Easter Island/Rapa Nui

There are lots of lava tube caves, on Easter Island, both above and below sea level. Some were used for rituals, some for growing food, some for hiding from warriors or slavers, and some for storing precious objects so the missionaries wouldn't destroy them.

We were fortunate to be able to visit four of the seven most well known caves.

The first Ana we visited (ana means "cave" in both Rapanui and Hawaiian) was in a hill above Akahanga, and Victor didn't give us its name. This was a rather small ritual cave where the wise ones (maori told stories and the shamans (ivi atua, literally, "bone spirits") did magic, which included the ability to speak to the spirits of weather, animals, stones and ancestors. Magical items often consisted of stones, smooth and/or rounded ones by preference, which were inscribed with symbols to bring fishing luck, prophetic dreams, and so on. Skulls of ancestors were also used, with symbols painted or inscribed on them, and were kept in caves, placed on Ahu at the base of the Moai, or buried between uses.

Near Ahu Akivi was Ana Te Pahu ("Cave of Rooms"), one of the largest (pahu in Hawaiian is mainly a drum or a container; in Rapanui it refers to a jar that is struck with a stick, or to a chamber in a cave). First we walked down into a fairly large chamber and Victor pointed out the path to a whole series of rooms extending underground for a long way. Some commoners lived here, but it was also used as a hiding place. Another part of the cave with a collapsed roof was used as a Mataveri, an underground garden still filled with bananas and other edible plants.

A visit to the third cave was suggested by our taxi driver, Rosita. This was Ana Kakenga, the Cave of Two Windows. To get there we took a dusty, bumpy road along the coast east of Hanga Roa and finally stopped in a rocky, uneven field that sloped gently toward a cliff above the ocean. Rosita led us to a shallow depression in the ground and pointed to a small, black hole. "There it is," she said.

We had grave doubts about going into that hole. Nevertheless, Rosita led the way, followed by her friend with a handycam equipped with a light, and we stumbled after. We actually had to crawl in some spots, but we soon came to a place where we could stand. A short branch to the right led to roundish hole in the cliff face between two and three meters high that looked out over a small inlet and the ocean beyond. A slightly longer left branch led down and out to a similar window. Rosita said that the women used to come here to hide from the slavers.

On the way back to town we stopped to pick wild guavas, which Rosita said were US$5 a basket at the market. It was interesting in a scary sort of way to watch her peel a guava with a knife while driving on that rough and curvy road.

The last cave we visited was Ana Kai Tangata, just west of Hanga Roa, and situated at the end of a beautiful little bay. We followed a rocky trail down to the entrance, and it was obvious that high tide would fill the floor. On the ceiling were the remains of what was once an elaborate frieze of paintings related to the birdman cult, and on a small boulder on the floor to one side was another birdman painting, either purely modern or a restored version of an older one. Due to vandalism and erosion only a few paintings are left.

The name of the cave has led to speculation that some sort of ritual cannibalism was practiced here by the Manu Tangata (Bird Man) as part of an initiation ceremony, because Ana Kai Tangata could be translated as "Man-Eating Cave." However, kai can also refer to string figures (though it is usually doubled as kai-kai) and in that case the Bird Man might have been taught sacred knowledge through such means. In Hawaiian, kai would be 'ai, a word meaning "to eat or consume" and also "to rule." This relationship between ruling and eating is a curious aspect of Polynesian culture. In Hawaii a ruling chief was said to "consume" his subjects, perhaps in the sense of deriving power from them. Of course, this increases speculation about ancient ritual cannibalism throughout Polynesia. The relationship in Rapanui between eating or consuming and string figures might possibly come from the fact that string figures were used for magic, and not just for telling stories.

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