Rapa Nui Journal Volume 20 Issue 1

All great events ... in world history reappear

...the first time as tragedy, the second as farce.

Karl Marx (1852)

THE RAPA NUl MARATHON OF 2005 was the grand finale of an action-packed weekend in June, usually a quiet time of year on the island.

SURELY THE BIG NEWS OF THE ISLANDS concern the appointment of Melania Carolina Hotus Hey as governor of Rapa Nui.

AS A CANADlA CULTURAL THEORIST deeply committed to Rapa Nui, the implicit endorsement by a major Canadian periodical of Montreal artist Bill Vazan's so-called "Iandwork ," recently superimposed on Rapa Nui like so much graffiti, is appalling in several ways.

REVIEWING THE COPIOUS LITERATURE dealing with Easter Island, we find conflicting figure for the land area of the island.

'A Po (THE RAPANUI YOUTH INVOLVEMENT PROGRAM) began in 2003 as an educational outreach program offered by the Padre Sebastian Englert Anthropological Museum on Rapa Nui. For the last three years, the program has involved local Rapa Nui high school students in various scientific research projects.

EVERYONE TRYING TO GATHER a bookshelf devoted to Easter Island is well familiar with the difficulties of this task, as numerous titles dedicated to the turbulent Rapa Nui history and its vast cultural heritage are out-of-print for years.

Archaeology of Oceania, Australia and the Pacific Islands is described as a state-of-the-art introduction to archaeology of Oceania, and claims to be the first to integrate Australian studies with that of the Pacific Islands.

THE ElF HAS A REMARKABLE HISTORY of getting its conference papers published in a timely manner. This volume does not blemish the record. It is the publication of 54 papers from the title conference held at Renaca, Vida del Mar, Chile in September 2004.

IN THE 7th GRADE GERMAN CLASSES at the International School of Dusseldorf, Germany, we read the novel "Motu-Iti," which take place on Easter Island. The students learned about the history of this unique island and its isolated location.

SHORT OF ACTUALLY VISTING RAPA NUI, what is the (sometimes) cheapest way you can indulge your passion for that place? Well, you can collect postcard or carvings, or some of those tiki mugs one can find for sale on eBay. As for me, I have been involved for the past few years in a search for letters and stamp either from the island, or with an Easter Island theme.

FIRST ARRfVED lN RAPA NUI in September 2004 at the end of a long Pacific reconnaissance. Representing two not-for-profit, non-government organizations with development aid programs to Pacific Islands, I didn't really expect to be of much assistance to Rapa Nui because it is a province of Chile. But the naked hills of Rapa Nui still testify to one the greatest environmental disasters of recorded history so it was impossible to ignore the new but solvable ecological troubles looming over the Island today - such a a continued lack of tree cover, intensive overgrazing and soil degradation, overuse of agricultural chemicals, and the depletion of coastal marine resources.

MANY, PERHAPS MOST, OF THE PUBLICATIONS on Rongorongo have been attempted decipherments, some failed, some fantastic, and surprisingly little has been done to analyze the patterns evidenced in the parallel texts discovered by Boris Kudrjavtsev sixty years ago.

IT IS HARD TO IMAGINE that even the most prescient ancient Rapa Nui could have foreseen that his peoples' beloved moai would in time become gift to the entire world. For those of us obsessed with the mechanics of how moai were moved and/or erected, they have been gifts that keep on giving.

CIVIL ENGINEERING STUDENTS AT MIT take a so-called capstone course in their last (senior, spring) semester before graduating with a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering. This course, entitled "Civil Engineering Design," is intended to use the students' knowledge accumulated over their time at MIT to work on and complete a number of design projects.

THE MONOLITHIC SCULPTURE OF Easter Island is a key aspect of its unique cultural heritage. Moai played a very important role in the prehistoric Rapanui society.