The Moai of Easter Island

[Tuesday, January 27]

We spent the day touring the moai of Easter Island.  Our guide was Patricia Vargas, world expert on Easter Island, along with her ex-husband Claudio Cristino.  They have spend more than 30 years as archeologists on the island – walked all 65 square miles and documented more than 20,000 archaeologic sites, including more than 800 moai.  

We began at Ahu Tahai – a line up of 5 moai on an ahu; there is also the moai with the coral eyes and red ochre topknot (hair).  We saw the remains of the house foundation, shaped like a boat and built with a stone foundation and woven thatch walls in a low (4 feet) boat shape. Patricia described how they slept - on their knees with their heads down - like a resting yoga positions.  The children would sleep on the very ends (smallest space), then the women and then the men. The door faced the moai ancestor and was low and small “to scrape the evil spirits off your back before you enter the house”.  

The whole area around the ahu was paved with lava rocks to make a level field.

Patricia Vargas shows the boat like outline of a Rapa Nui house that would sleep 20 to 40 people.

Patricia explains that the only opening, a low door, faces the moai - so the powerful figure honoring your ancestors and protecting you would be the first thing you see in as you go out in the morning

The red ocher colored lava isn't a hat, but rather represents how the hair was styled and colored.

This whole large plaza around the moai was filled in with stones to make a level field for worship and village life