Rapa Nui
About 3,500 km west of central Chile, Rapa Nui (aka Isla Pasqua or Easter Island) is a small volcanic island. The nearest lump of rock above water is Isla Sala y Gomez, about 400 km to its east. The nearest inhabited place is Pitcairn Island (of Mutiny on the Bounty fame), about 2,100 km to the west. It's a long way from anywhere…
There are very few trees here now. With just a single town, most of Rapa Nui is rolling meadow spread around many extinct volcanic cones. Stand at the top of any of these and you can see all 24 km of the island.
Rapa Nui was settled by those magnificent peoples of Oceania, the Polynesians, whose presence can be felt south from Hawaii to New Zealand, and east from Indonesia to Rapa Nui. When they came is not certain, but when they were destroyed by Europeans is clear. By the mid-1800's, the culture was gone.
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A best analysis is that Europeans brought the usual gifts of tuberculosis, smallpox, dysentery and the like, followed by slaughter and enslavement, and marginalization by English and Chilean mercantile interests. As a result, the historical knowledge held by Rapa Nui people has virtually disappeared.
In its place, speculation and fabricated mystery has been mixed with a limited spicing of knowledge. The unknowns have made it easy for writers to mythologize Rapa Nui's history while plastering their own values over what little is actually known.
Regardless of this abuse on top of injury to Rapa Nui, the moai (the famous carved stone figures) are fascinating in their own right. Quarried from one end of the island, the figures are spread widely, in groups and singly on Ahu (long pedestals). The flat head is in good proportion when the pukao (a hat or top-knot) is put on the head.
