Great cover story on Rapa Nui in today's Sunday Oregonian.
http://www.oregonlive.com/search/index.ssf?/base/exclude/1111489073296680.xml?oregonian?EXCLUDE
And how to get there:
http://www.oregonlive.com/search/index.ssf?/base/exclude/1111489018296681.xml?oregonian?EXCLUDE
Unfortunatley, great color picture of big line of moais isn't in the on-line version of the story.

[ Edited by: Rum Balls on 2005-03-27 11:55 ]

[ Edited by: Rum Balls on 2005-03-27 11:56 ]

Thanks RB, great link.

Ahu

Could you cut and paste - I couldn't locate article?

Photos of Moai restored on their ahu are here:
http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?mode=viewtopic&topic=11815&forum=1&start=30

Mahalo.

[ Edited by: christiki295 on 2005-03-29 21:02 ]

Dang, they pulled the stories off the web site! I'd manually type the stories out, but they're kinda long and I already had a big drink in a pineapple shell tonight.

I tried to link up to another source but had problems. Here is the story.
The Advocate

http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/travel/chi-0311230310nov23,0,1946212.story?coll=sns-travel-headlines
From the Chicago Tribune

WONDERS OF THE WORLD--THE SEVEN WONDERS OF MAN

Easter Island
A millennium and a half ago, an ancient people came from the west--or was it the east?--to this desolate speck of land in the middle of nowhere and built a remarkable culture.
By Randy Curwen
Tribune staff reporter

November 23, 2003

HANGA ROA, Easter Island -- After 4 1/2 hours of nothing below but blue, we are going down--and heading toward a thousand-foot cliff.

This isn't like flying into Hawaii or Tahiti or most any other island in the world where you at least get a hint of land before you hit it.

No ships beneath, no warning reefs, no outlying islands, no mountains popping through the clouds--nothing, absolutely nothing, in a million square miles of ocean prepares you for this.

Easter Island, a 64-square-mile dot of land without an inhabited neighbor for 1,200 miles, is by most means of reckoning the most remote inhabited island in the world. Yet, gliding by that cliff, our jet from Chile touches down on a runway long enough to handle the Space Shuttle (which, indeed, it was built for).

Easter Island Q&A

Easter Island sights

We are here not, of course, to solve but to witness one of the world's great wonders and mysteries: the statues of Easter Island. Who built these stone giants--887 of them, most standing 10 to 20 feet tall and weighing 10 or 20 tons or more--and where did those people come from? Why were they built, and how were they transported and erected? And what, in the end, caused such an industrious society and its monuments to come tumbling down?

Fifteen or sixteen hundred years ago, after a considerably longer and more perilous journey, Ariki (King) Hotu Matu'a arrived from the other direction at a beach on the other side of the island. His party of 200 refugees found a forested, triangularly shaped haven created by three long-extinct volcanoes.

With the taro, yams, sweet potatoes, sugar cane and chickens they brought (two other staples--coconuts and breadfruit--would not grow on this subtropical island), Hotu Matu'a and his descendants split the island into territories and prospered. There were no outside enemies to fear, and few if any outside influences (Thor Heyerdahl would argue this point) to alter the social structure.

For them, this was Te Pito o Te Henua--the Navel of the World.

At the center of this world was a native religion built around the ariki, who was descended from the gods and passed his position on from first-born to first-born son. As the population grew, the ariki used his supernatural religious power--his mana--to rule and maintain order among the clans.

Ancestor worship was the heart of the religion, and by 800 A.D. that worship was being expressed in massive stone altars, called ahus, and stone statues of each group's ancient leaders, called moais. Used for cremations and other ceremonies (and sometimes astronomically aligned), the ahus were similar to altars found elsewhere in the Pacific. But over the next few hundred years, the moais became bigger and less naturalistic, evolving into stylized figures resembling nothing else on Earth.

Like a modern-day arms race, the competition to build bigger and better ahus and moais grew more intense. By 1500 A.D., the moais were being crowned by a topknot, called pukao, carved from a different stone at a different quarry than the moais.

More begot more. More labor was needed to build more altars. More workers were required to carve, transport and place more statues and their topknots atop them. More trees were felled for more people, as the population grew to 10,000.

Around 1600 A.D., it all fell apart.

Prolonged drought and overfarming depleted the food supply. Stone carvers put down their picks and adzes, leaving moais in various states of construction.

Completed moais were abandoned on the roads to their sites. Trees that could have been hacked into seagoing canoes were gone, and with them the means to escape.

Deprivation and strife led to civil war--even cannibalism.

By the time the first Europeans discovered the island--in 1722, on Easter (thus the name)--only a few moais were left standing, and most of the ahus were in ruins.

And even what was left wasn't fully comprehended. That first sea captain thought the giant statues were made of clay.

