Easter+Island

Have you ever heard of Easter Island? We still can't answer the questions we have. Easter Island is small, but has a very big story. More than 2,000 miles from the nearest population center, Easter Island is one of the most isolated places on Earth. Some think aliens had something to do with the Easter Island heads. We still don't know how they were made or moved. Who built these Easter Island statutes, why and how did they get there? How did the people get their food? How did they get there in the first place? In this paper, information will be provided about the origin, survival, writing, and artwork of these people.

Admiral Roggeveen discovered this island on Easter Day 1172, and named it Easter Island. Easter Island, an island in the south pacific, more than 2,000 miles from the nearest population center. "Easter Island is one of the world's most isolated inhabited islands. It is 3,600 km (2,237 mi) west of continental Chile and 2,075 km (1,290 mi) east of Pitcairn (//Sala y Gómez//, 415 kilometres to the east, is closer but uninhabited)" (Wikipedia). Easter Island has over 70 volcanic cones. The largest volcanic cone, Rano Kau, is easily seen from space. When Admiral Roggeveen found the island, people were already there. It's thought that the Polynesians were trapped there. These people had __**talent.**__ The Polynesians lived on the sea and knew how to travel thousands of miles in their small canoes. They knew where they were going.

There're many theories about different mysteries of Easter Island. Some of how the civilization started, and others about their ways. Some have reported seeing "walking Easter Island head statues." The islanders believe that the chief's "mana", (a mysterious cosmic power that seemed to carry with it dominion over the material world) made the statues "walk" to their current spots. It's also believed that the heads possess their own mana and protects the island from harm. That is why they're facing seaward, to spot intruders with their coral eyes. When we started asking the islanders how they moved the statues, they all said that the chief ordered the statues to walk, and they all went to the spot they felt was most comfortable.

"recent computer simulations by Jo Anne von Tilburg at UCLA have shown that it would have been much simpler to position the Moai in a horizontal position on two large logs and then roll the whole unit along on other logs placed perpendicular to it. Using this method Van Tilburg calculated that an average moai could have been moved from the quarry to Ahu Akivi in less than 5 days, using approximately 70 men. Her theories were recently put to the test in a successful experiment to move a moai replica on Easter Island " (http://www.mysteriousplaces.com/Easter_Island/index.html). This practically eliminates the theory of the moai "walking" to their destination. The islanders still believe that the chief's mana made them walk. "Some suggest that they were moved in an upright position and kept stable by crews manning ropes. This mode would verify the island legends of the statues "walking" to their sites. From a distance seeing one of these great Moai moving along the road bobbing up and down as the logs moved underneath would surely have looked like a statue moving under its own power with a procession alongside it."( http://www.mysteriousplaces.com/Easter_Island/index.html). Both ways are possible, yet Jo Anne von Tilburg's theory seems more likely.

In this paper, information has been provided about the origin, survival, writing, and artwork of these people. I believe that the statues were walked upright, instead of magic or horizontal. The readers should remember that Easter Island was turned from lush forest area to sandy, dry land. Also that the people were turned into cannibals for survival, and were slaves when the Europeans arrived. Everything they were was destroyed. What do you think happened?

(I have one theory of Easter Island)

