first egg of the returning nesting sooty tern, and return with egg intact to present the unbroken egg to his sponsor.

Motu Nui in the distance, with Motu Iti the spire in front

This was a very dangerous process and took weeks to complete, but the winner would earn the sponsor the title of Birdman (Tangata manu), to rule the island for the next year. This event was last held in 1867, when a combination of severe population depletion, the lack of terns returning, and Christianity ended it.

The village at 'Orongo

The oval stone buildings at 'Orongo have unique vaulted ceilings with the openings facing Motu Nui. The walls were brightly painted, but many of the original painting and other items there have been pirated off to museums and private collections.

The "money shot" photo is looking down the starting place of the path down the cliff, the rocks covered with with carvings, out to Motu Nui beyond. It is a stunning view, but unfortunately sits a few tantalizing feet away, now closed due to the fragility of the site. I best I could do was use this postcard photo below..

Photo by N. Aguayo F. www.chilephoto.cl

The current religion is Catholicism, and the Church of the Holy Cross in town incorporates Polynesian and Western motifs, both in the exterior....

and inside. This carving by Juan Haoa, Espritu Sanctu, depicts the holy spirit as a frigate bird.

There was still more to see, so we took our rental car out the the Northeast and the only real sandy beach on the island, 'Anakena. (the rest are volcanic rocks.)

Of course not just a lovely beach, but home to more awe-inspiring ahu and moai.

These statues were well-preserved from being buried in the sand, as you can clearly see the carving on the backs representing tattoos on the buttocks and loin cloth strings,

and a clear petroglyph of a lizard (moko) carved in one of the blocks.

Traveling further along to the east, the landscape is scattered with toppled and abandoned stone structure, villages, and ahu and moai. The saddest to me was the tallest moai ever erected on an ahu, and reportedly the last to be toppled. It is called Paro at Ahu Te Pito Kura, and once was a svelte 33 feet tall and 82 tons.

It makes a very sad sight, fractured, with its elegant red topknot decapitated, having rolled several feet away.
The place takes its name from the smooth round rock, Te Pito Te Hanua ("The Navel of the World") to the left of the ahu. (Someone more recently added four smaller stones at the cardinal compass points.)

Rapanui legend maintains that the island's first king brought this from the Homeland. This has been disproven by geologists who have found the stone of Rapanui origin. But because of the myth (perhaps aided by the magnetic properties of the volcanic rock), many gullible visitors will be seen touching the stone hoping to gain some mana  from it's mystical powers.

Across the road, there is an extensive area of lava rock art called Papa Vaka ("lava canoe"). Photographing the petroglyphs is difficult. The light has to be just right, and frankly many are hard to see in person. I will spare you, the blog-reader, multiple unconvincing pictures, but the one below (Papa Mango, or lava shark)

is accompanied by this helpful placard below.

We were a few miles short of circumnavigating the island, when we encountered this obstacle.

El coche en fuego (not ours, thanfully)

An observation: don't expect these to immediately explode, like in the movies. They just burn a very long time.
A few final observations on our visit to Rapa Nui. We felt unusually comfortable there, because although it is one leg of the triangle, the speech, food, atmosphere is definitely Latino, specifically Chilean. In many ways it felt more like traveling in Mexico or Central America than Polynesia.
Also, the fellow travelers we met were delightful. Many of us came and left on the same planes, saw the same sights, ate at the same places. These people are all very seasoned voyagers, have been all over the world, and tended to be extremely interesting people with which to spend time.

Last day, time to walk out for one last visit with an enigma. Now off to Ecuador and the Galapagos!!