Monday, August 10, 2015 – Easter Island

We arrived on Easter Island this afternoon and were greeted at the airport with a traditional lei greeting! The people are very warm and friendly!  We came to the beautiful hotel and were given the option of taking an excursion to see the moai!  Who could possibly turn that down?!!!

We arrived at the Ahu a Kivi.  These are seven moai that face the sea.  The majority of moai on the island all face inward to protect the villages.  The reason that these moai face the sea is to protect the tiny island from which the Rapa Nui originally came from.  The ceremonial platforms that the statues are built on are engineered using lava rock.  The moai themselves are crafted from a type of lava rock…so they were easy to carve.  The socket eyes are indicative of the spirituality of the people.  The main purpose of the moai was to protect the people.  It was amazing to see the statues in person!  They are so incredibly formed…and so proportional to each other!  There they were….just sitting on the platform on a field with nothing else around.  It’s baffling to think how they must have gotten them to this location from the quarry.  (I’ll find out about that Wednesday when I visit the quarry!)

Our next stop was to visit “homes” of the Rapa Nui.  There were different types of homes that they lived in.  One type of home was called the “boathouse.”  The reason for the name is that it is shaped kind of like a boat.  You can see in the picture below.  The homes were only used for sleeping and again the purpose of the home was to protect the family.  The young children would sleep in the far ends of the home and the older members would sleep more in the middle and towards the door.  They also had cave homes.  Many families would create homes in the lava caves of the island.  They had their “kitchens”…fire pits…eating areas….and ceremonial areas.  The water that dripped into the cave was used by the Rapa Nui as there main source of water for drinking and for growing plants.  There are no rivers or lakes on the island, so they had to be quite resourceful!  They would grow plants at the opening of the cave!  The caves were really big!  The one that we visited was 9 kilometers!  The families kind of subdivided the area and each took their own space. 

We also learned that there were two distinct groups of Rapa Nui on the island….those with long ears, and those with short ears.  The people with long ears were much bigger than those with short ears.  These differences were also projected onto the statues!  Our last stop was an area called Tahai.  In this area we saw the “famous” statue shown here in the picture: 

Red Hat!

This statue depicts royalty.  That is denoted by the red “hat,” which is really just a hairstyle and the obsidian eyes.  This statue was actually refurbished and the eyes were put in.  A gentleman named William Malloy is largely responsible for the care of the statues.  He was an archaeologist that came to Easter Island and helped to preserve the statues, and bring tourism to the island.  The Rapa Nui are very grateful for all that he has done for the island and have created a monument where he is buried.