Easter Island or Rapa Nui by Reverend Father Hippolyte Roussell

Abstract

Easter Island or Rapa Nui by Reverend Father Hippolyte Roussel. Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Picpus Missionary on Easter Island from 1866 to 1873. Extract from the Annals of the Sacred Heart (February-April-June 1926), introduction by Father Idlefonse Alazard, SS-CC. Office of Annals of the Sacred Hearts, Braine-le-Comte (Belgium), and Paris XIIth Translated by Ann M. Altman Reverend Father Hippolyte Roussel of the Sacred Hearts of Picpus, to whom we owe most of the credit for converting the natives of Rapa Nui to Christianity between 1866 and 1873, left some notes about this strange land in the Pacific that deserve to be published. These notes, made in 1869, are a precious contribution to historic studies and they are the fruits of his observations and research into the details of the lives of the natives which were characterized, alas, not only by the savage brutality of man's worst instincts but also by the unique and incoherent nature of their customs {Father Ildefonse Alazard, SS-CCJ.