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escape

the Navel of the world

Chile’s Easter Island beckons visitors with its exotic culture and historical secrets.

By Julie Skurdenis

Its first inhabitants, the Polynesians, called it Te Pito o Te Henua, the navel of the world. Nowadays we call it Easter Island, Isla de Pascua or Rapa Nui. It’s one of the most remote and isolated places on earth.
Situated in the Pacific Ocean, Easter Island is almost exactly equidistant from South America and Tahiti, about 2,300 miles away from each. Although now part of Chile, Easter Island was most probably settled by migrants from the Polynesian Marquesas Islands sometime in the 4th or 5th centuries A.D. Here, they created a society in which individual family clans called matas claimed strips of territory beside the sea and inland.
Beside the sea, each mata erected ceremonial altars called ahu, similar to those found on other Polynesian islands. On these altars, as early as the 7th century, moai, stone statues, were erected to honor ancestors. These became progressively larger so that by the 15th century, the largest stood 32 feet tall and weighed 82 tons. In the late 17th century, just before Easter Island was “discovered” by Europeans, island society collapsed into chaos and war. The moai were toppled.
Many of the moai have now been re-erected on their ceremonial platforms. The most logical place to begin a visit to the moai is at Tahai, located just outside Hanga Roa, Easter Island’s only town. Tahai is the collective name given to the three ahu located here. In the middle is Ahu Tahai, with its solitary weathered moai. To one side is Ahu Vai Uri, lined with five moai. On the other side is Ahu Ko Te Riko, with a moai with inset coral eyes and a topknot made of red sandstone. All the moai stand with their backs to the sea, overlooking what was once a plaza where religious ceremonies were performed.
Twelve miles from Hanga Roa along Easter Island’s southern coast lies Tongariki, where 15 moai—one wearing a topknot—line a 200-foot-long ahu. A tidal wave in 1960 toppled the immense statues, which have since been re-erected.
Within sight of Tongariki lies Rano Raraku, the quarry where the moai were dug out of volcanic rock and carved. On the slope leading up to the rim of the extinct volcano hundreds of moai litter the ground. All were in the process of being carved when, suddenly, work ceased. Rano Raraku is an extremely atmospheric place. It might be considered the highlight of a trip to Easter Island to wander among the half-carved, half-buried statues, some lying face up on the ground, others tilted with sightless eyes staring out to sea, still others in pieces, broken while being moved to their ceremonial platforms.
At the far eastern end of Easter Island, along Anakena Beach fringed by palm trees, lie Ahu Ature Huki with the solitary moai re-erected in 1955 in an experiment to see how long it would take (it took 12 islanders 20 days). Here, also, is Ahu Nau Nau with seven moai whose carving are so clear that you can still make out details of clothing. The ahu and their moai are spectacular. To most visitors, it’s what Easter Island is all about. But the island is also rich in petroglyphs, carvings on stone.
In the southwest corner of the island close to Hanga Roa lies Rano Kau, one of three volcanoes that rose from the sea 2.5 million years ago. The lava that flowed from these volcanoes created Easter Island. Along the rim of now extinct Rano Kau is Orongo, a ceremonial village probably built in the 13th century, where more than four dozen oval stone huts stand shoulder-to-shoulder overlooking the sea. Steps away is Easter Island’s greatest concentration of petroglyphs—hundreds of them—covering the rocks. They represent birds, sea animals and boats, but what appears most frequently are images of the birdman, a cult that developed as a result of the civil unrest that destroyed of the moai.
Dotted around Easter Island are other, older villages where islanders once lived in houses called hare paenga that resembled inverted boats. Now only their elliptical foundations remain, with stone pavements in front and cooking hearths nearby. There are examples of these boathouses at Tahai and at Ahu Te Pau northeast of Hanga Roa.
When you’ve had your fill of Easter Island’s past, other activities are horseback riding, hiking, swimming at Anakena Beach, shopping for wooden replicas of moai, and dining at the French restaurant La Taverne du Pêcheur located beside Hanga Roa’s tiny harbor.
Easter Island is a very special place. If you’ve come this far, give yourself the gift of enough time not only to visit the archaeological sites in the company of a guide who can explain their significance, but to return later on to savor them on your own. Four or five days would be good. You are, after all, at the navel of the world and how many times in life can you claim to have been at the center of it all?