Rapa Nui Journal Volume 8 Issue 2

Wallin, Paul. 1993 . Ceremonial Stone Structures: The Archaeology and Ethnohistory of the Marae Complex in the Society Islands, French Polynesia. Aun 16. Societas Archaeological Upsaliensis. Uppsala. 178 pages, 134 illustrations and photographs, and a bibliography. Soft Cover, ISBN 91-506-0993-9.

Mowawis on TV (review)

Comment on:

W. Wilfried Schuhmacher, 1991. "Easter Island as an object of economic anthropology" in Volume 29 (N° 90) of Revue europeanne des sciences sociales. Geneva, Switzerland.

Peter Crawford, Nomads of the Wind: A Natural History of Polynesia. BBC Books. 1993. BBC Enterprises Limited, Woodlands, 80 Wood Lane, London W 12 OTT. Hardcover, 264 pages; Glossary, bibliography and index . 136 color plates plus several early etchings, maps. Quality production. ISBN 0563 36707 5. £18.99.

Edwin N. Ferdon Jr., an old Easter Island hand, who celebrated his 80th birthday last year, has recently published another book , Early Observations on Marquesan Culture 1595-1813 . The publisher is University of Arizona Press, Tucson. The price $40.

Since early in the 20th century and until the present, reports on the condition of the houses of Easter Island's ceremonial center, Orongo, have varied from "ruins" to Mulloy's "fine restoration." This paper brings together comments by earlier researchers and reports on the problems facing this site today.

George's clarifications are most welcome and timely, and in tandem with Erika Hagelberg's mitochondrial DNA results (Hagelberg et al, 1994) they led me to feel we are steadily moving into a position which might satisfactorily incorporate all the data presently available.

Two works discussing the presumed numeration of Easter Island as collected in the Journal of Capitan Francisco Antonio Aguera Infazon of the Spanish frigate Santa Rosalia in 1770 have recently been published by the Russian researchers Fedorova and Rjabchikov. Both authors, as other researchers in the past, continue to make errors in the transcription of some of the numbers. The numeration of Fedorova contains only one error (congoju) and I am able to say that this work is one of the finest with regard to this subject.

The well-documented cultivation of the sweet potato in East Polynesia, plus the much more arguable pre-European presence in Polynesia of other cultigens as well as some artifacts and human genes from South America, has been explained by various authorities as either the result of one-way raft voyages by South American sailors to Polynesia, or of two-way canoe voyages by Polynesian sailors to South America and return. Although the simplicity of imagining a raft voyage from South America to Polynesia is appealing, we should not dismiss the possibility that some particularly daring Polynesian sailors might have made a round-trip voyage.

One of the most famous petroglyph sites in the Hawaiian Islands is found in the mouth of the Wailua River (Fig. 1 and 2). The area was once a well-known site in the cultural historical lore of the island of Kaua'i: a dance, two legends and several images formerly commemorated the site. Today, only the legend remains, hidden in two out-of-print sources. Recent interest in the site has begun to grow. This article, a version of which originally appeared in Kaua'i Community College Archaeology on Kaua'i, Vo1.ll :2(29) for December 1984, will discuss and synthesize the data now available and present an interpretation of the data and describe the site as it once was. The Anthropology Club of Kaua'i Community College wishes to thank the Bishop Museum for its assistance, cooperation and permission to use the photographs in their collections.