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  • Rapa Nui is a tiny South Pacific island with a towering presence.

  • Officially it's part of Chile, three and a half thousand kilometres to the east.

  • Named Easter Island by an 18th century Dutch explorer, Rapa Nui would have been nothing

  • more than a dot on a map if not for its megalithic stone statues - the Moai.

  • "There are about a thousand Moai scattered round the island and at first glance they

  • all look pretty similar, but once you get up close and personal, and really take a good

  • look, you can see that each one is unique. And rather than all looking austere, some

  • have other expressions like this one which... well, rather wistful I think".

  • But the famous faces of Rapa Nui are in danger of becoming faceless. Lashing wind and rain

  • and searing sun are all taking their toll. Now the race is on to preserve these centuries'

  • old sentinels so they and their secrets are not lost to eternity.

  • "These objects are very friable, they're very fragile. They're not going to last forever

  • and the record that we have we.... we're certain of, is required in order to take care of them

  • properly".

  • "Look at that! Can you see it?"

  • "What is it?"

  • "It's a fishhook.

  • It's a fishhook made of bone".

  • Californian archaeologist, Dr Jo Anne Van Tilburg, has spent thirty years trying to

  • solve some of the mysteries surrounding ancient Rapa Nui civilisation.

  • "Oh we're very excited. We've been wanting one of these for a long time. Even if it's

  • broken it's still special".

  • "Cristian, can you explain what you're doing?"

  • "We are suffering down here!" Working alongside Dr Van Tilburg is Cristián

  • Arévalo Pakarati, a Rapa Nui graphic artist. Together they run the Easter Island Statue

  • Project.

  • "So what you're finding is..."

  • "It's all new".

  • "It's all completely new?"

  • "It's all completely new".

  • Over more than two decades, they've measured, mapped and documented every Moai on the island.

  • At last count, 1045.

  • "It's so exciting. Well done!"

  • Now they're conducting the first comprehensive scientific excavation of statues inside Rano

  • Raraku, the volcanic crater where nearly all the Moai were carved.

  • The inner rim is a place of privilege, off limits to all but a few.

  • Nearly 400 statues remain in various stages of creation. Were they abandoned in haste,

  • and if so why? War? Famine? Or were some of them just not up to scratch?

  • "It's like walking into a factory where.

  • everybody's assembling cars and they say okay guys, this is finished, yeah and then you

  • find all these cars in the line of assembly."

  • This season's dig aims to uncover more pieces of the Rapa Nui jigsaw.

  • "And what are you hoping

  • that will lead you to?"

  • "The answer to all the mystery.

  • I'm interested first in

  • coming to understand human behaviour on this island relative to this clear obsession to

  • produce a very large number of objects.

  • The second thing I'm really interested in is how our work and our records can help conserve

  • and preserve the statues".

  • Despite their formidable appearance, the statues are delicate.

  • The volcanic tuff from which most were sculpted as many as 900 years ago is crumbling. In

  • some cases, to the ground. "I've been seeing already in 27 years entire

  • statues being

  • degraded into the ground. It's melted to the ground already. It's soil now, it's not a

  • statue anymore".

  • Cristian Pakarati has an artist's eye for detail.

  • He sees not only the features of his ancestors in the statues, but also a carved record of

  • their lives, their values and their activities.

  • "If you see the nostril of the statue from any angle you're going to see like ...

  • that this nostril is actually a fishhook instead of a nostril".

  • The Moai are an invaluable - if still inscrutable - map of the society which created them and

  • about which so many questions remain.

  • "I just want to draw as much as I can before the statues are gone.

  • The more we archive the better for the statues and for the Rapa Nui people".

  • It's now largely accepted that Rapa Nui was settled by Polynesian voyagers, sometime between

  • 400 and 1200 AD. Maori sailors from New Zealand last year proved that such a daring journey

  • was possible.

  • In traditional, double hulled canoes they sailed the 7,000 kilometres to Rapa Nui using

  • only the sea and sky to navigate.

  • Oral tradition has it that Rapa Nui's first king, Hotu Matua, came ashore with his family

  • here at Anakena Beach. That small group was the nucleus for what became an extraordinary

  • civilisation.

  • "And my idea about Rapa Nui is that artists have shaped this island and its culture

  • from its beginning in a profound way, in ways that we don't see on some other Polynesian

  • islands.

  • So I think the ability to articulate in an object an idea is what drives religion".

  • In ancient Rapa Nui, religion centred on the Moai, the deified representation of a family's

  • ancestor. The Moai watched over their clans and lands and passed on their full power - or

  • mana - when fitted with coral eyes. For Vaiheri Tuki Haoa, handling the tools

  • that her forebears used to carve the statues is spine tingling.

  • "It's a dream

  • that I have since I was a little child".

  • She's part of the archaeological team working in Rano Raraku. She believes it's only in

  • understanding their history, that Rapa Nui can build a prosperous future, free of their

  • colonial overlords in Chile.

  • "When you are in school you learn the history of Chile,

  • but you are not learning the history of Hotu Matua, the first kind of Rapa Nui and that

  • is the story that the children really want to know

  • and that is what make us Rapa Nui". The ancient Rapa Nui established a highly

  • sophisticated society geared around making and moving the statues. But Moai mania which

  • reached its height between 1200 and 1600 came at a cost.

  • "Giant palm trees with massive trunks once covered much of the island. They provided

  • food, shelter, fabric and wood for the Rapa Nui. Those trees no longer exist. This is

  • one of the few pockets of palms on the island. They're not native trees, they were imported

  • from Tahiti".

  • By the time European explorers arrived in 1722, Rapa Nui was denuded. Its population

  • had shrunk from perhaps ten thousand people to a few thousand.

  • Some scientists argue that cutting down trees to move and erect the statues was largely

  • responsible for deforestation and ultimately the collapse of Rapa Nui's ecology and society.

  • Dr Van Tilburg is not entirely convinced by the collapse theory. From her own experiments,

  • she believes logs were used to move the Moai in much the same way as the sea-faring Polynesians

  • moved their heavy canoes across land. But she says other factors, such as climate,

  • may have played a key role in determining the highs and lows of Rapa Nui society.

  • "We don't know for example about how nature intervened here.

  • And one of the things that we're looking at, particularly in the quarry because of the

  • water there, is what drought would mean on this island. It would cause serious problems".

  • What is known is that European contact had a devastating impact on a proud and resourceful

  • people.

  • By the late 1800s, Peruvian slave raids and introduced disease had reduced the population

  • to just 111.

  • Rapa Nui had been annexed by Chile, leased to a foreign company and turned into a sheep

  • and cattle farm. Its indigenous people confined to the settlement of Hanga Roa.

  • Hanga Roa is still the only town on Rapa Nui, but today it's home to nearly 6,000 people.

  • Only half have Rapa Nui roots. A growing number of residents are from mainland Chile.

  • Then there are the tourists - 50,000 a year and rising.

  • "Today in Rapa Nui the only solid source of employment is tourism.

  • If tourism didn't exist Rapa Nui would have a lot of economic problems".

  • Pantu Tepano runs a successful horse-riding business. He takes tourists across his ancestral

  • lands, but needs permission to do so.

  • Most of the island's 170 square kilometres is national park - administered by the Chilean

  • government and that gives it control of Rapa Nui's most precious resource - the Moai.

  • "Chile is making good deal of money because of Rapa Nui.

  • They publish their tourism with Rapa Nui Moai, with our intellectual property.

  • The Rapa Nui parliament is fighting to return all the land that today remains in the hands and administration of

  • Chile, to return to the Rapa Nui people, to the owner, to the inheritors".

  • "I thank the Gods for allowing us to meet today on this special occasion".

  • Erity Teave is the Human Rights Minister in the Rapa Nui parliament, a self-styled group

  • comprising representatives from each clan.

  • "Every word and everything we say, it's the law of the land - law given to us by our ancestors.

  • We need to start believing that". The parliament is suing the Chilean Government

  • for allegedly breaching its 1888 treaty with the Rapa Nui king. MPs say nothing short of

  • independence will safeguard Rapa Nui's heritage. "Our ancestor left behind a fortune for us.

  • Like the Middle East have oil, this is our oil, our patrimony, our culture. We don't

  • need Chile. We are three thousand people".

  • Vaiheri Tuki Haoa is a strong supporter of independence.

  • "Oh wow, it's a dream, that is a dream, because we are losing now our language, our culture.

  • There's many

  • people from... foreigners... they came here, they start their life here, their business...

  • and they change our cultural system".

  • Despite a strong turnout at a recent pro-independence march, not all Rapa Nui believe going it alone

  • would work. Many favour regional autonomy - under the umbrella of Chile but only if

  • it delivers them control of their resources such as the Moai.

  • "For me it means managing our own resources.

  • I think that is one of the important points here in order to protect archaeology".

  • "Jo Anne?"

  • "Yeah?"

  • "We have a bone, maybe a human bone".

  • Rafael Rapu is a 24 year old archaeology graduate, a trained scientist who also feels a deep

  • emotional connection with the Moai.

  • "For me it is very moving especially when I am discovering things beneath the moai.

  • It totally affects me".

  • His discovery of a bone fragment should be a triumph, but as a Rapa Nui he has mixed

  • feelings about potentially digging up the remains of an ancestor.

  • "Really, I don't like to take these bones,

  • because maybe my great, great grandfather he wanted to stay in here. I can't explain

  • it really.

