It's possible that the Birdman practices has been
going on during the reign of the statue cult, however, it eventually took
over as the predominate religion on the island and was still in practice
up till 1866-67.High on the rim of the crater known as Rano Kau was the ceremonial village
of Orongo. Built to worship the god of fertility - Makemake, it became the
site of a grueling competition.
Each year leadership of the island was determined
by the individual who could scale down the vertical slopes, swim out to
one of three small islets in shark infested waters, and bring back the egg
of the nesting Sooty Tern unbroken. The one who did this successfully was
considered the Birdman of the year and was bestowed with special honors
and privileges.
One of the most fascinating sights at Orongo are
the hundreds of petroglyphs carved with birdman and Makemake images.
Carved into solid basalt, they have resisted ages of harsh weather. It has
been suggested that the images represent birdman competition winners. Over
480 birdman petroglyphs have been found on the island, mostly around
Orongo.
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| The
rim of Rano Kau became the center of the Easter Island Birdman
Cult |
As birdman images
transformed the rocks so to were the islanders transformed. It seemed that
the culture was beginning to rebuild itself. We will never know whether
the Rapa Nui would have survived and prospered because in 1862 wave after
wave of slave traders landed on Easter Island and took away all healthy
individuals. In the space of one year, a level of injury, death and
disease was inflicted on the population leaving a broken people, bereft of
leadership. As their culture lay in disarray a new force entered the seen
whose actions would forever deny the world of a true understanding of the
Rapa Nui culture.
The missionaries arrived on Easter when the
people were at their most vulnerable. With their society in ruin it did
not take long to convert the population to Christianity. First to go was
the islanders style of dress, or lack of. Tattooing and use of body paint
was banned. Destruction of Rapa Nui artworks, buildings, and sacred
objects, including most of the Rongo Rongo Tablets - the key to
understanding their history - was swift and complete. Islanders where
forced off their ancestral lands and required to live in one small section
of the island while the rest of the land was used for ranching.
Eventually all pure blood Rapa Nui died out.
Annexation with Chile brought new influences and today there are only a
few individuals left with ties to the original population.
Lessons from the Past?
A jewel of an island floating in an
endless sea. A seemingly never ending supply of raw materials.
Technological advances. Population Growth. Depletion of resources. War.
Collapse. Sound familiar?
The Easter Island story is a story for our times.
We too are on an island floating on an endless sea. There are differences
of course. You could say that Easter Island is tiny and that it was only a
matter of time before the resources in such a closed system were used up.
But, there are parallels between the islanders attitude towards their
environment and our own, and this is the most frightening part of the
story.
On an island as small as Easter, it was easy to
see the effects of the deforestation as it was taking place. But, the
inhabitants continued their destructive actions. They probably prayed to
their gods to replenish the land so they could continue to rape it, but
the gods didn't answer. And still the trees came down.
Whatever one did to alter that ecosystem, the
results were reasonably predictable. One could stand on the summit and see
almost every point on the island. The person who felled the last tree
could see that it was the last tree. Nonetheless, he (or she) still felled
it.
This is the really scary
part. As our own forests fall to the bulldozers, there are many who are
valiantly trying to save them. It is obvious, now that we have satellites
showing us the massive deforestation, that there is a problem. And yet,
our leaders, and even the majority of individuals look on, unconcerned.
(How hot does it have to get before Rush Limbaugh admits something is
changing?)
They seem willing to bulldoze the last trees to
build the Moai of our time -- technology & development. Will our
monuments have to fall crashing to the ground before we learn our lesson?
Will we have the sense to reconcile our lifestyles with the well-being of
our environment? Or, is the human personality always the same as that of
the person who felled the last tree?
For more information on the Sights
of Easter Island, go to:
