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From The Nethermost
Roggeveen noted in his log that it was Easter, April 5, 1772. On the basis of that date, he gave this most remote place its English name. It is the name recognized by most English speaking visitors. Indeed, my wife and I left Grove Hill telling friends we were going to visit Easter Island . Ask either of us now where we went. We will reply that we went to Rapa Nui. No matter what name visitors call the island, most have come to see the statues known as moai. Visitors have wondered at these massive rock statues, and speculated at how the natives got them in place on the rock platforms. With just a little exploring, it is easy to discover the quarry from which most of the statues came. Indeed, the "moai factory" was abandoned with some products ready for transport. Even more were left under construction. The remaining question is how the people of Rapa Nui moved these sculptures, some weighing as much as seventy five tons. The tallest erected was thirty two feet in height. Different archaeologists have guessed and experimented to determine how these Polynesians moved and placed the figures using no wheels, pulleys, or beasts of burden. Our guide was archaeologist Sergio Rappu Haoa, former governor of the island. Sergio Rappu Haoa has been a member of the UNESCO advisory Committee on Oceanic Culture and is the founder of the Anthropological Museum of Rapa Nui. I tell you these credentials so that his assertion that the statues were walked to their platform will not be dismissed as absurd. To show the credibility of his assertion, he has created a two ton concrete moai and tested his hypothesis. Stop me on the street sometime, and I will explain his method for walking a seventy five ton statue! My interest in the island was different. I appreciate the enormous effort that was made to build and erect the moai. There are marvels of human endeavors all around the world. Determined humans can perform amazing feats. What interested me was an understanding that the island is a metaphor for planet Earth. Rapa Nui is just one more place in the world where life without humans flourished and, with humans present, became barren. I have stood where Moses is reported to have stood as he looked down on the land "flowing with milk and honey." A sand storm was blowing across the desert when I was there. I have traveled up the Nile coursing through a barren desert and looked over the land that was once the bread basket of the world. Now, Egypt imports wheat. I asked the guide in the ruins of Petra, Jordan, how a city the size that this one had been could have fed the inhabitants. The response was that the plains surrounding the city were filled with game, orchards, and forests. The once thriving city of Petra with its massive structures now sits in a dry canyon surrounded by desert. So also did Rapa Nui fail as a society. Jarad Diamond explains it well in his book titled Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed . For about six hundred years, the inhabitants of Rapa Nui lived in isolation. Archeological digs indicate that they brought pigs and chickens when they sailed to the island from the Polynesian chain. Rats were unintentional shipmates. Examination of oldest human trash indicates that fish supplemented the diet of the first inhabitants. Also, the largest palm trees found on the South Sea Island supplied wood for a variety of purposes ... until the last tree was cut. Jarad Diamond, with his usual sense of humor, speculates on what the man said as he cut the last tree. "Jobs, not trees," he might have said. Or maybe, "We have not done enough research to determine that the supply of trees is exhausted." An island with apparently unlimited resources set the pattern for a culture of consumption without concern for how a society makes unintentional decisions that will cause it to fail. With natural resources gone, the people of Rapa Nui turned from being a cooperative, religious community. Rather, they chose warriors to be their leaders. Fighting broke out between the communities. At some point, the last pig was eaten. Chickens were kept in stone houses with openings too small for a thief to enter. Large fish were no longer a part of the diet as the resources to make wooden boats disappeared. The builders of boats sturdy enough to cross the Pacific no longer had the wood to build their ships. There is evidence that people of Rapa Nui turned to cannibalism. Estimates for the peak number of inhabitants are that there were between 6,000 and 30,000. That is a big difference in making a guess at the population size. Whatever the peak, by 1872, there were only 111 islanders left on Rapa Nui. Today, many Chileans live on the island. However, only natives of Rapa Nui can own land. Even so, those who claim to be real Rapa Nui likely have a European somewhere among their ancestors. It is an amazing place to visit, Rapa Nui. It is amazing whether viewed from the perspective of a chance to walk in another culture, or to observe a living museum, or to take note of an example of the need to be forward looking in the use of natural resources. Jim Herod is a retired college professor living in Grove Hill.
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