"One theory suggests that Easter Island was inhabited by Polynesian seafarers, who traveled thousands of miles in their canoes, guided by the stars, the rhythms of the ocean, the color of sky and the sun, the shapes of clouds, the direction from which the swells were coming, and the presence of birds making flights out to sea seeking food. The Polynesians first arrived on the island in 400 A.D. However, the ocean currents which carried them there would not take them back. They were trapped and, having arrived there, could not leave. It appears there may have been two classes or races of inhabitants, those with long ears and those with short ears. The long eared people were the rulers. The short eared, who came earlier, were the workers. For this reason, most of the statues have long ears. Eventually, the short eared people revolted and killed all the long eared people. There are 887 statutes which have been discovered on the island. However, only a few statues made it to their intended destination. The rest were abandoned along the way. The statues appear to have been carved out of the top edge of the walls of a volcano on the island. After a statue was carved, it may have been rolled or dragged down to the base of the volcano. Then, it was stood upright and ropes were tied around it. Using a pulley system, the statue was walked to its intended destination. The ancient grass on the island was tough and capable of being made into ropes. That grass has since almost disappeared due to sheep-herding and over-grazing. The ropes were wrapped around the statue, which was made to act as a pulley. A large group of men, perhaps 30, would pull one end of the rope, pulling one side of the statue forward. A smaller group would act as a counterweight, pulling backwards on the other end. In this way, one side of the statute could be pulled a few feet forward. Then, the process was reversed, so that the other side of the statute would come equal to the first. In this way, over a period of months, a statute could be walked for miles down to the ocean. Then, it was placed in line with other statues, all of them facing away from the sea, looking towards the center of the island. This process was difficult. If a statue fell over in transit, as it often did, it was too heavy to be pulled upright again, so instead the islanders went back and carved another statue. Because the making and movement of these statues required the cooperation of the entire population of the island, the people must have believed that their gods required them to build these statues. At its peak, the population of Easter Island is believed to have reached 11,000. Finally, the resources of the island became exhausted and the people resorted to cannibalism and began eating each other. Work on the statues stopped and the statutes were knocked over. When the first Europeans finally arrived on the island, most of these people had died out. That is just one theory, but there are other theories too. This matter has still not yet been solved. Even this theory does not address all the mysteries regarding Easter Island. The Easter Islanders had their own system of writing, different from any other in the world. No other Pacific Islanders knew how to write. The American Indians did not know how to write either. Who taught the Easter Islanders how to write, or did they develop their own system? Remember that writing was first invented in Asia only a few thousand years BC. The Easter Islanders lived off sweet potatoes, which they farmed. These sweet potatoes came from the Americas. How did the Easter Islanders get them? It is possible that a few Easter Islanders traveled 2300 miles to Chile, got sweet potatoes, and brought them back? This seems unlikely. Remember that the distances involved were great, further than the distance from Europe to the closest place in the Americas, which was only colonized in 1492. Could Easter Island have been colonized by people from Chile? This was the theory which formed the basis for the book and movie Kon-Tiki. Yet, DNA taken from graves dug up on Easter Island have shown that these people were Polynesians, not American Indians. The Polynesians lived on the sea and knew how to travel thousands of miles in their small canoes. They knew where they were going. The American Indians did not know how to do that. Yet, a few American Indians could have reached Easter Island, because of a storm, and brought the seeds of sweet potatoes with them. Also, the seeds could have been brought in the stomachs of birds. As you can see, there are several theories regarding Easter Island and the statues that reside there to this very day. Many theories have even suggested the intervention of extra terrestrials from alien planets. Easter Island continues to be one of the world's greatest unexplained mysteries." ( http://www.qsl.net/w5www/easterisland.html)

"Since the events of September 11 and now the military action that the world is involved in the environmental problems of the world don't seem so important now. While I strongly agree that survival of the civilized world should be our priority right now we need to remember that the environment of this planet is what sustains all of us and we ignore it at our own peril. The lessons of Easter Island are just as valid today as they were on September 10. I hope and pray that we will all be able to get back to such mundane things as 'saving the rain forest' very soon." - Cliff Wassmann

early Easter Island writing

Happy Easter, Easter Island

Easter Island's September Ritual



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"Easter Island." __en.wikipedia.org__. 2009. 22 mar. 2009.  W5www@yahoo.com. “The Mystery of Easter Island.” __www.qsl.net/w5www/easterisland__ 22 mar. 2009.  Brookman, David. “Easter Island Home Page.” __www.netaxs.com.__ 22 mar. 2009.  Mysteriousplaces. “Easter Island, Faces of Mystery, The Easter Island Story.” __mysteriousplaces.com/Easter_Island__ 23 mar. 2009.  Potter, Joygopal. "Easter Island's Walking Stones." __mysteriesaroundus.blogspot.com__ 25 mar. 2009. 



The First Generation of Easter Island heads (left) and the new generation (right)