The myth of ecocide on rapa nui easter island article pdf available in ssrn electronic journal april 2012 with 1,019 reads how we measure reads. See all eastern oceania tattoo culture articles here. Easter island civilization was not destroyed by war researchers debunk a longstanding myth using elliptical fourier analysis on ancient tools. The rapa nui people, who have lived on easter island since before europeans arrived, accomplished incredible feats of. It is subtitled a concise guide to the history culture and individual archaeological sites of rapa nui and it is i think selfpublished, but it is available on the english amazon and also on the island. This motif appeared on tapa figures and human skin, specifically on juan tepanos throat, 1880s. Finally, we would like to dedicate this book to the indigenous peoples of chile and their descendants. It was also at this time that the key to the rapa nui written language was lost. An archaeological history of the pacific islands before european contact. Like in other polynesian islands, this art had a fundamentally spiritual connotation and in some cases the tattoos were considered a receptor for divine strength or mana. Geologically one of the youngest inhabited territories on earth, easter island, located in the midpacific ocean, was, for most of its history, one of the most isolated.
This article will give you an indepth look into polynesian tattoo art. Portrait and profile views of ana eva hei, the wife of one of the last kings of easter island, 1911. Designs carved on the rapa nui stone pillows ngarua. Nowadays, young people are bringing back rapa nui tattoos as an important part of their.
The tapati rapa nui festival, which literally means rapa nui week, is the most important cultural festival in easter island, and it is celebrated every year during the first two weeks of february. Tattoos, as well as other forms of art in rapa nui, blends anthropomorphic and zoomorphic imagery. The most common symbols represented were of the makemake god, moais, komari the symbol of female fertility, the manutara, and other forms of birds, fish, turtles or figures from the rongo rongo tablets. Rapa nui entered written history on easter sunday, april 5, 1722, when it was sighted. Orongo and is known from historical documentation to represent an abdominal tattoo. The rapa nui are the aboriginal polynesian inhabitants of easter island in the pacific ocean. Its inhabitants, the rapa nui, have endured famines, epidemics of disease and cannibalism, civil war, environmental collapse, slave raids, various colonial contacts, and have seen their population crash on more than one occasion. This book reveals his identity, who illustrated him, and how he transcended the tragic events of 19thcentury rapa nui to become one of the most iconic faces of the polynesian past. Pdf easter island the forgotten book by the easter island. These conditions were mainly the tattoos and knoches ethnographic. The u ndergr ound w orld of rapa nui, the book which was the o utcome of our team ef fort, is a publication featuring important data to supplement the invent ory. Pdf designs carved on the rapa nui stone pillows ngarua.