Over the next 80 years, there were infrequent encounters with the outside world, but the now-treeless island had neither food nor water to offer passing ships. Capt. James Cook, after a visit in 1774, noted that "nature has been exceedingly sparing of her favours to this spot."

Then, in the early 1800s, things got infinitely worse when the visitors became more interested in exploitation than exploration. In 1805, islanders began to be abducted as slaves for plantations in the South Pacific, then for mining in South America. Western diseases killed off most of those left behind. By 1877, only 111 natives remained.

Chile annexed the island in 1888, later leasing it out for half a century to a British firm as a sheep ranch, which--along with the earlier introduction of cattle and the now-ubiquitous horses--caused further damage both to the island and its historic ruins.

Throughout this time there was a dim awareness among outsiders that Easter Island was somehow special. In the 1860s, Christian missionaries were among the first to try to piece together the story of the island's people, though faith sometimes blinded them as to what they saw (one wrote, in 1864, of the islanders that "religion seems to occupy quite a minimal place in their life").

It wasn't until 1914 that the first archeological exploration was carried out by Katherine Routledge, a British woman who led a private expedition that became the basis of the first popular book on the island, "The Mystery of Easter Island."

But it was the Norwegian Thor Heyerdahl who really put Easter Island on the adventurer's map. Following up on his 1947 Kon-Tiki raft trip, which proved that South Americans could have sailed to the South Pacific, he led an expedition in 1955 and 1956 to Easter Island (recounted in "Aku-Aku: The Secret of Easter Island") to test his theories--and even managed to re-erect one of the moais using local labor and methods that would have been available half a millennium before.

There are a few trees today on Easter Island, and a few more people.

But hardly any of either are truly "native."

Reforestation has brought in trees from Australia and South America, but grasses, shrubs and rocks still cover more than 95 percent of the island. Immigration has brought in South Pacific islanders and mainlanders from Chile, but between the depopulation of the island in the 1800s and intermarriage, the original Easter Islander bloodline is mighty thin.

At 15 miles long and 8 miles at its widest, Easter Island is easy to see in two or three days, which is about what most visitors allow. But to go beyond the main ahus and moais, to get into the cult of the birdman, the caves, the rongo-rongo tablets, the Long Ears/Short Ears and Heyerdahl-inspired arguments about the origin of the Easter Islanders . . . well, that could take a while.

We're on the three-day schedule.

Our first day's tour begins at the end of the runway in Hanga Roa, the only town and home to almost all of the island's 3,500 inhabitants. This is not an island of big-bus tours (the biggest seats about 25), so our group of 12 is medium-sized.

We represent four countries (U.S., England, Scotland and Italy)--and two languages, which is probably why our guide is Dina, an Italian who came here 16 years ago.

Our immersion into the land of ahus and moais begins a few miles east at Vaihu, where the platforms and statues have not been restored. It's sort of like an African safari, when you oooh and ahhh at a single elephant on the first day while later it will take a herd to get your attention. We're impressed . . . but we know there's more to come.

On this little island, that comes quickly. At another unrestored ahu, Ahu Akahanga, we also see the remains of a chief's house in the traditional shape of a boat. This was "the platform of the kings," since legend has it that Hotu Matu'a's tomb is nearby.

And then, boom, we're at Rano Raraku, the volcano where most of the statues were quarried from hard basalt. There are moais all over. Dozens and dozens on the hillside, some lying face down, others upright but buried up to their chests or chins. Dozens more abandoned on the routes that would have taken them to ahus on various parts of the island. Dozens in various stages of completion, still attached to the mountain, including the biggest of them all, El Gigante--an oversized aberration even here, at 70 feet and about 150 tons. Climb up to the rim, and there are a dozen more inside the crater above the lake below.

Altogether there are 397 moais. The ultimate herd.

A mile and a half below Rano Raraku on the coast is what may be the ultimate ahu, Tongariki, the largest ahu on the island, with 15 re-erected moais. But it's not just its size or numbers that make this perhaps the most-photographed ahu of all. Overlooking a bay with one of the island's big-three volcanoes, Poike, behind it, it is visually stunning. And the moais all face inland, ready for their closeup. (With one possible exception, all moais face inland, of course; what point would there have been to have them face an empty sea where nobody would ever come along to see them?)

Cutting across the island along the slopes of Poike, we ride beside Iko's Trench, the site of a legendary battle where the Short Ears killed off the Long Ears back in the 17th Century. Island lore has it that Easter Island was populated by two groups of people, one coming from the west, the other from the east. Could those Long Ears have been the ones from the east--from Peru?

Dina dismisses the notion. While there may have been other Polynesian immigrants after Hotu Matu'a, all the new evidence, she says, argues against a South American connection. (We will see her waver on this point only once.)

