5 posts tagged “easter island”
With Carlos in search for the Birdman.
Carlos our driver and guide on Easter Island showed us the places of the new civilization that succeeded the Moai one: that of the Birdman. Every spring young man swam to a tiny island near The Main Island to pick up the first egg. The tribute of the chap who won was in charge of the Island that following year. It is hard to believe that these guys survived the trip: first descend from a 400 m steep cliff, then swam in shark infested rough sea to an island, pick up an egg and return. But they did. There are some nice carvings from this era left. The cliffs are part of a beautiful crater.
Carlos seemed more interested in the special restaurants in Amsterdam we you can smoke… (he meant coffee shops it turned out)
We visited some interesting caves too. At the end I gave Carlos my antiquary copy of the (Dutch) book of the voyages of Jacob Roggeveen. He was more then pleased.
They are supposed to represent the ancestors of the local inhabitants of the Island. Erected on a sort of Altar (Ahu) near the coast facing land inwards they had magical powers and could provide “Manna” a sort well being and prosperity. But only when they could see, so the real Moai had ivory eyes placed in their eye sockets. We visited the quarry where they were carved out of special volcanic rocks, slided down of the hills, carved and then transported and erected. There are at least 900 statues on the Island, made between 800 and 1600 AD. After the forests had disappeared because of over exploitation of the soil and the introductions of rodents on the Island the production of statues stopped, a war among the tribes broke out.
After Peru took the population as slaves of the Island only 110 people survived. In the late 19th century Chile took reign and after leasing the Island to an English company to farm sheep in 1955 the Island finally came to peace. That is until Thor Heyerdahl set foot on the Island and started an archaeological program that stills lasts today.
He re-erected the fist statue in 1958 and most of what we see now is re-erected in the 70’s and 90’s.
Still it is breath taking. I did a lot of research for this trip, read all the books, saw all the documentaries even read the journal of Roggeveen and scientific reports of the Heyerdahl institution, but it still didn’t prepare me for what I saw here. On the most remote populated Island of the world you really feel part of the universe when you are eye to eye with the Moai…
The flight tracking system was fun to watch: just a straight line over to vast ocean to a tiny little point in nowhere: Easter Island.
The run way (build by NASA for Space Shuttle Pacific emergency landings) runs from one end of the island to the other…
Bill was waiting for us with a flower chain and his truck.
The sun was shining and the first thing we did was hop into our shorts and run to our first Easter Island Statues. Because of the time difference we turned to bed early so to be fresh tomorrow for our first excursion.
