Rapa Nui Journal Volume 21 Issue 1

The President's Report

EIF Scholarships

EASTER ISLAND HAS LOST A FRIEND. Francesco di Castri, 74, ecologist, former deputy director of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, and former president of the World Science Institute, died July 6, 2005.

Moai Sightings

What's New in the Pacific

What's New in Hangaroa

RAPA NUI PHOTOGRAPHIC GALLERY OF WILLIAM HYDER www.flickr.com/photos/wdhyder/sets/72157594503101797/

Review by Paul Horley

THE DAY THE STONES WALKED

by T.A. Barron; illustration by William Low

Philomel Books

ISBN 978-0-399-24263-2 Hardcover 30 pages

Review by Tom Christopher

RAPA NUl: GUARDIANES DE LA TRADICION. MESTIZAJE Y CONFLlCTO EN LA SOCTIEDAD RAPANUl by Maria Eugenia Santa Coloma

302 page with many b/w photos and illustration, appendix, glossary, endnotes, bibliography. In Spanish. Soft cover, 15.5 x 15.5 crn

Rapanui Press ,Museum Store, Museo Antropologico Padre Sebastian Englert, Hanga Roa, Rapanui, 2006

Reviewed by Steven Roger Fischer

JOURNAL OF ISLAND AND COASTAL ARCHAEOLOGY

Vol. I, Issue 1,2006 Philadelphia: Taylor and Francis Group, LLC

Edited by Scott M. Fitzpatrick and Jon M. Erlandson

ISSN 1556-4894 www.tandf.co.uk/joumals/title /15564 94.asp

Review by Scott Nicolay

THIS DELIGHTFUL BOOK i aptly described as a love letter to the people of Rapa Nui and their island. Richly illustrated with photograph and the author's own drawings, it is not a chronological account of her association with the island, but rather a tapestry of tale arranged thematically around a host of characters and topics.

I AM DELIGHTED THAT TRlCIA ALLEN, with her unique experiences as an anthropologist and a practicing tattoo artist, has used her wealth of knowledge to weave the complex cultural tapestry of ancient and contemporary tattoo practices into a book.

HAVING EARLIER PROVIDED A REVIEW in this journal of "Diffusionism Reconsidered," the paper by archaeologist Terry Jone and linguist Kathryn Klar in which they presented their argument for prehistoric Polynesian-Chumash contacts, I feel some responsibility to keep our readership up to date on this important line of research as it continues to unfold.

How did you get into biological anthropology and specifically Easter Island biological anthropology? What triggered your interest?

My INTEREST IN BIOLOGICAL ANTHROPOLOGY was purely by accident.

Two SHIPS SAILED ON THE SECOD Byrd Antarctic Expedition: The Bear of Oakland and the Jacob Ruppert. They left Boston for New Zealand in 1933, heading for the summer season at Byrd's base on the Ross Ice Shelf ("Little America") in Antarctica.

The following is a report published in the London Times from January 21 1869 by W. A. Powell, who was on board the HMS Topaze during its visit to Easter Island the previous year.

Food preparation and consumption was an important aspect of ancient Marquesan life. In the word of Robarts (1974:252) who lived in the Marquesas in the first decade of the 19th century, "In times of plenty they eat a deal and often." The institution of feasting associations and the centrality of ko'ika l in Marquesan society are expressions of the importance of food on a scale beyond the daily needs of a family: This section treats cooking and eating generally.

My investigation of rongorongo script reveals numerous parallel passages (e.g. Butinov and Knorozov 1956:84, Barthel 1958:156-7, Pozdniakov 1996:295, Fischer 1997:283), and these allow me to suggest possible allographs and also to define the reading order of the complex signs (e.g. Metraux 1940:402, Guy 1982:447 Pozdniakov 1996:297, Horley 2005:110).

EASTER ISLAND IS THE TOPIC of many scientific papers, books, and one excellent bi-annual Journal. However, the Island's appeal is broader than just to the scientific community or adventure travelers, as evidenced in part by the variety of adult board games designed with Rapa Nui as their theme.

WHEN I SET OUT TO MAKE A DOCUMENTARY concerning an invasive plant species on Easter I land, it soon became obvious that many people are misinformed about the island and its history. Many believe that the island is treeless and the ancient people mysteriously vanished, leaving only the great statues for Europeans to find (Easterbrook 2005:10). A more recent concept has pervaded public opinion: that Easter Island stands as a metaphor for the end of the Earth, associating the great moai statues or icons of the island with eco-disaster (Diamond 2005:119).

The recent book Collapse by Jared Diamond (2005) has been widely reviewed around the world, and most reviewers have chosen to focus on one case study in the book, that of Easter Island. Since much of that section is based on our own book Easter Island, Earth Island (1992) and The Enigmas of Easter Island (2003), it is hardly surprising that we agree with Diamond's exposition. He concludes (correctly in our opinion) that deforestation, population growth, soil erosion, overuse of bird and shellfish resources, and introduction of rats all contributed.