On the northeastern side of the island, at Ahu Te Pito Kura, the largest moai ever placed on an ahu now is lying on the ground. Believed to have been the last moai to have been toppled, in 1840, it is less than half the size of that monster up on Rano Raraku, but still a giant. Even today, it would take a mighty big crane to move it, let alone get it back on its perch.

So how, Dina challenges us, did the moais' creators get them here--and put them up?

We, of course, rattle off our ideas, or what we've heard: They placed a trail of logs under them, and pushed them along. Or maybe it was round stones, so they could be moved like a block on marbles. Or a sledge with a sling. Or maybe they "walked" them like we move a refrigerator, one corner at a time.

And once they got them there? Well, it's hard to beat the way Heyerdahl did it a half century ago. His crew of only a dozen men used wooden poles to lift the statue a fraction of an inch at a time, filling under it with pebbles and rocks until the moai was upright.

All very interesting, says Dina, but we're wrong: It was mana--that supernatural power-- that moved the moais.

Well, glad we got that mystery cleared up.

We end our full-day tour on the beach at Anakena, where Heyerdahl did his raising. It's January, and the mid-summer sun is relentless. We take a dip, then sit under the (imported) palm trees--the only shade, other than the re-erected moais, we've had all day.

That evening, back at the Hotel Hanga Roa, I meet Madeleine, an Englishwoman from Scotland who's left the grandkids behind to do this island--on her own--for a week. She's done her homework, and has even more theories than Dina. She scoffs at Dina's semi-official line on the islanders' origin, liking Heyerdahl's better. And she scoffs at the idea that her week will give her enough time to do and see all the island has to offer.

The next day we who aren't doing it alone have two half-day tours.

In the morning, we visit the reconstructed ceremonial village of Orongo, on the edge of the Rano Kau crater anchoring the southwestern corner of the island. The view below, with three tiny islands in front and the largest of the island's crater lakes behind, is gorgeous.

After the time of the ahus and moais passed, a new religious tradition became centered here, the Cult of the Birdman. Each year, a race was held to bring back the first egg of the sooty tern, a migratory bird that nested in the islets off shore. The first contestant to bring back an unbroken egg--the birdman--became a man-god, enjoying special privileges and giving his clan great power for the following year. The Birdman Cult lasted until the days of the missionaries.

We visit some more ahus as well--including the one that gives Dina pause. Ahu Vinapu has a stone wall unlike any we've seen elsewhere on the island. With its perfectly joined blocks, it looks exactly like those in the Incan cities of Peru.

Dina shrugs off this contradictory clue. "If you don't have more questions than before [you arrived], then I failed."

She hasn't.

In the afternoon, we stop at the island's anthropological museum just outside of town overlooking the jagged coast. It's small but interesting, and does its job too. We leave with more questions.

We drive inland to Puna Pau, where the topknots were quarried, then on to Ahu Tahai, a large ceremonial center. We duck out of the afternoon heat briefly to walk around in a huge cave, Ana Tepahu Caverns, one of many that honeycomb the island; islanders once used these caves for a more serious kind of escape.

And finally, we arrive at our last ahu, Ahu Akivi, a rare inland ahu whose seven moais look out to sea. Well, not really, Dina says; they're actually aligned to face the rising sun at the equinox.

Back at the hotel that evening, I discover that Madeleine, too, has visited a cave--one she had to crawl into.

On the third, and last, day, I plan to explore the little town of Hanga Roa. But first, I go for a drive. Along with two American women who have a Jeep, we take Madeleine's advice to see Easter Island on our own. And we take Madeleine as our guide.

We want to drive up Poike on the Jeep trail marked on the map. It's not easy getting lost on most of Easter Island, with few trees or obstructions to block your view. But we manage. Instead of driving to the top, we find ourselves at the edge of the cliff. We backtrack to the only thing in sight, a small ranch, and try to get the attention of a horseman, but he has better things to do and ignores us.

Madeleine offers to chase after him. But we three Americans are cowards, so we all retreat for a final walk around magnificent Ahu Tongariki before returning to town, where I go exploring on my own.

That evening, just before nightfall, I walk to a seafood restaurant just out of town. Along the deserted road, with waves crashing against the rocks, I run into Madeleine, who is leaving the next day too. She has had more adventures. And more ideas and answers and questions. Her fellow countrywoman, Katherine Routledge, would have been proud.

Later, I meet a couple who had been on the tour with me. We compare notes. They have been here for four days and are starting to go stir-crazy. Three days, they decide, would have been just right.

For most travelers, they may well be right.

But I know someone who would beg to differ.

Randy Curwen is the Tribune's travel editor. E-mail him at [email protected]

Easter Island Q&A

Easter Island sights

Copyright © 2005, The Chicago Tribune

[ Edited by: mrtikibar on 2005-03-30 12:45 ]

[ Edited by: mrtikibar on 2005-03-30 12:51 ]

Thank you, Mr. TB. See you Friday night for Happy Hour?
:drink: