Easter Island Culture

Rapa Nui culture is Polynesian, distinctive within that, and has been consciously rebuilt within living memory.

The moai

They are aringa ora — living faces — representations of deified ancestors, carved almost entirely at Rano Raraku and set on platforms facing the settlements they protected, backs to the sea. The style is unmistakable: elongated heads, heavy brows, long ears, torsos ending at the hips, and hands meeting across the abdomen. Eyes of white coral with obsidian pupils were fitted only when a statue was raised, and that is when it was held to become active.

Moving them

How multi-tonne figures travelled up to 18 kilometres without wheels or draught animals is still argued about. Oral tradition says they walked, and experiments rocking an upright replica forward with ropes have shown that a small team can do exactly that.

The birdman

After the statue era, authority passed to an annual competition at Orongo: contestants’ champions swam to an offshore islet through shark water to bring back the first sooty tern egg of the season, and the winner’s sponsor ruled for the year.

Rongorongo

A system of glyphs carved on wooden tablets, of which around two dozen survive, none on the island. It has never been deciphered, and whether it is true writing remains open.

Carving and tattoo

Wood carving in toromiro and other timbers produced the moai kavakava, emaciated ancestor figures with visible ribs, and the bird-man forms; the tradition continues commercially in Hanga Roa. Tattooing, suppressed by missionaries, has been reconstructed from early drawings and is now widely worn.

Now

Dance, tattoo, carving and the language have all been deliberately revived since the 1960s.