An Honor or a Curse?

Being on Rapa Nui, or Easter Island, was awe inspiring. We went to see a bunch of different famous sites. My three favorites were: the largest Ahu which is called Ahu Tongariki; the nursery called Rano Raraku; and especially a place called Orongo.

An Ahu is the platform that supports Moai, or the big stone guys from Easter Island. Ahu Tongariki is in front of the anchorage where we stayed during our visit. It is the largest Ahu on the island, carrying fifteen different Moai.

This is Ahu Tongariki

The nursery, was where the Moai were built. Jack wrote an entire blog about it but here is a picture.

My favorite site, Orongo, comes with a story about very recent times in comparison to most other sites on the island. The island's people arrived on Rapa Nui in the 1200's AD. Their culture slowly developed until approximately the 1700's when the island ran out of resources from over use. The nine different tribes started fighting for the last remaining resources. After years of continual combat, the tribes came up with a way of competing without the battles that had cost dozens of lives every year. They created the bird-man competition or Tangata Manu competition. I was surprised to find that the last time the competition took place was in 1867.

Every year a representative, called a hopu, of each tribe and the important people of the villages would go to the huts in Orongo. Orongo is in a very fragile spot, removed from where the tribes lived year round. It is balanced precariously between the ocean and an extinct volcanic crater. The huts were made of slabs of rock stacked up with a tiny hole for a door that you would need to wiggle through on your belly.

This is Jack and me standing on the edge of the village.

We are sitting right on the edge of the crater.

The representatives, or competitors, would climb down the thousand foot cliff and swim on a handmade surf board to a tiny island a ways away from shore.  There were often times dangerous currents and sharks nearby as they swam. The Rapa Nui people called the tiny island Motu Nui.

Here you can see us standing with the cliff right behind us and Motu Nui far below.

The hopu would climb through the dangerous surf, up a cliff and onto the tiny island. For two to three weeks, they would survive on very little food. They searched and searched the island until they found an egg from one of the Sooty Terns, or in the local's words the manutara, that come there every year to mate. The competitor who found the first egg would journey back across the water and then up the cliff, all the while carrying an egg.  Almost every year, four to five eggs were broken on the journey. The first competitor back won his village the rights to the eggs on the rock for the entire year. Meanwhile, on shore, everyone would be waiting and constantly searching the sky for the Sooty Tern.  Incredible paintings of men, birds, eggs, and dozens of other things were found in the huts.

The winning competitor, now called the birdman or tangata-manu, had to then spend the next year on his own. He lived in a hut and was brought food and water, bathed, and cared for by a single priest who never spoke. All the hair on his body was shaved off at the start of the year and then he was not allowed to cut it until the end of his year as the birdman. It was forbidden to even lay your eyes on him until he was done.

I decided it would be straight up terrifying swimming to the islands, not to mention the surf on the cliff, and the fact that I would be trying not to break an egg on the way back doesn't help. I imagined attempting to get onto a cliff while surf pounded at the stone, throwing you up and down. Being in the bird man competition was considered an honor, but I think I would consider it a curse. – Porter