Easter Island Rapa Nui in Chile 2

 

Location sketch-maps and moais. (A) Map of the Pacific Ocean and its main islands and archipelagos. Easter Island is highlighted by a red dot. (B) Map of Easter Island, showing the location of the freshwater bodies discussed in the text. Ahu Tongariki (see (C)) is represented by a red dot. (C) Moais of Ahu Tongariki, close to Lake Raraku, see B for location (Photo: N. Cañellas).

Easter Island  Rapa Nui  in Chile

 

Easter Island (Spanish: Isla de Pascua [ˈisla ðe ˈpas.kwa]; Rapa Nui: Rapa Nui) is an island and special territory of Chile in the southeastern Pacific Ocean, at the southeasternmost point of the Polynesian Triangle in Oceania. The island is most famous for its nearly 1,000 extant monumental statues, called moai, which were created by the early Rapa Nui people. In 1995, UNESCO named Easter Island a World Heritage Site, with much of the island protected within Rapa Nui National Park.

 

Experts disagree on when the island's Polynesian inhabitants first reached the island. While many in the research community cited evidence that they arrived around the year 800, a 2007 study found compelling evidence that they arrived closer to 1200.  

 

The inhabitants created a thriving and industrious culture, as evidenced by the island's numerous enormous stone moai and other artifacts. But land clearing for cultivation and the introduction of the Polynesian rat led to gradual deforestation.

 

 By the time of European arrival in 1722, the island's population was estimated to be 2,000 to 3,000. European diseases, Peruvian slave raiding expeditions in the 1860s, and emigration to other islands such as Tahiti further depleted the population, reducing it to a low of 111 native inhabitants in 1877.

 

Chile annexed Easter Island in 1888. In 1966, the Rapa Nui were granted Chilean citizenship. In 2007 the island gained the constitutional status of "special territory" (Spanish: territorio especial). Administratively, it belongs to the Valparaíso Region, constituting a single commune (Isla de Pascua) of the Province of Isla de Pascua. The 2017 Chilean census registered 7,750 people on the island, of whom 3,512 (45%) considered themselves Rapa Nui.

 

 

Easter Island is one of the world's remotest inhabited islands.  The nearest inhabited land (around 50 residents in 2013) is Pitcairn Island, 2,075 kilometres (1,289 mi) away;  the nearest town with a population over 500 is Rikitea, on the island of Mangareva, 2,606 km (1,619 mi) away; the nearest continental point lies in central Chile, 3,512 km (2,182 mi) away.

Etymology

The name "Easter Island" was given by the island's first recorded European visitor, the Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen, who encountered it on Easter Sunday (5 April), 1722,  while searching for "Davis Land".  Roggeveen named it Paasch-Eyland (18th-century Dutch for "Easter Island"). The island's official Spanish name, Isla de Pascua, also means "Easter Island".

 

The current Polynesian name of the island, Rapa Nui ("Big Rapa"), was coined after the slave raids of the early 1860s, and refers to the island's topographic resemblance to the island of Rapa in the Bass Islands of the Austral Islands group.

 

 Norwegian ethnographer Thor Heyerdahl argued that Rapa was Easter Island's original name and that the Bass Islands' Rapa (Rapa Iti) was named by refugees from it.

 

 

Easter Island and the islands between it and South America.

Geography

Easter Island is one of the world's most isolated inhabited islands.  Its closest inhabited neighbour is Pitcairn Island, 1,931 km (1,200 mi) to the west, with approximately 50 inhabitants.  The nearest continental point lies in central Chile near Concepción, at 3,512 kilometres (2,182 mi).

 

Easter Island's latitude is similar to that of Caldera, Chile, and it lies 3,510 km (2,180 mi) west of continental Chile at its nearest point (between Lota and Lebu in the Biobío Region). Isla Salas y Gómez, 415 km (258 mi) to the east, is closer but is uninhabited.

 

The Tristan da Cunha archipelago in the southern Atlantic competes for the title of the most remote island, lying 2,430 km (1,510 mi) from Saint Helena island and 2,816 km (1,750 mi) from the South African coast.

 

The island is about 24.6 km (15.3 mi) long by 12.3 km (7.6 mi) at its widest point; its overall shape is triangular. It has an area of 163.6 km2 (63.2 sq mi), and a maximum elevation of 507 m (1,663 ft) above mean sea level. There are three Rano (freshwater crater lakes), at Rano Kau, Rano Raraku and Rano Aroi, near the summit of Terevaka, but no permanent streams or rivers.

 

Flag of Easter Island

 

Outer slope of the Rano Raraku volcano, the quarry of the Moais with many uncompleted statues.

 

Moai at Rano Raraku, Easter Island

 

 

Motu Nui, with the smaller Motu Iti and the sea stack of Motu Kao Kao. Picture taken from Orongo on the Rano Kau volcano, around 250 meters (820 feet) above sea level.

 

Typical landscape on Easter Island; rounded extinct volcanoes covered in vegetation. This is the view from Puna Pau, the quarry for the "hats" of the Moai stone statues on the island. To get a grasp on the scale of things, notice the horses grazing at the top of the hill.

 

 

Hanga Roa seen from Terevaka, the highest point of the island

 

A view from the west side of the crater at Rano Kau, looking towards the southern side of the crater, where much of the crater wall has collapsed into the sea (Pacific Ocean). On the right side of this photo is the Orongo Ceremonial Village.

 

 

Panorama of Anakena beach, Easter Island. The moai pictured here was the first to be raised back into place on its ahu in 1955 by Thor Heyerdahl using the labor of islanders and wooden levers.

Tukuturi, an unusual bearded kneeling moai

The only kneeling Moai at Easter Island.

 

All fifteen standing moai at Ahu Tongariki, excavated and restored in the 1990s

 

Ahu Akivi, one of the few inland ahu, with the only moai facing the ocean

 

Osterinsel, Hanga Roa Hafen mit Moai Ko te Riko

 

The rongorongo script of Easter Island. A closeup of the verso of the Small Santiago Tablet, showing parts of lines 3 (bottom) to 7 (top). The glyphs of lines 3, 5, and 7 are right-side up, while those of lines 4 and 6 are up-side down.

 

Angata a Roman Catholic catechist who developed a cultic following and was regarded to be a prophetess, or, rather, a witch. Photograph taken in 1914, published in 1919.

 

Hanga Roa town hall

 

Tamure Dancers, Easter Island

 

Traditional cultivars of sweet potato (kumara) were staple crops on Polynesian Rapa Nui

 

Fishing boats