Rapa Nui Journal Volume 13 Issue 1

THE SYMBOLISM OF POLYNESIAN TEMPLE RITUALS

by Paul Wallin, 1998.

The Kon-Tiki Museum Occasional Papers, Vol. 4. Available from the Kon-Tiki Museum, Bygdoynesveien 36, 0286 Oslo, Norway. Price not given.

Review by Georgia Lee

MAVE MAl, THE MARQUESAS ISLANDS

by Sharon Chester, Heidy Baumgartner, Diana Frachoso, and James Oetzel, 1998

Wandering Albatross, 724 Laurel Av. #21 1, San Mateo, CA 94401, Fax (650) 342-6507. ISBN 0-9638511-8-7. A total of 139 pages with 172 photographs, 29 illustrations, 23 maps, and one table. Approx. $18.

Review by Sidsel Millerstrom

University of CaIifornia, Berkeley

'GONE NATIVE" IN POLYNESIA. CAPTIVITY NARRATIVES AND EXPERIENCES FROM THE SOUTH PACIFIC

by I. C. Campbell

1998 Contributions to the Study of World History 63. Greenwood Press, 88 Post Road West, Box 5007, Westport, CT 06881. Hardcover, 208 pages, $55. ISBN 0-313-30787-3. This book can be ordered from the publisher by calling (800) 225-5800.

Review by Georgia Lee

Letters

Short Notes from our Readers

Moai Sightings

What's New in Chile

What's New in Polynesia

What's New in Hangaroa

I have used the computer program RedShift Multimedia Astronomy, Version 2 (produced by Maris Multimedia, San Rafael, CA) to look at the stars above Easter Island over a period of years. The pictures were excellent. With this program, I have determined that a solar eclipse occurred on December 31, 1842, near summer solstice, and found reports about this event in the Great Washington tablet (Sb7 - Sb8), in a hieroglyphic record of Atan's manuscript and in a hieroglyphic record of Tomenika's sheet (Rjabchikov 1996a:33, 36). RedShift allowed me to observe the celestial bodies on that day, and I realized why a local, Tomenika, described that eclipse. The partial eclipse lasted about 3.5 hours and would have been a horrible warning from the gods. The duration of that eclipse was unusually long' and it occurred 20 years before the Peruvian slave raid in December 1862. The 20 year interval may be understood as an encoded symbol, because "twenty" is a sign of birds (the sun) in Rapanui manuscript E (Barthel 1978:149).

Easter Island is not the only place where ancient people moved .huge rocks into places too constricted to accommodate the long columns of laborers needed to drag them there. The construction ramp leading up to the Inca "Fortress" of Ollantaytambo in Peru is another classic example. Blocks there weighing more than 50 tons were first transported to the very steep (1:4, or 25%), narrow (six meters wide) ramp onto its dead-end at a shear 16 meter drop-off. Once there, they were rotated 90 degrees around a sharp left tum, moved across a tiny (15 meter square) hilltop plaza and levered up to a vertical position. It was the Andean equivalent of rotating and raising a 50 ton moai onto a high seacoast ahu and could not have been done by large gangs of people pulling on ropes, since there was no place for them to work.

According to the beliefs of the ancient Easter Islanders, the main god, Makemake, made the earth, the sun, the moon and the stars. He also was the creator of mankind (Metraux 1940:312,314). Birdmen figures were features of the cult; frequently these are represented in the local rock art (Metraux 1940:314; Lee 1992:15,22 ff), but it is also known that this mysterious deity was the great spirit of the sea (Thomson 1891:482). The god Tangaroa appeared at Easter Island incarnated in a seal, and his mana, supernatural power, was over the sea (Metraux 1940:310). These items state that Makemake is the Polynesian god Tangaroa, the Lord of the Ocean.

The small ahupua 'a of Kahalu'u lies along the coast of central Kona. For many centuries before western contact this region was the home of the kings of leeward Hawai'i, the royalty supported by the riches of the Kona coastal waters and the agricultural lands of upland Kona. In Kahalu'u there are at least ten major heiau, ten other shrines or small temples, and a royal residential complex. Near one of the heiau, Ke'eku, is an important petroglyph site (Site 12954). This paper describes this set of petroglyphs and others nearby, and draws attention to the associations with the religious and royal complex of Kahalu'u.