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The mseries of easter island essay
Essay about easter island culture
Essay about easter island culture
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Stony sentry’s, carved years ago by Polynesian craftsmen, gaze over one of the most remote places in the world. With their land enlarged by overuse, islanders now draw on a revival of their culture to attract visitors. I intend to tell about this small island off the coast of Chile named Easter Island.
Easter Island, submerged volcanic mountain range in the eastern Pacific Ocean, is located 500 miles South of the Tropic of Capricorn, and 2,200 miles West of Chile. This area is located were it is swept by strong trade winds. Because of his, the island remains warm through out the year. As you know, Easter Island is small. To be exact it has an area of 64 square miles about the size of Washington D.C. Easter Island’s population as grown a lot since diseases spread to most of the island in1877. Some of the remaining people left for South America, and the island was left 110 people. The population grew throughout the years in 1955 it was 990, in 1980 it was 1,842 and in 1989 it was 2,095.
As many people have traditions, at parties and other celebrations, Easter Island has its own. They paint their bodies, the chant, they dance and the sing songs of their forbears. Each September, flocks of sooty terns come to nest on tiny islets about a mile off the shore. Since ancient times, there have been ceremonies to celebrate the birds’ arrival and to choose the birdman. The birdman competition is where each clan selected a representative to swim to the islets where the birds nested. They are to find and egg and swim back the first one back with an unbroken egg becomes the birdman. Another competition is during Tapati Rapa Nui - Rapa Nui is where guys race with heavy loads on their backs to try to win points for a girl, out of many girls, who want to be crowned festival queen. Some islanders practice the custom of elongating their earlobes. This was done by piercing the ear and gradually enlarging the hole.
Today most experts believe that Easter Island was first settled by Polynesians looking for a new homeland. About 1680 A.D, the quality of life on the island began to decrease. At this time, clan rivals erupted in a bloody battle between long ears and shorts ears. This destruction of the islands natural resource undoubtedly contributed to its decline.
In the chronological, descriptive ethnography Nest in the Wind, Martha Ward described her experience on the rainy, Micronesian island of Pohnpei using both the concepts of anthropological research and personal, underlying realities of participant observation to convey a genuine depiction of the people of Pohnpei. Ward’s objective in writing Nest in the Wind was to document the concrete, specific events of Pohnpeian everyday life and traditions through decades of change. While informing the reader of the rich beliefs, practices, and legends circulated among the people of Pohnpei, the ethnography also documents the effects of the change itself: the island’s adaptation to the age of globalization and the survival of pre-colonial culture.
To begin with, the Lorax and Easter Island have many differences but the most obvious one is that in the Lorax one person/thing (the onceler) was responsible for the destruction and the depletion of a resource. Unlike the Lorax a whole generation of people led to the destruction and depletion of many resources, and not just one individual profited from the exploitation but a whole species of people did. In the Lorax you can see that the onceler used the truffula trees for economic purposes. He got filthy rich from the exploitation. Whereas, in Easter Island a whole group of people benefited from it, they build pyramids, cut down trees to build temples, and depleted the land of all its natural sources.
Captain James Cook and his crew came to Hawaii in 1778. Bringing along many diseases such as, syphilis, gonorrhea, tuberculosis, and viral hepatitis.(Blaisdell, p.44) Native Hawaiians were not immune to these diseases, they were unable to be cured therefore died and a massive depopulation occurred. An estimated 500,000 Hawaiians were living in Hawaii before Western Contact, and in 1878 less than 45,000 Hawaiians remained.(Trask, p.10). With the rapid decrease of Hawaiians, also came the fact that their culture was in danger.
The Hawaiian culture is known throughout the western world for their extravagant luaus, beautiful islands, and a language that comes nowhere near being pronounceable to anyone but a Hawaiian. Whenever someone wants to “get away” their first thought is to sit on the beach in Hawai’i with a Mai tai in their hand and watch the sun go down. Haunani-Kay Trask is a native Hawaiian educated on the mainland because it was believed to provide a better education. She questioned the stories of her heritage she heard as a child when she began learning of her ancestors in books at school. Confused by which story was correct, she returned to Hawai’i and discovered that the books of the mainland schools had been all wrong and her heritage was correctly told through the language and teachings of her own people. With her use of pathos and connotative language, Trask does a fine job of defending her argument that the western world destroyed her vibrant Hawaiian culture.
