Easter Island: The Stonehenge of the Pacific The veil of mystery over Easter Island has been covering the island since we first stumbled upon it, the popularity of the island has grown immensely, and the mystery still encom-passes the island to this day. The History of Easter Island is one filled with prosperity and hardship, the inhabitants of the island experienced everything. The island is world re-nowned for the hundreds of giant statues called Moai, which are placed all over the island. The island is shrouded in mys-tery and due to this scientists, archaeologists, engineers, and linguists alike have hypothesized theories about the is-land. Over the years scientists have made many more intriguing discoveries about Easter Island, removing …show more content…
In 1,850 A.D. the population was decimated to mere 111 sick and starving islanders, and for some reason all of the trees were gone. It is believed that the Rapa Nui cut all the islands trees down to aid in the sculpting and production of the massive Moai statues. The declination of trees and overall island life is what escalated the islanders to start fighting each other. The inhabitants had spread out and made clans around the production of Moai, trying to make the largest possible statues they could to please the gods (Henriksen 1-2). Then the islands first documented discovery was made by the Dutch explorer Admiral Roggeveen on Easter Sunday in 1722, ergo the name Easter Island (Judd 2). The dis-covery of the island by the Europeans wasn’t a good thing this is where all of the horrible diseases came from, which made the already high death count rise even more, and as if that wasn’t enough this discovery helped Peruvian slave ships find the island and kidnap the inhabitants to sell into slave
In 1785, a Christ Child was said to have appeared. A shepherd boy from the village of Tayankani played with the child, but the child disappeared. The child was believed to have disappeared into a rock that was left with his imprint. This is the story behind the pilgrimage to the rock, but those of our community don’t pay much attention to it. Their purpose in the event is to ‘honor’ their supernatural beings. They pay homage to Rit’i (the snow), Taytakuna (Fathers), and the great Apus (Lord Mountains).
In The Lorax, the trees produce a fabric that could be used on anything and everything. With all the resources of trees gone the species that once were dependent on it were forced to migrate elsewhere. Their population did not become extinct. Something that caught my eye about the people on Easter Island was that exploiting their resources was part of their culture. They used up their resources to build and they went overboard with it. At one point they could’ve realized that they had enough statues/monuments and left the land fallow to regain its nutrients. Unlike the Lorax, once the people of Easter Island ran out of its resources and were not able to hunt for food they resulted to cannibalism. This would later lead to human extinction on the
In order for the reader to understand how colonization affected Ocean Island, the reader needs to understand the history of the Island. In Pearl Binder’s book, Treasure Islands: The Trials of the Banabans, she tells of what Ocean Island first looked like. Ocean Island, or Banaba, is one of the many islands in the Pacific. It is situated almost exactly on the equator. The whole island is three miles long and two and a half miles wide. The highest point of Banaba is 270 feet. The island was rocky but had quite a bit of land for growing crops. After living peacefully by themselves for a long time, the Banabans allowed travelers to enter their land, which changed their lives forever. Blackbirders, who are labor recruiters, came to Banaba in 1862 as a result of the Civil War happening in the U.S. (Binder). The need for cotton was in high demand so they needed workers to harvest it all. The blackbirders came and kidnapped strong young men from the villages to use them for working in Fiji, Honolulu, South America, and Queensland where enterprising planters had started cotton plantations. While slavery was ending in the U.S., it was just starting in the Pacific (Binder). At the end of the nineteenth century...
Between the years 300BC-400BC, a group of inhabitants landed ashore the island of Easter Island, also known as Rapa Nui. Once ashore, these settlers began collecting resources and learned to survive with no help from the outside, stranded on an island in the middle of the Pacific. They created methods to hunt, fish, make clothing, and cook food properly. In addition, the people of Rapa Nui also separated into different groups or tribes. These tribes coexisted on the island for some time – until civil wars broke out across the island. The inhabitants of Rapa Nui disappeared from the island without a trace. The cause of their disappearance is unknown although experts believe the inhabitants of Rapa Nui were irresponsible with their resources.
In recent years, ancient burial grounds have been frequently disturbed due to increasing surveillance by anthropologists and constructed on by state-of-the-art technology and are more critically protected than ever before. Understanding the importance of burial grounds gives an insight on the rich history of ancient Hawaii. They have influenced the burials performed, ancestors and their modern inhabitants, and how they have impacted modern Hawaii. Burial methods will range from the tallest peaks on land to burying those in the ocean. Ancestors influence these methods depending on their rank and actions, having their modern descendants have a choice to inherit these arrangements and protect their ancestors. By educating people about past burials, procedures performed by ancestors, and the impact today, it should provide a clear background of its importance in Hawaiian society.
