Easter Island/Rapa Nui

Nearly all Moai are carved from a soft type of greenish lava called "tuff," while the topknots are made of a somewhat harder, reddish type of laval called "scoria." A few small and early Moai were carved from very hard vesicular lava (the kind with small holes in it), and the topknots were not made until later times. They were not attached to the head, but quarried and carved separately from the moai and put on just before or just after mounting on the Ahu.

The topknots, or pukao, were quarried in a secondary crater called Puna Pau, not far from the town of Hanga Roa. Today, finished and unfinished ones are lying all over. A few in the crater have large numbers on them, put there by a German priest, Sebastian Englert, who counted every remnant of the Moai period that he could find (around 900 pieces), and spent thirty-four years (1934 to 1968) on Rapanui studying the language and collecting legends, stories and knowledge about the old times from the elders and their children. Today he is credited with saving the Rapanui culture and providing a vital resource for the young Rapanui population that wants to connect to its roots.

The main quarry for the Moai is Rano Raraku, an awesome place that takes your breath away. As you climb the long slope leading to the quarry you come across massive heads sticking up out of the ground. These are roughly finished Moai, partly buried so the sculptor can add finishing touches required by the "buyer," like reshaping the nose a bit to more resemble a particular ancestor, ot adding some details to the ears or the back. First and foremost, however, the Moai were phallic symbols, intended to draw masculine power down from the skies, combine it with the mana of the ancestor, and project it through the eyes to nourish the clan and protect it from its enemies. Victor told a story of how the Moai came to have the unique shape of head and neck as related to the body. He said that the chief of the sculptors went to a wise man (curiously, these are called "Maori" in the Rapanui language) and asked how to make the neck. The wise man said, "The answer is right in front of you." The clan chief left, disgusted with the response. Then one day soon after he was relieving himself and happened to glance at his own penis. Laughing, he knew he understood and used the pattern he saw right in front of him for the statues.

According to Victor, the upper slopes of the crater are the equivalent of a big showroom. Only one clan did all the sculpting, and the chiefs of the other clans came here to negotiate payment for the work through barter. When the clan wars interrupted trade, the sculptors went on strike.

If you are observant you notice that none of these statues has eye sockets. That's because the eye sockets were one of the last things carved, just before the moai was put up on the platform. And this also means that the sculpting clan had to be involved in every step of the process, from quarrying and carving to transport, finishing and mounting.

On the way to the quarry there is an anomaly sitting at a bend in the trail. This is a large, realistic figure in a kneeling position that is unlike any other sculpture on the island. It's another one of the puzzling mysteries here.

The quarry itself is amazing. Partly finished statues of all sizes are still attached to the native rock in every imaginable direction. The sculptors certainly knew how to take advantage of every bit of usable material. Among the unfinished pieces is the largest Moai ever made. It would have been 21 meters (70 feet) high and the estimated weight would have been 300 tons. In the quarry it looks like it's almost ready to be detached. Maybe the sculptors thought long and hard about what it would take to get this monster down to the coast and set on an ahu, and they just gave up.

Inside the crater is a lake or lagoon, with more "showroom" Moai on the slopes around it. This body of water is the site of reed raft racing during the Tapati Festival.

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