Rapa Nui Journal Volume 28 Issue 1
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Item Song in the Spotlight(2014-05-01)Item News(2014-05-01) Padgett, AntionetteItem Getting to Know You Cristián Moreno Pakarati(2014-05-01)Item Book Reviews(2014-05-01) Morrison, Alex E.; Fortin, Moira; Kahn,Jennifer G.; Wieczorek, Rafal M.Item The Forsters back in the spotlight: Unknown manuscript on Easter Island discovered in Poland(2014-05-01) Jakubowska, ZuzannaThe present article deals with a previously unknown manuscript found in the Jagiellonian Library in Cracow (Poland). Written in French, the document was composed by the Forsters, famous naturalists that traveled with Captain Cook. The manuscript is a complete essay on Easter Island, being at the same time a political, social and philosophical manifesto. For Rapa Nui, it includes descriptions and commentaries not present in other writings by both authors. Transcription and translation are offered in this paper, as well as the analysis of technical and meritorical aspects of the manuscript.Item Coastal climate change impacts for Easter Island in 2100(2014-05-01) Quilliam,Lincoln; Cox, Ron; Campbell, Petra; Wright, MichaelItem Reports and Commentaries Comments on historical images of the moai Hoa Hakananai‘a(2014-05-01) Lee, Georgia; Horley, Paul; Bahn, PaulItem Comment on M. Pitts’ Hoa Hakananai‘a, an Easter Island statue now in the British Museum, photographed in 1868(2014-05-01) Van Tilburg, Jo AnneItem Hoa Hakananai‘a, an Easter Island statue now in the British Museum, photographed in 1868(2014-05-01) Pitts, MikeThis paper considers two early photos of Hoa Hakananai‘a, a fine statue removed from Rapa Nui in 1868 and now in the British Museum. As well as documenting part of the voyage, they show details significant for our understanding of the statue and its petroglyphs. The photos seem to have been taken by a Valparaíso studio. It is hoped that research by others in Chile may reveal more about them.Item Ascension: proposal for a reconstruction of Ure Vaeiko’s Apai recitation(2014-05-01) de laat, M.The recitations of the Easter Island native Ure Vaeiko that were recorded in 1886 belong to the very small corpus of traditional Rapanui literature that has been preserved. Although the value of individual texts is disputed, the chants that were published as Atua Matariri, Eaha to Ran Ariiki Kete and Apai are generally considered to be genuine examples of so-called “Old Rapanui”. Of these three, the Apai text is by far the most enigmatic, as it has been recorded and published in a way that renders it virtually incomprehensible. The accompanying attempt at translation is a confused narrative that appears to have only a fragmentary relation to the chant. This paper presents a tentative reconstruction of the original Apai text, together with a new translation. It is proposed that Apai contains an origin myth which intends to explain certain celestial phenomena regarding the sun and the planet Venus, set against the familiar Polynesian background of the eternal struggle between the brother gods Tangaroa and Tane. As such, it could provide valuable information on pre-missionary Easter Island astronomy, mythology, and literature.Item New Zealand place names shared with Central East Polynesia(2014-05-01) Crowe, AndrewPlace names shared between New Zealand and elsewhere in the Pacific can be used to infer spheres of pre-European Māori contact, a fact used by Best (1917) to support a theory that the ancestors of Māori had sailed as a fleet from a single origin in the Society Islands. The present article is the third in a series that sets out the results of a more open-minded study that surveys shared place names across a wider region. The first two drew attention to the surprisingly high incidence of New Zealand Māori place names shared with southern islands along the Tropic of Capricorn (Crowe 2012), and with the Hawaiian Islands (Crowe 2013). This third article shows how toponyms on several islands in Central East Polynesia manifest similarly strong links to New Zealand, pinpointing the islands on which the strongest links occur. The relevant names are listed by archipelago. Their incidence is also analyzed in the context of other evidence pertaining to contact between each island group and New Zealand, confirming an association not only with the Society, Southern Cook and Austral Islands, but also with three neglected regions, namely the Tuāmotu Archipelago, the Northern Cook Islands and Rapa Iti (Bass Islands).Item Letters to the Editor(2014-05-01)