Jovik, Sonia P. and James O. Jovik. (1997). “History.” Atlas of Hawaii. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, p.408.
Only one boat a day visited the island at that time, and travel was restricted beca...
Stonehenge, called the most photographed site in the world, draws nearly a million visitors a year, almost half of them from the united states (Wendy Mass 9) After Stonehenge has mystified an impressed generation of visitors and scholars who traveled to Salisbury plain in Wiltshire, England, 80 miles west of London, to marvel at the wonder of this ruin (Wendy Mass 8) but why is this ruin so magnificent? What draws so many people to it? Is it because the question of who built it and how it was built still lingers in the minds of many today. These questions have kept the mystery of Stonehenge alive for thousands of years, and the combined investigative efforts of historians, geologists, engineers, archaeologists, astronomers, chemists, and philosophers have continued to uncover more questions than answers (Wendy Mass 8)
The world has many unsolved mysteries that baffle even the most intelligent minds. One particular mystery, though, has remained truly unsolved. This mystery is the Easter Island heads that were built by people using primitive tools and manpower. Why is this mystery so puzzling and have we any clue about how the people of Easter Island accomplished this amazing task? Well, there are numerous facts, theories, and unanswered questions to be discovered. The following evidence further explains why and how the Easter Island people built the great stone carvings.
It has been in business since it was a grass shack in 1846. The desire to study the earth forms the park's main theme, coming close behind is biology. Thousands of unique organisms have gradually isolated Hawaiian islands. These are reminders of Polynesian pioneers who directed their great hulled canoes to Hawaii about 1,500 years ago. With the lava flowing at a rate of 800 to 1,300 gallons per second from vents on the east side zone of Kilauea, more than 500 acres of new land have been added to the island since 1938.
Ponting describes the historical background of Easter Island, which is a small island far off the coast of South America in the Pacific Ocean. Despite its desolate nature it is inhabited and the lives of this population show how resource use is important to survival both of the people living there and the ecosystem itself. The uses for the island varied over time but one period had evidence of a modern society despite the surrounding periods of primitive behavior. More than 600 stone statues were dispersed over the island. These sculptures had to been created by a society other than the more barbarous clans. However despite the advanced level of skill this society had it died out, showing that their skills were not sufficient to ensure their continued survival (Ponting, 1991).
By far the biggest mystery are the Moai Statues that stand 20 to roughly 69 feet tall and weigh at least 20 tons obviously a feet for pre-modern man to produce. These statues were made as a way to show dominance by the multiple tribes found on the island. The tribes competed trying to make their Moai statue better and taller than the next tribes. The mysteries of the Moai statue and the island’s history that bring fame to Easter Island are not as enigmatic as the fame brought to the popular novel and film The Lorax. The film tells the story of a boy who meets the Onceler who knew of a time when truffula trees existed. The Onceler tells his story of cutting down all the truffula trees in the forest to make Thneed, a new trending product, which made the Onceler rich, but The Lorax warned him to stop cutting down the truffula trees however he didn 't listen. When all the truffula trees had been chopped down, all the animals left the forest and the Onceler became poor and regretted not listening to The Lorax. In the end the Onceler gives the last tree seed to the boy and the boy plants
Prior to colonization by the British, the island of Montserrat was occupied by a number of Amerindian groups from Venezuela who made their living through fishing and cultivation. There is evidence from a small artifact found in the soil from roughly 500 B.C.E. that the first inhabitants of Montserrat were the Ciboney, known as the ‘stone people.’ The Arawaks arrived on the island around 400 C.E. and built their villages near the coastline. These were a peaceful people who made their living fishing and gardening, and made ceramic vessels, stone tools, and conch shell adzes.
The Maori, “Children of Heaven”, are the indigenous people of New Zealand. It has been thought that Polynesian navigator Kupe, discovered New Zealand in 950 AD, and named the island Aotearoa, “Land of the long white cloud”.1 The Maori migrated to New Zealand from the tropical islands of Polynesia in the Pacific Ocean. The long voyage was made possible by the Maoris’ ability to use the stars, birds’ flights, cloud patterns, and the water’s color to guide their canoes to shore.1 Upon arrival, the Maori settled into various tribes (Iwi) and sub-tribes (Hapu) across the island.3 In order to adapt to the cool, damp climate and rough terrain of New Zealand, the Maori created durable shelter and clothing. They resourcefully utilized the wood and flax fibers from the abundant forests to build homes and weave clothing.4
the island had a native populace just as Australia had had. But one thing was