DNL : The mysteries of the Easter island

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Walking by rocking

According to oral tradition, the moai statues walked to their destination. A literal interpretation of this legend would be that the statues were rocked from side to side, just like you would a refridgerator, to actually make them walk. For this, no wood would be required - only ropes.

There are three main weaknesses with this theory:

It doesn't explain the disappearence of the trees.

The statue would fall quite easily during transportation.

Transportation technique is very time consuming. Considering the quantity of statues and their distance from Rano Raraku, a quicker way of transporting the statues would be more advisable.

Archeologist and historians try to solve the mysteries by the reconstructions of facts. They use a lot of modern techniques, technology, sciences to resolve them. They try to think like the natives. As there’s no more of them in the territory, there are mysteries that have to be solved by deductions, clues.

However, no written and little oral history exists on the island, so it’s impossible to be certain, there are just theories.

For summarize this fist part, we can say that there are 3 mysteries about the moais: Why were they created? Why some of them fell? And, how and why do they transport them?

RONGORONGO

The moais are not the only curiosity the South Pacific island holds. There is another mystery unsolved: Rongorongo. It’s an unique written language that seems to have appeared suddenly in the 1700s, but within just two centuries it was exiled to obscurity.

Known as Rapa Nui to the island’s inhabitants, Rongorongo is a writing system of pictographs. It has been found carved into many oblong wooden tablets and other artifacts from the island’s history. The most plausible explanation so far has been that the Easter Islanders were inspired by the writing they observed in 1770 when the Spanish claimed the island. However, despite its recency, no linguist or archaeologist has been able to successfully decipher the Rongorongo language.

After the discovery of the island by the Europeans and the suffering ecosystem caused by the effects of limited natural resources, deforestation, and overpopulation. Over the following years the island’s population of four thousand was slowly eroded by Western disease and deportation by slave traders. By 1877, only about one hundred and ten inhabitants remained. Rongorongo was one victim of these circumstances. The colonizers of Easter Island had decided that the strange language was too closely tied to the inhabitants’ pagan past, and forbade it as a form of communication. Missionaries forced the inhabitants to destroy the tablets with Rongorongo inscriptions.

Even if a lot of people, since the discovery of this new language, try to decipher it or make sense of the mystery, no one could.

Rongorongo naturally commands a great deal of interest from linguists, anthropologists, and archaeologists. Only twenty-five texts are known to have survived. Some really wan to find a workable translation for Rongorongo, the knowledge stored on the remaining tablets might explain the mysterious statues of Easter Island, the sudden appearance of the written language, and the island’s history and customs as whole.

After everything that I explained, I also want to say that it could be great to create a new chapter about the history of The Easter Island. Have the possibilities to learn such an interesting subject as the mysteries of this territory, it could be really great and different. This chapter can also show us how a brilliant civilization collapsed and show us how everything they did is a completely enigma. Besides, while we learn the chapter we can discern that History is like a detective investigation: uncertain, full of questions and full of mysteries.

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