Special Sub-Topic: Mysterious Easter Island Click Here To Play: Mysterious Easter Island

What country does Easter Island belong to?

Chile. It was annexed to Chile in 1888, and until 1965 the Chileans literally kept the natives as prisoners on their own island! Now it's a province of Chile.

What is the nearest land?

Sala y Gomez Island. Sala y Gomez Island is only 258 miles east of Easter Island, but it is uninhabited, making Easter Island the most remote inhabited island on Earth. Pitcairn is 1,260 miles West, Chile is 2,300 miles to the east, and Tahiti is 2,515 miles to the West.

What is the proper name for the stone heads?

moai. Not much is known about these massive statues, carved by the native islanders centuries ago. The average head is about 13.29 feet tall, and weighs 13.78 tons! Ruff is the kind of volcanic stone they are made out of, a toki is the tool used to carve them, and an ahu is the flat mound or stone platform some moai sit on!

How big is Easter Island?

64 square miles. This makes it bigger then Disney World (48 square miles), but a little smaller than Washington, D.C.(69 square miles). It was created by three volcanoes over two million years ago.

True or false? According to legends, the stone heads brought good luck and long life to its builders.

f. The heads supposedly brought spiritual powers to its builders, not long life or good luck. They were monuments to the islanders' ancestors.

What was the name of the quarry where the heads were made?

Rano Raraku. This quarry was first used around the year 900 A.D. Of all the statues, 288 were transported to their spots, 397 never made it out of the quarry and 92 were somewhere in between.

How did the original inhabitants of Easter Island get there?

By outrigger canoe. They came from East Polynesia, somewhere around the Marquesas Islands. Around 400 A.D. they arrived in their outrigger canoes, which are sea-going canoes with floats on either side to help keep them from capsizing.

True or False? The original name of the island, "Te Pito te o Henua", means "The Navel and the Uterus."

t. Most sources will tell you it means "The Navel of the World." However, it was mistranslated in the nineteenth century and actually means "The Navel and the Uterus."

The two distinct groups of people on the island were the Hanau Eepe and the Hanau Momoko. Hanau Eepe means "thickset race" or "short, fat people." What does Hanau Momoko mean?

"slender race" or "thin people". The Eepe lorded over the Momoko, and made them do all the work. These names were mistranslated in the nineteenth century, and people thought they meant "long ears" and "short ears."

What was estimated to be the highest the native population ever rose to?

20,000. Between 1000 A.D. and 1680 A.D.there was a huge population boom. Years later, though, a British captain saw that there were 700 men and only 30 women!

Who was the first European to see Easter Island?

Jacob Roggeveen. He was leading three Dutch ships in search of new continents when they sighted the island on Easter Sunday, 1722. They named it Paaseiland, which is Dutch for Easter Island.

In 1808 an American ship captured 22 islanders to sell as slaves. What was the name of the ship?

Nancy. They planned to sell them to sealers, but after a few days of sailing, the islanders jumped overboard. The Nancy kept sailing and they drowned. A little while later, Peruvian slavers also frequented the island.

True or False? Easter Island was renamed Rapa Iti in 1863.

f. It was named Rapa Nui in 1863. French Polynesian officials didn't recognize the name Easter Island or the name Te Pito te o Henua, so they renamed it after a similar Tahitian island, Rapa. Easter Island was bigger than that other one, so it was called Rapa Nui, or Great Rapa. The other one is now known as Rapa Iti, or Little Rapa.

What is the name of Easter Island's hieroglyphic writing?

Rongorongo. These hieroglyphics have never been translated, and only 21 tablets have survived. Rongorongo is written in a method called reversed boustrophedon. Besides being something no one should have to spell, it is a kind of writing where, instead of going from left to right and then down to the next line, left to right, upside down until it reaches the other side again!

What were the two main diseases that killed many islanders in the nineteenth century?

tuberculosis and smallpox. Peruvian slavers brought the smallpox. It was islanders, however, who brought the tuberculosis to Easter Island. They had been slaves in South America and, freed, returned home, bringing the disease with them.

In the 1860s a missionary settled on the island, started a sheep ranch and declared himself king. What was his nationality?

French. His name was Jean Baptiste Onesime Dutrou-Bornier. He forced all the other missionaries and about 300 islanders off "his" island. Historians disagree about how he died. Some say he was thrown by his horse, but others argue that he was murdered by the remaining islanders.

True or False? In 1955 Thor Heyerdahl, a Norwegian explorer, claimed that South Americans were the island's first settlers.

t. He gave a few pieces of evidence, including the fact that sweet potatoes, an American plant, grow there. Another was that the structure and building techniques of the statues really resemble that of South America.

When was Easter Island made a World Heritage Site by UNESCO?

1996. UNESCO stands for United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. "World Heritage Site" means that it is a cultural treasure, and will be protected forever.

What is the town on Easter Island called?

Hanga Roa. Easter Island's population is about 2000, as of the year 2004, and all of them lives in Hanga Roa. The people's name for themselves is the Rapanui. The island's main source of income is tourism.

True or False? In 1985, NASA established Easter Island as a Space Shuttle Rescue Site, so if the space shuttle has to crash in the Pacific Ocean a rescue team will be able to get there quickly.

f. False! NASA lengthened the existing airport runway. That way, the space shuttle can just LAND there in stead of crashing and then being rescued!