Feeling Big Headed

Feeling Big Headed
Easter Island, Chile

Easter Island, Chile

Easter Island is one of those places that I associate with National Geographic and never in a million years thought that it was somewhere that I might one day visit. Again it is one of those places that I couldn’t have located on a map if my life depended on it. So for those of you that are interested Easter Island is actually just 14 miles long by 9 miles wide, is owned by Chile where it is known by its Spanish name Isla de Pascua, it is the most remote populated island in the world with Pitcairn as their closest neighbour just 1,289miles away and the coast of Chile is 2,182 miles away.

Currently there is a population of just under 6,000 people on Easter Island of which 60% are of Rapa Nui descent.

The first thing that anyone thinks of when you mention Easter Island are the huge heads which are synonymous with the name. One of my biggest fears going to Easter Island was the concern that in real life what if the heads don’t live up to my expectations. I had visions of these tiny little eroded stumps and boy oh boy was I wrong, the heads were every bit as awesome as they seem in National Geographic.

Getting to Easter Island was one of the less pleasant parts of our Cruise, most places we had been that we needed to arrive by tender everyone had arrived in dribs and drabs and there were few queues for the tenders. Easter Island day was a far cry from the previous days, pretty much the whole ship had tours booked and needed to get to the shore at the same time, but only 3 lifeboats could be operated at once and only one could be unloaded at a time so getting over 1500 people off the ship was mayhem. We were all gathered in the lounge with our magic coloured tender tickets not knowing how long we had to wait as the passengers on Oceania trips were unloaded with priority tickets. Amazingly thanks to some of our super organised contacts we managed to upgrade our ticket colour and were some of the first off the ship and onto the island.

We had booked a 2 day tour to see all the highlights of the Island, day one focusing on the Moai (big heads) and day two looking at more Moai and also the history of the Bird Man.

Easter Island originally called Rapa Nui and was found by Polynesians in 700-1100CE and has had to say the least a turbulent history. There is very little known for sure about the Rapa Nui’s but it is thought that they operated on a class system which had a high chief called an Ariki. The Moai heads around the island are thought to be ancestors they considered as deities. Most of the settlements were along the coast and the Moai were placed with their backs to the spirit world in the ocean looking over the villages to protect the inhabitants. There are around 900 Moai on the island averaging 4 meters in height and weighing 13 ton. The biggest statue found measures about 32 feet tall, and consists of a single block weighing about 82 tons

The first place that we visited on Rapa Nui was Rano Raraku, the main quarry where the rocks for the Moai were taken. This was one of my favourite spots on the island, as it is like the Rapa Nui just left. There are Moai still part carved as part of the cliff, there are Moai sticking out of the gound having been moved part of the way down the quarry and there are some face down in the grass en route to their final destinations. The true size of these heads is just astounding as only a half to a third is above the ground and many have not just bodies but also legs and feet. It was fascinating seeing the development of the different Moai as the carving and shape of them changed over time, they began with much rounder faces and the shape changed to the more square shape that we associate with the Moai, also the shape of the bodies changed as they soon started to add top knots to the statues and needed to arch the backs to change the centre of balance.

The sheer size of the heads was just awesome, you can’t even begin to imagine how they moved them from the quarry at all. It is thought that the Moai were carved and moved around the island up until around 1680.

After this time the Island was at breaking point, the introduction of the Polynesian rat had decimated much of the vegetation. Over population and deforestation left many trees and land birds extinct through over harvesting and over hunting. With no large trees the islanders that had relied on fishing were no longer able to build seaworthy boats, the lack of trees caused major soil erosion making the growing of crops impossible. By the time the first Europeans arrived on Rapa Nui in 1722 the population had decresed to around 3,000 people from 15,000 just a century earlier. In 1774 Captain James Cook arrived and reported many of the Moai had been toppled over.

In the 1860’s Peruvian slave raiders came to Rapa Nui and violent abductions continued for several months eventually capturing 1500 men and women, half of the population. The slave raiders were forced to repatriate many of the people that they had kidnapped, but disembarked carriers of smallpox with the survivors which created a devastating epidemic . In the mid 19^th century Whalers brought tuberculosis to the island which wiped out around a quarter of the population. The land on the island began to be bought up by sheep ranchers which led to confrontations with the locals. Until the 1960’s the Rapa Nui were confined into Hanga Roa the main township whilst the rest of the island was rented to the William-Balfour Company as a sheep ranch. In 1966 the island became managed by the Chilean Army, it was opened in it’s entirely and the Rapa Nui were given Chilean citizenship.

To say that Rapa Nui has been savaged but war, famine, deforestation and epidemics would be an understatement, how there are any Rapa Nui descendants left is something of a miracle. The days of sheep ranches taking over the island have left their mark still today as the island is overrun with horses who don’t really seem to be owned or cared for by anyone.

The moai that we saw on our tour were mainly the large reconstructed arrangements that are on top of Ahu, a mound of earth surrounded by walls upon which the heads stand. Many of these Ahu are burial chambers of important Rapa Nui’s. Much archaeological work has been undertaken on Rapa Nui to get the heads back into their original composition as tribal wars along with a Tsunami swept many of the heads from their location on their Ahu.

The pictures really speak for themselves the Moai are incredible and beautiful and we were honoured to get to stand alongside them.

Easter Island’s rich history does not just stop at the end of the creation of the Moai, in fact when the Moai were still being created another cult began on the island. The Bird Man cult which carried on until 1867. Rapa Nui has an incredible volcanic crater called Rano Kau which became the centre of the Bird Man cult. A ceremonial village of Orongo was built here to worship the god of fertility. Each year a competition took place here to determine who would lead the island for the following year. The Bird Man competition required the competitors to scale the vertical slope of the island, to swim in shark infested waters to Mota Nui island where they would wait for hours or days for the first Sooty Tern to lay its first egg of the season. The winner of the Bird Man would watch the birds for the signs of nesting and would swoop in take the egg and raise it to show the waiting masses on the mainland that he was the winner. The egg would then be wrapped in leaves, tied to the Bird Mans forehead so it would not be damaged on the swim and climb back to the island. In addition to the huge heads, there are around 480 petroglyphs of the bird man in rocks around the island, mainly around Rano Kau.

Whilst we were being given the history of the Bird Man competition by our guide, the heavens opened and whilst it was pretty wet and miserable the most awesome rainbow appeared right over Mota Nui Island, awesome.

Our final stop aft
er lots of Moai viewing was one of the most interesting in that the Ahu that the Moai stood was absolutely perfectly carved. Much like the way the rocks are perfectly prepared by the Incas at Macchu Pichu, these rocks were different to the rest of the Ahu. Much debate, argument and excavation has happened on this sight to look for any evidence of the Inca’s having been here and played a part in the different rock sculpting, but there is nothing to suggest that they ever made it to Easter Island.

At the end of our second day we were dropped back at the make shift port ready to get back on the boat and we were greeted with a queue of cruise passengers maybe 500 people deep, uh oh!

We hopped in line and listened to the moaning and whining as we got rained on then cooked in the sun for the next hour and eventually made it to the front. The journey back to the boat was pretty horrific, the tender was bouncing up and down and up and down and everyone was looking a little green around the gills. We all had to wait patiently for our turn to get off and it was the longest wait ever.

We had been invited to an Easter Island Sail Away Suite party by our friends Jim & Shirley, but sadly my sail away from Easter Island was spent lying in a dark room, thankfully a few hours later I was back to normal and it only seemed to right to finish the day with a cheese platter from room service.

Thank you Easter Island for being a dream destination; fascinating, beautiful and mind blowing all in one.