Chile regards the island as an integral part of the mainland, not as a colony. The inhabitants are citizens of Chile but do not pay taxes and are not subject to military conscription. A Chilean naval officer is governor, and a mayor and council of elders have a voice in local matters but no power to raise revenues. There have been sporadic campaigns for the island's independence, and an independence movement exists.
It is unclear when the isolated island was settled by Polynesian voyagers, but recent estimates date their arrival to as early c.A.D. 800 or as late as c.A.D. 1200. Easter Island was named on Easter Day, 1722, by the Dutch navigator Jakob Roggeven. At that time the population was about 4,000, down from perhaps 9,000 two centuries earlier, probably because of overuse of sparse resources. The spread of European diseases, especially smallpox, and the raids of Spanish slavers reduced the population to slightly more than 100 by 1887. Chilean annexation in 1888 led to stabilization.
Easter Island has long been famous for its hieroglyphs and for hundreds of remarkable monolithic stone heads (moais) whose origin and meaning have been widely debated. Carved from soft volcanic tufa, the statues are from 10 to 40 ft (3–12 m) high, some weighing over 50 tons. Regarding the origin and culture of the builders of these monuments, one formerly popular theory is that of Thor Heyerdahl Heyerdahl, Thor , 1914–2002, Norwegian explorer and anthropologist, b. Larvik. He carried out research in the Marquesas Islands in 1937–38 and studied the indigenous peoples of British Columbia in 1939–40.
..... Click the link for more information. , that fair-skinned invaders from the East carved the monoliths, and that later (c.1680) the present Polynesians conquered the island, unleashing violent strife leading to near extinction of the population. Now generally accepted, however, is the conclusion of French ethnologist Alfred Métreaux that the statues are no more than 500–600 years old and that they were built by the Polynesian ancestors of the present inhabitants. DNA samples taken from the oldest bones found on the island reveal Polynesian characteristics. Among other ideas now debunked are those connecting Easter Island with Egyptian or Hindu cultures or making it the remnant of a "lost continent." The entire island is now a national park.
Bibliography
See studies by J. Dos Passos (1971) and J. A. Van Tilburg (1994).
Easter Island
Spanish Isla de Pascua native Rapa Nui)
Easter Island
Easter Island
(Polynesian, Rapa Nui; Spanish, Isla de Pascua), an island of volcanic origin in the eastern Pacific Ocean. A dependency of Chile. Area, 165,500 sq km. Population, approximately 2,000 (1972, estimate). About 40 percent of the population—the indigenous inhabitants—are Polynesians, most of whom are racially mixed. The rest of the population is predominantly Chilean. The native Easter Islanders speak the Rapa Nui language. Catholicism is the predominant religious belief. The administrative center is the settlement of Hanga-roa.
Easter Island is shaped like a triangle, with a volcano near each corner. Rano Aroi (539 m, the highest point on the island), Katiki (377 m), and Rano Kao (324 m). Between the volcanoes is a hilly plain composed of volcanic tuff and basalt. The island’s coast is rocky and high, and not easily accessible. The climate is subtropical, with average monthly temperatures from 18° to 23°C and an annual precipitation of about 1,300 mm. Vegetation consists mainly of grasses, with a few eucalyptus and banana trees. Easter Island is linked by air with Santiago, Chile, and the island of Tahiti.
At the time the island was discovered by the Dutch navigator J. Roggeveen (Apr. 5, 1722, on Easter; hence the name of the island), the population numbered 3,000–4,000 people, who were at the stage of the decomposition of the primitive commune. In 1862, Peruvian slave traders destroyed most of the native population, along with their original culture. In 1888, Easter Island was annexed by Chile.
The native inhabitants of the island make their living by farming (sweet potatoes, sugarcane, bananas) and fishing; they also work on cattle-raising farms and make souvenirs for tourists.
The remains of the destroyed Easter Island culture have been investigated by an English expedition (1914–15), a Franco-Belgian expedition (1934–35), and a Norwegian-American expedition (1955–56) led by T. Heyerdahl. Easter Island is famous for its ancient carved stone statues and wooden tablets inscribed with hieroglyphic characters. The island was settled no later than the fourth century A.D. T. Heyerdahl theorizes that people came to Easter Island from Peru and that their descendants lived there for more than a millennium. He proposes further that in the 15th century Polynesians from the Marquesas Islands arrived, and that in the 17th century they killed off almost all the descendants of the original inhabitants. Many researchers who emphasize the profound similarity of the ancient Easter Island culture with the general Polynesian culture recognize the existence of American elements in the Easter Island culture, but they explain these elements either by the hypothesis that Polynesians sailed to South America and returned, or that a small group of American Indians arrived on Easter Island or the Marquesas and then were absorbed into the local population.
REFERENCES
Puchkov, P. I. Naselenie Okeanii. Moscow, 1967.Tumarkin, D. D. “Tur Kheierdal i problema zaseleniia Polinezii.” In Avstraliia i Okeaniia (Istoriia i sovremennost’). Moscow, 1970. (Contains a bibliography.)
Heyerdahl, T. Aku-Aku: Taina ostrova Paskhi. Moscow, 1959. (Translated from Norwegian.)
Métreaux, A. Easter Island. Oxford, 1957.
E. M. SUZIUMOV and D. D. TUMARKIN
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