Rapa Nui Journal Volume 10 Issue 1

Kulturtraditionen der Osterinsulaner und ihre Christianisierung. Huppertz, Josefine. 1994. 1. Huppertz: Sankt Augustin. DM 44.00. 115 pages, plus index of names, references. Color prints, b & w illustrations, map, tables.

Review by Regina Pinks-Freybott

We were privilegdd recently to be invited to an international symposium, "Wa no Kuru" (Forests, Myths & Civilizations), held in Nara and Kyoto, Japan, in December 1995, where we presented a total of three talks about tile rise and fall of Easter Island's culture.

When l traveled to Peru last winter on my way to Rapa Nui. I noticed that the names for numbers from one-to-ten in the ancient South American languages, Aymara and Quechua. had no relationship to any Polynesian languages. This was another piece of fortifying evidence that the language and people of Rapa Nui did not originate from South America.

Those who attempt to reconstruct the history of the vegetation on remote oceanic islands by the technique of palynology have always been aware of the possibility that their results could be vitiated by pollen transported long distances through the atmosphere, from other islands or from distant continents. This possibility is not altogether fatuous. In a fanmous experiment using a vacuum cleaner Erdtman (1952) caught a single grain of Pinus on a ship in mid-Atlantic. Surface samples of peat from Tristan da Cunha yielded a few grains of Nothofagus, which must have traveled 4.000 krn from South America (Hafsten 1960). This genus even contributed pollen to Marion Island, over 7,000 km from the source area (van Zinderen Bakker, 1974).

On July 8, 1987 at 11:50: 14.9, Easter Island experienced a major earthquake with a magnitude of Ms=6.3, succeeded by several tremors which measured up to Ms=5.9. The epicenter was located at 26.999 south latitude and 108.285 west longitude at a depth of 10 kilometers and slightly westwards of the island.