  • If we find a rock or an arrowhead or bone hooks, regardless of whether the body is there

  • or not, the human ideas are there. That is why it's a very sensitive issue especially

  • because we are in a community that still exists and has a sense of belonging".

  • The history being uncovered here is important not only to the Rapa Nui but to all of us.

  • It's as much a tale about survival as it is of collapse.

  • "I think the Rapa Nui people have shown themselves, historically and prehistorically, to be highly adaptable

  • They do, and have, shown us through the archaeological evidence that they can

  • change, that they changed. They changed their architecture, they changed their art".

  • And their religion.

  • At the other end of the island from the statue quarry is the spectacular Rano Kau.

  • Perched on the cliffs between the crater's rim and the ocean is Orongo village. Its low,

  • rock-slab houses were built in the shape of traditional canoes.

  • Between the 17th and 19th centuries, Orongo became the beating heart of a new religion,

  • the bird man cult.

  • On the rocks around the village are 500 petroglyphs, carvings of the birdman Tangata Manu and the

  • creator god, Make-Make. The religion may have been used to channel bitter inter-clan conflict

  • into a much healthier competition for resources.

  • "At the heart of the bird man cult was an annual do or die race to determine which clan

  • would hold power for the following year. The chiefs would choose their bravest warriors

  • and they had to be pretty brave to scramble down the cliffs at the edge of the crater

  • there, then swim across often treacherous waters to the islands and find the first egg

  • of the Sooty Tern. If they could get that bird egg back in one piece, their chief was

  • effectively king for a year". "It's hard to find many cultures of this size

  • that have created two versions, if you will, of religion, two ways of expressing their

  • belief, two icons to represent their belief.

  • I think that's what happened with the Moai, I think that's what happened at Orongo with

  • the birdman. That carving so fully articulated what the priests were saying, what people

  • were believing, that wow, let's carve that all over the place!"

  • Which brings us back to the challenge of saving Rapa Nui's ageing rock stars. A chemical coating

  • and water repellent is being trialled on the Moai being excavated by the Easter Island

  • Statue Project.

  • It's hoped the treatment will minimise the eroding effects of the elements.

  • 'We're monitoring the ambient environment, the rainfall, the sun, the temperature, the

  • wind direction, the wind velocity - all of these things both around the statue and in

  • the stone

  • and at the end of a five year period when we complete our work in this particular quarry,

  • we'll be able to report what we know is attacking the statue".

  • Dr Van Tilburg believes the best way to conserve the incredible skill and art of the ancient

  • Rapa Nui may be to remove a handful of the statues from the landscape. Otherwise their

  • detail may be lost to all but Cristian Pakarati's drawn records.

  • "Could a museum be built on the island within which

  • five or six perhaps statues of the most importance could be taken and erected and protected?

  • Yes that's a real option and that should, in my opinion, be considered".

  • Cristian agrees. "I think it's time to do something for them.

  • They already have made so many for us. Why don't we do something for them?

  • Put them somewhere else under protection - like under a dome, or in the museum or in a chamber,

  • or whatever.

  • Maybe the best idea is to roof some of them right there in the field without moving them.

  • Put something on top". But it's a controversial idea which has yet

  • to win over powerful figures such as Mario Tuki, a member of the Rapa Nui parliament.

  • "We have to have a process of conservation because the erosion process has already started

  • on the statues. If the idea is to take them to a museum

  • so archaeologist can repair them, I have no objection to that. Take them, repair them,

  • but you must bring them back to their place. This is the land of the Moai and our ancestors.

  • That debate about conservation will be fought for some time yet.

  • For now though, Moai number 156 - fondly known as Papa - will be left in peace.

  • The excavated soil is being returned to the pit because, at the moment, that's Papa's

  • best protection.

  • "It's difficult because you know we've had, you know, taking that dirt out has been arduous

  • and we've screened every inch of it,

  • so seeing it go back in, hearing it go back in is really hard sometimes, [laughs] but

  • I thinks it's obviously the best thing to do, so we're okay with it."

  • Jo Anne Van Tilburg and her team will be back in a few months to do it all again as they

  • continue their dig to the bottom of the statue's six metre form. Such is archaeology and a

  • particular obsession with saving the Moai.

  • "I think that the value of the statue as an art object, as an aesthetic expression,

  • as an icon of religion, as a museum object even in a way is incalculable..

  • I think it would be a failure, a tremendous failure of us as scientists if we let this

  • go"

Rapa Nui is a tiny South Pacific island with a towering presence.

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B1 中級

老齡化的搖滾明星--復活節島的破敗古蹟。 (Ageing Rock Stars - Easter Island's crumbling monuments)

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    吳曜任 發佈於 2021 年 01 月 14 日
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