Clemente Hereveri Teao (Obituaries)

Abstract

Rapanui islander, Clemente Hereveri Teao died on December 5th, 2007, at age 32. Popular and beloved among his fellow Rapanui, he was also known in the foreign scientific community, as many of us worked with him in one way or the other. Highly knowledgeable about his ancestral culture, he was at the same time profoundly shaped by it. During his early years he spent many hours with his adopted father in the leper colony, an enclave where Rapanlui culture was preserved and reproduced like nowhere else on the island. He also was a pupil of prominent Rapanui elder Juan Haoa who taught him about Rapanui genealogies and other oral traditions.