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The island is populated by almost 4,000 inhabitants plus about the same again in horses. They seem to be the preferred livestock, although we can’t work out what purpose they might serve. There are some cows, but no sheep. Kestrels have the skies pretty much to themselves. I’ve seen no evidence of any small furry creatures, like rabbits or rodents and, for some bizarre reason, there seem to be a lot of woodlice. Funny, seeing as one of the main historical issues of the island is that the natives completely deforested it, causing many problems to their sustainment. Nowadays, groves of eucalypts are flourishing along with generic deciduous and they’re attempting to re-introduce the Toromiro tree, which is currently extinct in the wild and was one of the species which suffered from the heavy handedness of the Rapa Nui.
We hire a Daihatsu Terios to tour the island for our 3 day stay and soon realise that the distances on the map are much shorter than they look. It’s possible to drive the full length of the island in just over 20 minutes- 20kms. We start out on the road to the eastern coast, which is a secondary road with many potholes. Greg’s driving gets increasingly more skilled as he becomes adept at navigating through them. We follow the morning tour bus as it makes it’s stops to view the toppled Moai and Ahu (platforms). We soon appreciate however that there are sites which the tour bus either can’t make it to or doesn’t have time on it’s schedule, so it is possible to be the only ones looking at these ancient monuments.
Rapa Nui was discovered by a group of Polynesian pioneers (possibly from the Marquesa Islands, 1,500km to the west) attempting to form a colony and harvest the land. It is unknown exactly when this was but it could’ve been any time from the 8th century to the 14th century AD. They developed into a strictly spiritual culture who built large stone statues, Moai, as gifts to appease their gods. As the years passed these Moai became larger in size, such were the workers pressed by the Akiri, or king of the island, to supersede the previous examples. Unfortunately, for the Rapa Nui, this stone carving culture became obsessive, to the detriment of all else on the island, including the population’s ability to feed itself. Logs were required for the gigantic statues to be rolled into position, so all the trees were cut down. Farmers were conscripted to join the ranks and help with the building, letting their crops go to waste and die, and the whole situation got to the point where it was critical that they alter the way they were living or they would not survive. A new idea came in the form of the Birdman cult, wherein, at the beginning of Spring, when the migratory Sooty Tern would come to nest on the tiny islands of the south coast, the strongest swimmers of each tribe on the island would have to attempt the harsh Pacific waters to collect the first egg of the season. This feat represented fertility for the coming season, and would determine who would be crowned Birdman for the next year, but again caused the virtual extinction of the birds on the island because of the destruction of their nests and their habitat. So, the essence of the Rapa Nui people was the lack of respect they had for the delicate ecosystem of their island and the mass destruction they caused of it. But, it can be said that the majority of the peoples believed that what they were doing would lead to problems, however, they were ruled by the Akiri who frightened them into expending all their energies in the quarries chipping and carving at the rock, to make the biggest Moai ever seen. He told them stories that every other land mass in the ocean had sunk due to lack of belief in the gods and, if they were not careful, their island would sink too. It must’ve been a strange feeling to think you were the only people in the world, not knowing whether anything else was beyond that endless horizon of nothingness.
This isolation also kept them safe however and it was only when explorers and missionaries came to the island in the 18th century that a lot of the population was lost to smallpox and TB.
We can recognise most of the inhabitants of the island’s only village, Hanga Roa, as being directly descended from the Rapa Nui, from their facial features and habit of growing their fuzzy black hair very long. An official Rapa Nui language is still spoken and they take their cultural identity very seriously.
We are impressed by the Moai design, each one in it’s own way, different from the last, and also by the natural beauty of the island with it’s volcanic rock formations and crashing turquoise waves of the vast Pacific.