Sonia P. Juvik, James O. Juvik. Atlas of Hawaii. 3rd Edition. Hilo: University of Hawai'i Press, 1998.
When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, America was at last forced to officially enter World War II. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt officially declared war on the Japanese and in his famous radio address to the American people, he professed that December 7 was a day that would live in infamy. Americans and Japanese alike, still remember Pearl Harbor Day, but how many remember the gallant, fighting Marines who served on a tiny atoll in the Pacific by the name of Wake Island?
In the story of The Island of “Kora”, the island had been devastated by a violent earthquake that had been triggered by a volcano eruption four years earlier. The island which had prior to the disaster been about twenty square miles in size and been reduced to less than a fourth that size to about four square miles. The island prior to the earthquakes had previously been able to support comfortably 850 to 900 people. It was a peaceful island where the inhabitants got along well. Because of the disasters the lives of the inhabitants had been changed forever.
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.
Catalina is a unique place since it has developed infrastructure and have resources to exploit that enable people to live in it. This unique characteristic attracts many people every year to enjoy different ranges of activities. Tourism is the only industry that Catalina has to the economy to fluctuate (“Visit Catalina Island.” 2014). Since the only income for Catalina Island has historically been tourism, the market has been exploited to be able to sustain the towns and enable further development. Both of the towns depend on tourism to survive, however this does not mean that they are similar. According to 2010 Census of Bureau the approximate population of Catalina was 4,096. Avalon had a population of 3,569 and the rest of the population is, Two Harbors and the Catalina Island Conservancy (337.37 km2), 527 (U.S. Census, 2011; “Visit Catalina Island,” 2014). As it can be observe, the amount of resident from each town is significantly different, and the major concentration is in Avalon. This points out that Avalon is a larger city not only demographically but also in population that may drive more people to visit.
Easter Island is a Polynesian Island, which was annexed by Chile in the late 19th century. Eleven hundred miles away from the nearest island, and twenty-three hundred miles from the mainland makes Easter Island very seclusive and isolated from the rest of the world. In fact Easter Island is the most isolated island that is inhabited, in the world.
The Polynesian peoples have a lifestyle quite different than that of any other culture, as living on an island requires a level of flexible adaptability in order to cope with such a different, sometimes difficult environment. We see the way diverse cultures build their lives around their circumstances and how they respect them in their cultural myths and stories. The Polynesian legends emphasize the physical environment that they live in. They are quite different than any other region in the world, but the beauty and individuality of the Polynesian culture is prominent as seen in their mythology.
Have you ever been eaten alive by the fury of the Pacific Ocean? Well, it happened to me and many other exciting things happened when I visited Hawaii for the first time. About eight years ago, during my spring break, my family and I went to the island of Kauai and we were there for about eight days. I am telling you, the first time you visit a tropical paradise; your scenes will change drastically. The food, the people (locals and tourists), the culture, and lest not forget that unforgiving Pacific Ocean.
It was believed from the beginning that Hawai’i is a place for paradise; where rest and relaxation can be found more than most places. It is ranked as the most peaceful place in the world. Hawai’i is alive now because of tourism and almost, if not all the residents of Hawai’i know about how the US illegally annexed Hawai’i by overthrowing their Queen. Many still stand with their belief that Hawaii should never be a part of the US because as people come to Hawaii, it is no longer the place that they would imagine it to be. Hawai’i is no longer a place to find solace but it is now a playground for the military.
I like that in the first chapter, “Argument,” there was a persuasive example. It was about Third World workers, which is often a touchy subject. The way the author put together his argument it helped see what I should do with my argument. This chapter had a good general layout guide that I will use as a reference for my next paper. I like how the chapters are set up in this book, they use paragraphs with bolded titles. It makes it easier to stay on topic, and get the information that is presented to me. We have already been through logical fallacies, so that was a bit tedious. The part called, “Editing for Common Errors in Arguments,” had a lot of common sense errors, that I think most people do repeatedly even after being notified about them, for example, comma mistakes.
Treasure Island By Robert Louis Stevenson The main character in the story is Jim Hawkins. He is a young boy who is looking for adventure. He and a few experienced men search for Ben Gunn, and want to have him enlist in their cause. They steal the Hispanolia (a ship) and return it to the captain to which it rightfully belongs.