Rapa Nui Journal Volume 12 Issue 4

Easter Island Foundation

Pacific 2000

Moai Sightings

TV REVIEW "QUEST FOR THE LOST CIVILISATION" (the British TV title for a film treatment of Heaven's Mirror)

Review by Dr Paul Bahn, England

HEAVEN'S MIRROR. QUEST FOR THE LOST CIVILIZATION

Graham Hancock and Santha Faiia. 1998 Crown Publishers, NY. 322 pages, hardcover. $45.

Review by Georgia Lee

PLAN DE MANEJO - PARQUE NACIONAL RAPA NUl CORPORACI6N NACIONAL FORESTAL, SANTIAGO DE CHILE 1997

A. Elena Charola, World Monuments Fund Consultant. Easter Island Program

What's New in Polynesia

What's New in Hanga Roa

Closing the Triangle

The fact that Chile, a small South American country, distant by 2,000 miles and with absolutely no Polynesian ties, exercises sovereignty over Easter Island is, to many, a mystery as profound as the origin of the giant stone statues that cover the island. This paper will not rectify errors, will not set the record straight but it will, hopefully, tell the story of how this remote acquisition by the Republic of Chile came about.

When Polynesians discovered the Hawaiian Islands over 1,500 years ago they brought with them the traditions of their ancestors. These traditions included an ability to adapt to new lands. Colonizers brought with them all of their major food crops such as taro (Colocasia esculenla), sweet potato (Ipomoea balalas), breadfruit (Arlocarpus aItilis), yam (Dioscorea aIala), banana (Musa), and sugarcane (Saccharum officinarum). These crops were critical in sustaining human populations on the islands.

Probable Nature and Contents of the Santiago Staff

Jacques B. M Guy Telstra

Research Laboratories, Australia

Shortly after my arrival on Rapa Nui in early September 1996, I witnessed an unusual sight at the Mataveri airport. Not only is it unheard of to see four airplanes simultaneously on the runway, but these planes were also not the usual Boeing 767 jets of LAN Chile. One of them belonged to the Chilean Airforce, another one to the Chilean Navy, and the remaining two to NASA. In most other places of the world this scenario might indicate some kind of military trouble. Not so on Rapa Nui, where it only reminds us of the peculiar relationship the island maintains with the outside world, the fact that it is Chile's foothold in the Pacific, and of its position as a tracking station for American space research.