Rapa Nui Journal Volume 22 Issue 1

Rapanui islander, Clemente Hereveri Teao died on December 5th, 2007, at age 32. Popular and beloved among his fellow Rapanui, he was also known in the foreign scientific community, as many of us worked with him in one way or the other. Highly knowledgeable about his ancestral culture, he was at the same time profoundly shaped by it. During his early years he spent many hours with his adopted father in the leper colony, an enclave where Rapanlui culture was preserved and reproduced like nowhere else on the island. He also was a pupil of prominent Rapanui elder Juan Haoa who taught him about Rapanui genealogies and other oral traditions.

Arne Skjolsvold 1925-2007

The Norwegian archaeologist and pioneer in Easter Island archaeology, Professor Arne Skjolsvold, passed away on the 26th of October 2007, after some years of illness.

Moai Sightings

What's New in the Pacific

What's New in Hangaroa

Rapa Nui. Aku Aku from Afar

by Helene Martinsson-Wallin

Rapanui Press, Museo Antropologico Padre Sebastian Englert, and the Kon-Tiki Museum, 2007, US 25 236 pages, soft cover, illustrated

Review by Georgia Lee

Moon Fiji, 8th edition by David Stanley

Moon Handbooks, Avalon Travel Publishing, Emeryville, CA 94608; 2007.

Soft cover, 389 pages ISBN 1-56691-982-7 US $19.95

Moon Tahiti, 6th edition by David Stanley

Moon Handbooks, Avalon Travel Publishing, Emeryville, CA. 94608; 2007.

Soft cover, 330 page ISBN 1-56691-804-9. US 19.95

Reviews by Georgia Lee

Manu Moriori. Human and Bird Carvings on Live Kopi Trees on the Chatham Islands by Rhys Richards

Lavishly illustrated with drawings, black/white photographs and many color photos

soft cover, 96 page . Paremata Press, Wellington, NZ, 2007

ISBN 0-9582013-7-4; NZ$45

Review by Georgia Lee

Inventing 'Easter Island' by Beverly Haun

University of Toronto Press,2008

Soft cover' ISBN 978-0802093530 US $35

Hard cover; ISBN 978-0802098887 US $85

illustrated

Review by Shawn McLaughlin

Frommer's Chile and Easter Island, 1st edition by Stephan Kuffner and Kristina Schreck

Wiley Publishing, 2007, ISBN 978-0-470-12816-9, US $22.99

Moon Handbooks Chile, including Easter Island, 2nd edition by Wayne Bernhardson

Avalon Travel Publishing, 2007 ISBN 97 -1-56691-754-4; US $22.95

New York Herald Tribune, 1933; In three parts.

"German Newspaper Man tells of Visiting Polynesian Colony 2,000 Miles Off Chile; Huge Statues Carved from Lava Centuries Ago Continue to Puzzle Archaeologist. Easter Island, 2000 miles off the coast of Chile, is one of the archaeological mysteries of the South Seas. On it are hundreds of huge statues carved from compressed volcanic ash. How the primitive people could have transported these images has never been explained. The island is owned by Chile, which leases the sheep-breeding rights to a British firm. Once a year this company sends a vessel to bring back wool and cattle. Heinz Hell, a German newspaperman, made the trip on the vessel's most-recent voyage. He has written three articles describing the island and its people'. "

The Norwegian Archaeological Expedition to Easter Island and the East Pacific was an important milestone in Rapa Nui research. The expedition team directed by Thor Heyerdahl arrived to the island on 27th of October 1955 onboard the ship Christian Bjelland, and included William Mulloy, Arne Skjolsvold, Carlyle Smith, Edwin Ferdon and Gonzalo Figueroa. The expedition carried out large-scale excavations at Vinapu, 'Orongo, Rano Raraku, 'Anakena, Tepeu, Poike "ditch", and also investigated house foundations, walled enclosures, hare moa and caves around the island. After more than five months of intensive work, the expedition left Rapa Nui on 6th of April 1956, heading to other Polynesian islands to gather the data for comparative studies. Expedition reports were published in two large volumes, the first of which is completely dedicated to Easter Island (Heyerdahl and Ferdon 1961).

Remote Easter Island, a 166 square kilometer outcrop in the Pacific Ocean 3,700 kilometers from mainland Chile, is best known for the incredible moai carvings and for being the site of a man-made environmental disaster that devastated a population and culture. Today, Easter Island's population is threatened by a second environmental catastrophe. This paper focuses on ecological sustainability, looking at the problem facing the modem Easter Island (Rapa Nui), and outlines the steps that need to be taken to help the Islanders on a pathway to sustainable development.

Lichens are an inconspicuous but ornnipresent feature of Rapa Nuj's rugged semi-tropical environment. A close inspection of any barren surface will often reveal these unique organisms, observable in colorful communities of whjte, green, grey and orange individual growth forms. Silently persisting, their existence and importance throughout centuries past has never passed unnoticed by islanders, but the interest of researcher from around the world was more recently tapped with the advent of lichen studies in the natural sciences.

Earlier installments of this series on traditional Marquesan agriculture as seen through the eyes of early European visitors dealt with topics concerning subsistence economy. This final installment covers general ethnobotanical notes, animal husbandry. the use of pork. and European introduced animals.

The recent paper by Kahn and Coil (2006) published data on intra-site variation in late prehistoric Society Island house structures, focusing on the raw materials used to fashion house posts. Variation in the woods used to construct posts differed both by site function and socioeconomic status of the occupant . House sites serving as elite dwellings or those used for specialized, ritual activities were constructed from ritually charged and economically valued tree species, while lower status sleeping houses were made from common tree species that lacked ritual or cosmological association. This pattern was linked to the creation of sacred spaces on the landscape for a well-defined ritual and social elite who controlled many key aspects of agricultural production and the ritual calendar in the late prehistoric Society Island chiefdoms.

The archaeological record is, by its very nature, nonrenewable. Each aspect of the record comprises unique information, the sum of which provides the only testament for vast amounts of human history in pace and time. The recognition of the nonrenewable character of the archaeological record has led to the compelling rationale for a "conservation ethic" (Lipe 1974).