Culture of Easter Island

The moai - the mysterious statues

The moai are these mysterious statues whose earliest seem to have been cut from around 800 AD. We currently list nearly 887 on the island. It is thought that some might still be buried: the total number of moai approaching so maybe a thousand.

High for most seasides, looking inward, and these statues personified the founding ancestors of each clan, and protected their descendants passed on the mana. Object of a fervent cult, each had a name. Is a certain prestige attached to their achievement, and it seems that the different tribes of the island are entered in competition increasingly fierce to produce the biggest and best moai.

95% carved into the volcanic tuff of Rano Raraku quarry, where many statues remain in draft form more or less completed, they saw their style and size change over time. At first rather crude and shorter-legged, they took height as and when they were stylized.

The most imposing of all, current release, would have measured 21.60 meters long and weighing 160 to 180 t!

Transportation of the moai

This disproportion has caused the fantasies of all archaeologists, anthropologists and other "-gists": how the Easter Islanders were able to go as they kilometers (up to 20) with, at the time, as rudimentary technical means?

Yet, no need for alien to perform such movements. The Egyptians, the Incas, the Aztecs have proven. Just a little imagination, a lot of time, and to be numerous. Several techniques have been advanced.

One of the most probable: drag the moai lying on a sled-shaped raft, on logs - or pull the sled directly. Before, there were forests of Easter Island and, probably, of hardwoods, such as toromiro, which has virtually disappeared today.

Another assumption: the moai was up and we did rotate inch by inch with strings and, perhaps, of wooden frames. It was enough then to be driven by a unwavering enthusiasm, at a time when the notion of time was not the same as today, and especially to achieve a perfect coordination of efforts.

The oral tradition tells that the moai were heading sometimes walk to their ahu thanks to mana ...

In any event, the transport was not an easy task: one can indeed see throughout the island many moai broken, abandoned on the road without ever having reached their destination. It is estimated that only a third of statues reached his destination. Over 70% failure!

Thus, a hypothesis was advanced that the size of the moai was perhaps a work intended to kill time, thus avoiding the people to fight. Transportation and erection of the statue would then consist only of minor objectives. Implausible, but who knows!

The moai to find destinations that were recovered in all probability by accumulating little by little stones on the front side.

Pukao eyes and coral

Some moai wear on their heads a sort of round hat of red stone to the appearance of slag, the pukao, extracted from the quarry Puna Pau (near Hanga Roa).

For some, the representation would pukao hair, bun, and the deified ancestor. Hypothesis reinforced by the fact that the clan leaders dyed their hair red with earth. How pukao was implemented remains unclear. Their average weight exceeds ten tons.

Another distinguishing feature: the moai had, it seems, Eye Reef to represent "living face" of a particular ancestor, which could project his mana and his descendants and their territory. These corals were embedded in their large orbits, cut only after the moai had reached the designated ahu.

The ahus

The ahu are the ceremonial platforms that supported the moai. Mostly built in the axis of the sea, they varied in shapes and materials at various times, the clans, the number of their members, etc.. The largest, which could be quite complex, date from the period of the peak, between the twelfth and seventeenth century.

Most ahu were destroyed by the wars, storm surges, etc... Some were put together in a rudimentary way, some already built in the period of decadence. Religious and social centers of the clan (those found in the whole Polynesian), these platforms housed burial chambers where the bones were stored. As in Madagascar, there was often turning ceremonies and bleaching bones. Previously, the bodies were exposed on the long side.

Front of the ahu was laid a gentle slope composed of rounded pebbles. Some even had a kind of ramp down to the sea for the recovery of lifeboats.

The islanders

The Island has only 3,800 inhabitants, nearly half of Chileans are the continent come enjoy the sun or the benefits of dynamic tourism economy. A few dozen foreigners live elsewhere on the island, the French married to Easter Island for most.

The proximity of Tahiti that the French are rather popular, a number of people speak or are doing well also in our language.

Overall, the islanders are largely mestizo: statistically, there is only fifty people 100% of Polynesian blood. The local language, Easter Island, used in conjunction with the Spanish, has similarities to the Tahitian.