On Monday we rented a car and started a tour of the island.
There are moai everywhere.
Let me give you a bit of background on the moai and other structures. The moai are the stone bodies. They are carved out of a light rock of consolidated volcanic ash, using obsidian or basaltic rocks as tools. They are placed upon ceremonial platforms, called ahu. On there heads are what are called topknots, pukao, fashioned out of another, red, stone (scorria) from another location on the island. They depict the hair, and the topknot often has another blog at the very top, which is probably a pony-tail on top, as seen in this sketch from when Easter Island was discovered.
We can look at the map again.
The moai and ahu are mainly, but not exclusively, along the coast. We drove along the southern coast to Tongariki and Anakena, then drove back along the inland route. We stopped when we felt like it.
During the revolt, or battles, when the ancestral worship ended, all of the moai were toppled. It’s not clear when people lost faith in the moai and toppled them for that reason, or if it was various tribes raiding each other and toppling them to show their dominance (kind of like a fraternity brother panty raid?).
Right along the road was this one, toppled and broken.
This one was not toppled in a raid (not close to an ahu, but probably it fell over, broke during transport (the current thinking is that they walked them, just as the legend say), and they left it where it lay.
Here is the ahu it was somewhat close to.
Here’s Machi and his son Lucas near one of them.
(Photo credit: Alan Bruens)
When the moai were toppled, their topknots often ended up quite a distance. Here’s Alan heading to look at them.
And then here’s the line of toppled moai. We were somewhere along the south shore for this one.
You can also see how carefully they were toppled face down; maybe that was intended to cancel their manna in some fashion.
We then headed to Tongariki, over on the east side, but not quite as far as the Poike peninsula. It’s in a low spot between volcanoes. It had been restored back in the 1950s or so.
When the Valdivia earthquake happened in Chile in 1960, it created a tsunami that reached all the way to Rapa Nui and re-toppled the moai, driving them inland. In 1992 the Japanese re-righted them.
Here you can see them all in a row, with Machi and his wife, Virginia, heading to take a closer look.
And here I get a good look at them.
(Photo credit: Alan Bruens)
Alan was of course fascinated, and carefully took pictures. I like this one of him, with the Poike Peninsula (Mount/Maunga Pu A Katiki) behind him.
There was a line of topknots still lying there, and here’s a shot Alan took of me and Lucas walking in front of them.
Finally, here we are standing in front of the Tongariki Moai.
I’m glad they didn’t all get toppled over. That would be sad.
That’s a good final picture for your story. -TJ
It reminds me of this:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-21587468
Good article, Hadashi. Thanks for sharing.
At the very least, they have a picture of it. sigh.
I believe we should preserve as much as we can of our (the world) history, both good and bad. -TJ
Yeah, the unfortunate truth is that the more something is valued, the more people feel the urge to destroy it just to spite other people. Notre Dame is a good example. Hell, most cathedrals that aren’t still around are good examples. Tudor buildings used to get mown down like flies…. the list is endless and depressing.
TJ. They were all toppled a century or so ago. Fortunately, they were not all broken (though some were). They started re-erecting them in the late 1950s.
A fascinating excursion!
Please have in mind that the moais were not destroyed by chance or neglection, they were the hated images of a despotic oligarchy that was replaced by the more equalitarian regime centered on the tangata manu (bird man) who was in charge for only one year.
Machi