Easter Island Tourism facts

Osterinsel - Facts & Summary

It is said that the first humans of the island of Rapa Nui (the name of Easter Island in Polynesia; its name is Isla de Pascua in Spanish) came to an organised group of expatriates around 300-400 A.D. The tradition says that the first sovereign of the island was Nui Hoto-Matua, a sovereign of a sub-group of Polynesians (possibly from the Marquesa Islands), whose vessel travelled thousand of kilometres before it landed in Anakena, one of the few sand shores on the island's cliffy coastline.

Following the demise of the moais, a new birds religion emerged on Easter Island. As the greatest proof of the wealth of civilization that has been created by the early colonists of Rafa Nui and their offspring, there are almost 900 huge rock sculptures found in various places on the island.

Why these sculptures were built in this number and size or how they were transported on the island is still not known. Archeological digs on Easter Island show three different periods: the early phase (700-850 AD), the intermediate phase (1050-1680) and the post-1680 one.

From the early to the midperiod, many early sculptures were intentionally damaged and reconstructed as the bigger and heavier mai for which the island is best known. In the midperiod ahu' also included tombs, and the paintings depicted by mai are said to have depicted important characters that were divinized after their deaths.

This is the largest found sculpture from the central era, measuring about 32 ft and consisting of a simple unit with a weight of about 82 tonnes (74,500 kilograms). Later in the civilisation of the island was marked by civilian war and general devastation; other sculptures were overthrown, and many mataas, or observidian peaks, were found from that time.

The island's traditions claim that around 1680, after years of peaceful coexistence, one of the two most important ethnical groups on the island, the so-called Short-Ears, revolted against the Long-Ears and burned many of them at a stake built along an old moat near Poike, on the north-east shore of the island.

On Easter Island, the first known tourist was the discoverer Jacob Roggeveen from the Netherlands, who came to the island in 1722. They called the island Paaseiland (Easter Island) to remind us of the date of their arrival. It was in 1770 that the vice-king of Peru sent an outing to the island; the discoverers stayed four nights on land and appreciated a local populace of about 3,000 in number.

Only four years later, the English sailor Sir James Cook came to decimate the Easter Island populations, leaving only 600 to 700 men and less than 30 mothers. Jean-Francois de Galaup, from La Perouse, found 2,000 men on the island when he first came to the island in 1786.

In 1862, a large slavery attack from Peru, followed by pox outbreaks, led to a reduction in the total number of the inhabitants to 111 by 1877. It was at this point that Catholics set up on Easter Island and began to proselytize the populace, a trial that continued until the end of the nineteenth cent.

1888 Chile conquered Easter Island and leased a large part of the country for shepherding. In 1965 the Chilian authorities nominated a civil gubernator for Easter Island, and the inhabitants of the island became full-Chilians. The Easter Island is an insulated 14 mile long and 7 mile broad delta made up of a succession of outbursts.

Besides the undulating area, there are many underground caverns with a corridor extending deeply into the mountainous area. Well-known as Rano Kao, the island's biggest volume and its highest point is Mount Terevaka, 600 metres above sealevel. The Easter Island has no ancestral harbour, but boats can moor off Hanga Roa on the western shore; it is the biggest town on the island with about 3,300 inhabitants.

The Easter Island was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1995. Today it is home to a diverse populace, mainly of Polish descent, which is made up of the offspring of the long-eared and the short-eared. The Spanish is widely used and the island has evolved an economic activity largely driven by tourism.