Janice Allen, age 12, of Spokane, Wash
Why is Easter Island called Rapa Nui?
Two hundred years ago, the Pacific island of Rapa Nui‑ was home to some 4,000 busy people. Its grassy slopes led to the stony craters of old volcanos, The stone quarries rang with the sound of busy chisels, For the people of Rama Nui were great stone cutters, They used hammers and chisels made of obsidian ‑ black volcanic glass. They cut the softer volcano stones to make houses, cisterns, towers, spearheads, fishhooks and even chicken coops. They cut huge burial platforms from stone and hauled them to the cliffs overlooking the seas
Strangest of all was the work done in Raraku quarry: Here a soft rock made of black volcanic ash was carved into statues. Red stone was brought from another quarry to crown the weird statues with tall hats. The simple artwork looked like characiture. Each was the top half of a human body with long head and huge ears. Some were three feet tall, scone 30 feet and weighed 50 tons, One measuring 66 feet still remains in the old crater quarry.,
Many were toted to other parts of the island, some were mounted on foundations. The islanders were 2,000 miles west of Chile and knew nothing of the rest of the world. Imagine their surprise when tall white sails arrived along their shores. Rapa Nui was discovered by a Dutch sailor on Easter Day, 1722. He promptly named it and put it on the map as Easter Island. Later, the people of Chile named it Isla de Pasula,
Whalers made the little isle a port of call and traders arrived to take the people to work in the guana mines of South America. The islanders, so long isolated from the world, fell prey to sickness and disease. Many perished in fights as they blamed their troubles upon each other. In fifty years, only 175 of the original people of Rapa Nui were left on the island,
By this time, the little island has been rediscovered ‑ this time by scholars interested in the people and their way of life. Too late. What did the strange images represent? No one was left who could tell. How were the massive statues moved around the island? No one knew, What was the meaning of the picture writing carved on wooden slabs? No one remembered.
In 1888 Easter Island was annexed by Chile, Some of the original islanders were brought back home to live, They were given 50000 acres of the grassy island on which to make their livelihood, The remaining 25'000 acres was turned into a National Park.
Today, sheep graze on the grassy slopes between the quarries, Most of the weird images are broken, probably by earthquakes, Some still remain unfinished in the quarries. A few, set up on their stone foundations with their backs to the sea, still stand brooding over the sad and mysterious little Pacific isle,
It is believed that the ancestors of the people of Rapa Nui went there in boats from the Polynesian islands, Maybe several groups arrived some as long as 600 years ago, The stone images my have been some kind of tribute to these ancestors since they were often set up on the stone.burial mounds, But we are not certain, Nor has anyone been able to read the strange writing so full of pictures of men, fish birds and animals, Rapa Nuii Easter Island, or Isla de Pasula ‑ it is a place of mysteries and likely to remain so.