Rapa Nui Journal Volume 9 Issue 1

Report of the Meeting of the Sophora toromiro Management Group 19-20th October 1994, University of Bonn Botanical Garden

Compiled by Mike Maunder and members of the Management Group; Document produced by the Conservation Unit, Living Collections Department, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Sponsored by the Friends of the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew.

This quotation, made so famous by former U.S. President Ronald Reagan, is equally applicable today, if the story from Santiago, Chile is indeed valid. It seems that the world will once again be treated to a 'Maritime Adventure' when Spanish explorer Kittin Munoz sets sail with a crew of ten next October. Their quest: to navigate the seas of Oceania for a year in order to substantiate Thor Heyerdahl's nearly fifty year old theory that Easter Island, and also Polynesia, were first settled by South Americans.

Easler Island. Archaeology, Ecology and Culture. Jo Anne Van Tilburg. 1994. British Museum Press, 191 pp, 126 figs, 30 plates. £20.00; ISBN 0 714125040

Review by Paul G. Bahn

Archaeological investigations at Anakena, Easter island Edited by Arne Skjolsvold. 1994. The Kon-Tiki Museum, Occasional Papers. Vol. 3, Oslo. Softcover, 216 pages, maps, black and white line drawings and sketches. photographs. No index. In English. Price: US $29 plus freight. Kon Tiki Museum, Bygdaynesveien 36, N-0286, Oslo, Norway

Voyage of Rediscovery: A Cultural Odyssey through Polynesia. Finney, Ben, with Marlene Among, Chad Baybayan, Tai Crouch, Paul Frost, Bernard Kilonsky, Richard Rhodes, Thomas Schroeder, Dixon Stroup, Nainoa Thompson, Robert Worthington, Elisa Yadao. 1994. University of California Press, Berkeley. $30. 326 pages plus index, appendices, notes and references. Black/white illustrations, charts, and maps.

Letters to the Editor

What's New in Polynesia

What's New in Hangaroa

International News

Polynesian navigators, famed for their navigational techniques and for the performance of their sailing canoes, also constructed more modest craft--adapted perfectly to the needs of daily life. These are rafts--floating platforms constructed of parallel logs and intended to transport men and merchandise on various rivers and seas.

There is little that we can usefully add to Erika Hagelberg's response, and we will therefore limit ourselves to a few salient points.

Last year my colleagues and I published a short article in the journal Nature (Hagelberg et al. 1994) describing the analysis of genetic polymorphisms in bones of prehistoric Easter Islanders. A few months later I was interested to read a manuscript disputing our DNA result, submitted by Robert Langdon to Nature. Langdon's letter was not accepted for publication, a pity in my opinion, as it might have stimulated a lively correspondence on Easter Island origins. However, Langdon has now included his rather vehement response to our DNA data in the longer article published here, in which he presents his own ideas on the origins of the prehistoric Easter Islanders.

At the Rapa Nui Rendezvous at Laramie, Wyoming, in August 1993, it was painfully obvious that Easter Island scholars are divided into two main ideological camps: those who believe that Polynesians were the island's only prehistoric inhabitants and those who don't.

Two recent articles in these pages (Mulloy 1993, Langdon 1994) have renewed the old argument over the meanings of the Rapanui terms hanau 'e 'epe and hanau momoko. Both articles have a case to make, but neither presents a complete story.

Two recent articles by Japanese researcher Mr. Hideo Matsunaga (1991, 1994) in The Journal of the Pacific Society prompt me to think about Chile's relationship to its Pacific territory, Rapanui, as the people of Easter Island call themselves and their land.