Rapa Nui Journal Volume 12 Issue 1

GIANTS OF EASTER ISLAND

A Multimedia Presentation on the Web at:

Review by David Brookman

THE VOICES OF EDEN. A HISTORY OF HAWAlIAN LANGUAGE STUDIES

by Albert J. Schiltz

University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu. 1994,512 pp.

Review by W. Wilfried Schuhmacher

KAUAI HANDBOOK, INCLUDING THE ISLAND OF NIIHAU J.D. Bisignani

(Third Edition) Moon Travel Handbooks. $15.95. Soft cover, 299 pages, index, 23 maps, black/white sketches and photos

Review by Georgia Lee

THE EDGE OF PARADISE. AMERICA IN MICRONESIA. by P. F. Kluge

A Kolowalu Book University of Hawaii Press, 1991, $15.95 (Paperback)

Reyiew by Grant McCall

Kon-Tiki Interactive is by the Voyager company, who have produced a number of fine titles. For a visit to them, go to The opening screen is almost identical to that of the Kon-Tiki Museum, being designed by the same team. Unlike the website, though, the CDROM functions perfectly and covers Heyerdahl's life work in text, pictures, movie clips and clever animation being very handsomely produced and at a good price. As with the better companies, Kon-Tiki Interactive is a 'hybrid', working equally well on the Macintosh, Windows 3.11 (That's what it says), Windows 95 and MS-DOS 6.0.

Review by Grant McCall

What's New in Polynesia

What's New in Hanga Roa

According to legend, a place called Hiva was the original homeland of Hotu Matu'a, the traditional founding father of Rapa Nui. Although the true location of Hiva is unknown, the name forms paret of the names of three islands in the Marquesas group in French Polynesia: Nuku Hiva, Hiva Oa and Fatu Hiva. Archaeological evidence also suggests that this group of islands may have been the first in Eastern Polynesia to be inhabited. From this dispersal point, not only Rapa Nui but also Hawai'i, Mangareva, the Society, Cook and Austral groups, and New Zealand may have been first discovered by Polynesian voyagers.

Mysterious Easter Island? How the people will embrace the 21st Century is the real mystery. Electricity arrived in the 70s, taxis and the Concorde in the 90s. And the Internet has just arrived. The beauty of the flowering African tulip tree and the serenity of a lone horseman crossing Tahai's ceremonial area at sunset remain as first impressions. One image represents the impact of introduced culture to the island; the other, the communion of man with his land. Both are key to an understanding of Easter Island today.

The body of archaeological and other evidence tells us that the Polynesian race arose following ocean migrations from Asia via Melanesia through Fiji to Tonga and Samoa, probably reaching the Marquesas Islands near or before the birth of Christ. Subsequent migrations populated the other islands of the Eastern Pacific (Finney 1994). These events, extending over a period of some two thousand years, involved impressive feats of ocean passage, employing a growing body of knowledge of currents, winds, and above all, stellar navigation. The early navigators, capable of sailing against the wind, operated primarily in the near-equatorial latitudes, and are known to have employed a system of stellar reference involving the horizon and the local zenith. The rising and setting directions of stars were used to set and hold courses, and stars passing overhead at night were used as locators for certain islands (Finney 1994, Lewis 1994).

In 1933 Kenneth Emory, one of the pre-eminent archaeologists in the Pacific, published "Stone Remains in the Society Islands." Here Emory presented data on several hundred stone structures, called marae that were located across the Society archipelago in the center of the Pacific. Emory's research opened the door to the archaeological study of stone architecture (e.g., Cristino et al. 1988; Descantes 1990, 1993; Emory 1933, 1943, 1970; Emory and Sinoto 1965; Garanger 1969; Graves and Cachola-Abad 1996; Graves and Ladefoged 1995; Graves and Sweeney 1993; Green et al. 1967; Kirch 1990; Kolb 1992; Martinsson-Wallin 1994; Sinoto 1996; Stokes 1991; Verin 1961; Wallin 1993) and archaeologists have spent the last 60 years analyzing the marae complex in the Society Islands.