Bill and Lynne Grand Tour

Easter Island
Rapa Nui, as the locals call the island, is a volcanic island over 3,000 km from the nearest land. We are staying in a hotel with a spectacular view from our balcony of the waves crashing against the rocks. Each day we take a tour of some of the archeological sites.

Moai
There are nearly 900 moai (statues) on the island most of which are lying on their faces after the wars between the clans. These stone statues are amazing and the effort needed to carve them out of the volcanic rock using stone tools was brought home when we visited the quarry.

Moai Quarry
It evidently took about six months to cut them from the side of the mountain and nobody knows how long to transport them to the platforms at the village. There are any number of theories as to how this was done but I like the one which maintains they walked there. One of Thor Heyerdahl´s engineers showed how this could be done by pulling on ropes from alternate sides to make the 9 meter moai move. The moai were very important as they honored the leaders of the clan without whose protection there would be no harvest or successful fishing. As the centuries went by, the statues became larger and better carved. The largest is unfinished and is over 20 metres long - longer than a cricket pitch. Most of the moai left standing are around the quarry. They carved them and then abandoned them when it became too difficult to move them. War is such a distraction. About 300 have been restored to their platforms. The toppling was necessary to ensure your enemy did not get mana from the gods.

Moai


The birdman cult became popular toward the end of the moai production. The chief of each clan trained his best man to enter a contest which involved swimming through shark-infested waters to a large rock off the island. The aim was to be the man to find the first egg laid by a seabird that season. The winner was made chief for a year and spent it in seclusion in a cave having food brought to him and decreeing what and where things should be planted and organized and, of course, the customary virgin was also delivered. Next year the competition was held again so there could be a different supreme chief of all the clans each year.

The archeologists have done a good job reconstructing the stone houses, ovens, gardens and crematoria. Even the chicken hoops are built of stone and we have enjoyed seeing chicken hawks perched on rocks all over the island looking longingly at the enclosures. They must be genetically imprinted to know there were once chickens there. There are also an incredible number of horses around, which are used for pony trekking and not much else.

We leave on a six hour flight for Tahiti this evening. This will be vastly different from the early journeys by canoe using the stars, evening flight of seabirds and floating seaweed to find land. Our guide assured us they could do the journey to Tahiti in 5 days, which meant the canoes were paddling 800 km per day - a rate we doubt.

LS