Easter Island/Rapa Nui

We hired a Rapanui woman taxi driver, Rosita, to take us to see a Moai that wasn't on our tour, called Huri a Urenga on my map. Her taxi was an older car of indeterminate make and she arrived with two sons and a friend. After some discussion she made one of her sons get out so Gloria and I would have room to sit. Rosita handled the dirt roads very well, but we had a hard time finding the statue because she didn't recognize the name I gave her. After checking with the hotel clerk she drove us to a different statue on the other side of the island. Finally, she listened to my directions enough to get us to the general area and I pointed it out as we almost drove past. "Oh," said Rosita, "you should have told me you wanted to see the statue with four hands." It turned out that none of the locals were familiar with the name on the map.

This restored Moai was unusual in that it was well inland and isolated, sitting on top of a hill. Another unusual feature is that it has four hands carved on its belly, instead of the usual two, and no one knows why. What is known is that it is considered to be the most important astronomical marker on the island, with as many as eleven markers related to equinoxes and solstices. The Ahu and Moai were built in perfect alignment to face the rising sun over the peak of Maunga Puakatiki on the eastern peninsula of Poike at the winter solstice.

This alignment of Ahu and Moai to equinoxes and solstices (mostly the winter solstice) is found all over the island. Obviously these alignments were extremely important, but why?

People maintain difficult customs and traditions because of practicality, economics, politics or religion, and sometimes out of mere habit. The more difficult the custom, though, the less likely it is that it will survive out of habit, and aligning Ahu and Moai is very difficult. Political customs change like the wind, and economic customs change with the economy. Religious customs can last a very long time without any apparent purpose, but they usually begin for a practical reason, according to the beliefs of the culture. Practical customs will survive as long as they serve a practical purpose, although if they become religious customs they may outlast their practicality.

Here's my theory. Knowledge of the equinoxes and solstices serves a practical purpose only to farmers and sailors. For farmers in the tropics precision in these matters is not vital. But for farmers outside of the tropics, and for ocean-going sailors everywhere, they are. In their early days of settlement the people of Rapanui were sailors above all else. Much later, however, they became mostly farmers and their sailing knowledge was forgotten. And yet, during the period of Moai-building, they went to a great deal of trouble to keep accurate alignments. I believe it was because the Moai represented their ancestors, and their ancestors were sailors. Since Rapa Nui lies a bit outside of the tropics (about 29 degrees south latitude) the equinoxes and the solstices may also have been important because of the winter swells from the Antarctic.

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