Rapa Nui Journal Volume 21 Issue 2

Ninety-five percent of all toilets in Rapa Nui are pit latrines. That is to say, raw untreated sewerage is released straight into the ground without any form of treatment. Only a few hotels have septic tanks. Tourism grew by 900% over the past eleven years and it is projected to reach 100,000 shortly after 20IO. In addition, the current resident population of 3,765 is growing by 3.5% a year. This represents an ecological time-bomb. Chilean authorities have expressed great concern over the impeding contamination of Rapa Nui's drinking water supply as a result; the fresh water aquifer at the National Park of 'Anakena Beach has already been closed to human consumption for this reason.

Isla de Pascua: EI Sueiio Imposible de Antoni Pujador

by Francesc Amoros

276 pages with colour and b/w photos

ISBN 84-96483-20-0 In Spanish; soft cover

Review by Maria Eugenia Santa Coloma

Life and Solitude in Easter Island

by Dario Verdugo-Binimelis Published by AuthorHouse l (2007)

ISBN 97 -1-4259-8228 Available in hardcover (140 page) for $24.99 or soft cover (119 pages) for $16.99 from Amazon.com

Foreword by Juan Grau

Review by Shawn McLaughlin

"The Dynamics of Soil, Landscape, and Culture on Easter Island (Chile)" by Andreas Mieth and Hans-Rudolf Bork in Soils and Societies: Perspectives from Environmental History.

J. R. McNeill and Verena Winiwarter, eds. White Horse Pres (2006);

ISBN 1-874267-52-9. Hard cover (369 pages); $95 from Amazon.com

Review of Chapter 10 by Shawn McLaughlin

Journal of the principal occurrences during the voyage of the Frigate Santa Rosalia, under the command of Captain Don Antonio Domonte, which ailed from the Port of the Callao on the 10th of October, 1770, in company with the ship of the line San Lorenzo, Commodore don Felipe Gonzalez; to find and examine the Island of David, and others in the South Seas, her chief pilot being don Francisco Antonio de Aguera Infanzon.

Transcribed, Translated, and Edited by Bolton Glanvill Corney from the official MS. records preserved in the General Collection oft he Archives of the Indies, at Sevilla, the Hydrographic Office of the Ministry of the Navy, and the library of the Royal Academy of History, at Madrid.

The Hakluyt Society, Cambridge, 1908.

DESPATCH No. 396 from the viceroy of Peru, to The Secretary of State for the Indies .

Photographs by Paul Horley

The Sweet Potato in Oceania: A Reappraisal (Ballard, et al., 2005) is a book that might not achieve the readership it deserves, even for Rapanuiphiles. Due to its esoteric subject - and due to the fact that, at least at present, it is unavailable in bookstores or via Amazon.com. Acquisition, therefore, require determination. But the implications contained in this book, especially Chapter 8 ("Sweet Potato Production on Rapa Nui" by Wallin, Stevenson, and Ladefoged) and, to a lesser extent, in Chapter 5 (Green), are potentially staggering. They provide, even in the absence of definitive evidence, a cogent explanation of not only the role of the sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas) in Oceania and on Easter Island but the likelihood of subsequent contact or colonization on Easter Island, which is sometlllng that I would think, however much it's been bandied about casually, would surprise or entice most Rapanuiphiles and researchers.

RNJ readers may recall the article in the previous issue by Laura Jean Boyd, concerning her film project on the island. (RNJ 21(1):14-25, May 2007). Her contribution included a photograph of herself, taken at 'Anakena. In the picture and just behind Laura Jean, looms a petroglyph of a Makemake face. While Makemake faces are found in many parts of Easter lsland, this motif was not documented by us during our exhaustive study of 'Anakena's petroglyphs (Lee 1988; 1992), nor had any of us seen it previously. Yet there it was: large, deeply carved, and positioned on a hillside where many other (ancient) petroglyphs can be found.

Tautain (1897:541) noted that not everyone was a landowner. Only the "the chiefly families (Papa Hakaiki) and those of the 'Akatia or 'Anatia) had this right." A garden might have a different owner than the land it was on, even to the extent of breadfruit trees with owners for each branch (Tautain 1897:541).

This report concerns Scirpus, forests and a quest to find a method for documenting rainfall changes in the ancient past. I begin with the middle.

Contrary to the claim by Hunt and Lipo (2007), our disagreements with them do not constitute a simplistic and patronizing opposition of evidence and faith. This is a ridiculous claim. It's more a question of having faith in the available evidence, deciding what is vital and what incidental, and not being selective about it - such as ignoring the testimony of Forster, Geiseler and others (see Section 7). To a large extent, Hunt and Lipo seem to have set up some false oppositions to give themselve something to attack. And it is outrageous for them to claim that we do not have open minds, and that we are "unaware of both the historic impacts on Rapa Nui as well as the significant literature on the biological impacts Europeans wrought in the Americas and the Pacific".

In recent publications (Hunt and Lipo 2006; Hunt 2006, 2007) we have presented a detailed and comprehensive analysis of new and existing archaeological information as it relates to the date of Rapa Nui's colonization, the island's ecological transformation and the assumed relationship to "collapse." After reviewing published dates and our results at 'Anakena, we came to the conclusion that although it is conceptually possible that humans arrived on the island many hundreds of years prior to AD 1200 , there is currently no empirical support for believing this was so. Until unequivocal evidence emerges for earlier colonization, our understanding of the island's prehistory must be founded on a shorter chronology of about 800 years.

THE VII INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE on Easter Island and the Pacific, which took place at Gotland University, Sweden at the end of August, is to be seen as another major arena for discussion and dialogue. With 200 participants from 27 nations, it is really true to say that Easter Island and the Pacific attract attention from all over the world.