EASTER ISLAND, also known as Rapanui or Te Pito te Henua, situated in 27° 1o' S. lat. and 109° 26' W. long., about 2,000m. from the coast of Chile and ',mom. oom. from Pitcairn, the nearest inhabited island to the west, is the most easterly and most isolated outpost of the Polynesian race. It was probably sighted by Capt. Davis in 1687 ; but the first European to land was the Dutch admiral Roggeveen on Easter day, 1722, whence its name. The name Rapanui is recent, and its various other native names, including Te Pito te Henua, really referred to particular localities, not to the island as a whole. Its abundant and remarkable stone monuments, and its unique ideographic script incised on wooden tablets have been the subject of much speculation (sometimes of an extravagant kind). The number of the monuments and their size, the smallness of the island and of the population, never more than 5,000 or 6,000 and estimated at only half that number at the time of discovery, indicate an extraordinarily intensive application to the arts of masonry and sculpture. The successful transporta tion of the huge monolithic sculptures and their erection in places remote from the quarries where they were made, are unexplained.
The most striking monuments are the burial platforms, called ahu, and the statues surmounting them. Some 26o platforms have been counted in varying degrees of preservation, fringing the coast in almost unbroken succession, while a few are also found inland. Only about I oo of these were intended to support images.
A typical image ahu consists of a wall parallel with the sea, measuring up to 300f t. in length and 15f t. in height, and buttressed to landward with a slope of masonry. The images stood in a single row facing inland on the central portion of the wall, which pro jected towards the sea, and a single ahu might contain from one to 15 statues. The maximum extension of the landward slope was about 25oft., and beyond this was a paved area. The masonry, of huge polygonal or rectangular blocks, is sometimes beautifully fin ished and fitted together, but is more often of rough material. These ahu, which were still used within living memory, served for the exposure of dead bodies and contained vaults for the subse quent burial of the bones. There are also a number of rough semi pyramidal cairns, up to I2ft. in height, containing burial vaults; these appear to be of more recent construction than the ahu.
All the statues belonging to the ahu have now been thrown down, and many broken. But by the accounts of the early voy agers the greater number of them were standing in the 18th cen tury, and Roggeveen refers to religious ceremonies which appeared to him to indicate worship of the statues. The ahu were sacred places, corresponding to the Polynesian marae, and some, if not all, of the statues were erected in honour of ancestors.
The statues were cut from compressed volcanic ash, a soft and easily worked stone. All conform to a single distinctive type, rep resenting only the upper half of the body with an upturned face and long ears, but vary in height from 3 to 36 feet. One example has even been found in the quarry with a length of 66f t., but it had never been moved. The usual height of the images on the ahu was from to 20f t., and they were surmounted by tall cylindrical hats or crowns (as much as 6ft. high and 8ft. in diameter) in proportion. These consisted of a red volcanic tuff and were quarried in a different crater from the statues.
The quarry for the statues was both inside and outside the large crater of the volcano called Rano-Raraku at the north-east end of the island ; here they are found in large numbers and in all stages of completion, as though the work had been suddenly interrupted and never afterwards resumed. The sculptors worked in niches surrounding the statues and the carving was completed before the back was detached by undercutting. The stone chisels used were found in situ and are of two main types; the rougher kinds some what resembling a European palaeolithic "handaxe," occur in large numbers and were evidently employed for roughing out the con tours of the figures. The finer kinds, of hard stone, are without shaped butts and resemble the adzes of western Polynesia and New Zealand more closely than eastern Polynesian types. The tanged spear-heads of flaked obsidian are peculiar to the island. Apart from the statues on the ahu and in the quarry, there are a large number standing about the slopes of Rano-Raraku facing westwards, others in isolated positions, and a series placed at intervals along an ancient processional road, running westward from the quarry for six miles. This road, and two others less dis tinctly visible, probably served for transporting the statues. It is about 'oft. wide and levelled by shallow cuttings and embank ments.
The means of transporting the larger images, the heaviest of which must have weighed about 5o tons, have never been satisfac torily explained. But a native account states that they were dragged into position (presumably with ropes, the native hemp and hibiscus fibre furnishing adequate materials) and that round pebbles were placed underneath to serve as rollers. Seaweed may also have been used to minimize friction with the ground. The statues were probably erected on the ahu by being hauled up an incline of earth or stones and then gradually "up-ended" into posi tion by withdrawing the supporting material from under their bases.
Habitations, though generally constructed of perishable materi als, were sometimes provided with wrought foundation-stones, resembling kerb-stones, sunk into the ground and provided with holes in their upper surface for inserting the wooden rods which provided the framework of the houses. Their ground plan was long, narrow and boat-shaped, and they were large enough to accommodate from ten to 3o persons. There are also remains of stone chicken houses, and of round chambered towers on the coast used as fishing look-outs. Natural caves were extensively used as habitations, and some have been supplemented by frontal walls.
Apart from these houses, there is one "sacred" village at the south-west corner of the island, called Orongo situated in a romantic position on a narrow and precipitous ridge between cliff and crater. It contains 48 houses built entirely of stone, the only examples of their kind in Polynesia. They were roofed by partial corbelling and a flat capstone, over which earth was heaped. Their low and narrow interiors, illuminated only by small doors, were often decorated with designs and figures in colour.
This village was connected with a bird-cult (still remembered) which played an important part in native life. A leading feature was an annual competition to secure the first egg laid on an outly ing islet by the migratory sooty tern. Orongo was occupied by the competitors, and the numerous rock-carvings in the vicinity depicting a bird-headed man, sometimes holding an egg in his hand, presumably commemorate the victors. The rock-carvings, some much weathered, also depict faces and geometric designs.
There can be little doubt that the stone structures of Easter island are the work of the ancestors of the present inhabitants (now reduced in numbers to about 25o). The statues and plat forms were actually in use at the time of discovery, and some of the sculptors' names are still remembered. But apart from tradi tional evidence, the occurrence of certain peculiar designs carved on the backs of some of the stone statues, as well as on small wooden figures of recent date, furnishes an unquestionable link between the culture of past and present.