John Hinderliter - Where Is Easter Island?

Jacob Roggeveen

It was Easter Sunday in April 1722. Jacob Roggeveen had been sailing for more than eight months. He was the commander of three Dutch ships. They were searching the South Pacific for parts of the world that had never been seen or explored. Roggeveen hoped to find a huge, legendary continent that many believed existed. It was called Terra Australis. Other explorers had searched parts of the South Pacific, but no one had found it yet, or mapped the area correctly.

That Easter Sunday, Roggeveen and his crew were a thousand miles from anywhere. Suddenly, they spotted land. What could it be? There was smoke rising in the distance, which meant people lived there. But what kind of people?

Some of the natives in the Pacific islands were peaceful and friendly. But others were not. Jacob Roggeveen had heard stories about cannibals! No one knew how his crew would be greeted by the islanders. Roggeveen decided it was better to wait until morning before he and his men went ashore. He named the island Paasch Eylandthe Dutch words for Easter Islandsince thats the day he had arrived.

The next morning, the weather was rainynot the best time to put small boats into the water. And besides, his men were nervous. Maybe they should wait another day.

But natives on the island had seen the Dutch ships offshore and were eager to find out who these strange visitors were. So one of the island people got into a canoe. He paddled out to Roggeveens ship and climbed aboard. He was totally naked! He was also friendly and warmhearted. He danced and sang with the sailors. They played a violin for him and gave him small gifts, including a mirror and a pair of scissors. The man seemed so happy, he didnt want to leave. They had to force him into his canoe to make him go back to the island. He motioned for them to follow.

It was several more days before the Dutch would finally set foot on the island. When they did, they found something amazingsomething no one had ever seen or imagined.

Lining the beach were giant stone statues, as tall as three-story buildings. Some were twenty or thirty feet tall. Others were just huge heads, buried in the sand up to their necks.

How did the statues get there? Who carved them? The islanders had no modern tools. They had no carts with wheels. They lived in simple grass-covered huts. How could they possibly have carved these huge blocks of stone? How could they have moved such heavy pieces of stone at all?

Roggeveen saw only a few of the statues. He didnt know there were more than nine hundred of them! They were scattered all over the island.

How they really got there, and why, is just part of the storyand the mysteryof Easter Island.

Easter Island is in the middle of nowhere. If you look at a map of the world, the island is so tiny, its barely even a dot. Lost in the middle of the South Pacific Ocean, its more than two thousand miles west of South America. The nearest islands are the Pitcairn Islandsmore than a thousand miles away. Easter Island is so far away from anywhere else, its hard to imagine how the earliest people ever found it.

So how did human beings discover the most remote island on earth?

No one is certain, but it is believed that about four thousand years ago, the people who lived in Taiwan began to spread out. They were searching for new places to live. Over many hundreds of years, they sailed from place to place throughout Southeast Asia. They took food and supplies with them and planted crops when they arrived. They formed new colonies on many of the islands in the South Pacific. Those islands are now called Polynesian islands. Hawaii, Tahiti, and New Zealand were also colonized this way.

But Easter Island was so far away, it was one of the last islands to be inhabited. Between 1,200 and 800 years ago, the first Polynesian people reached it and decided to live there. They probably came from Mangarevaan island more than a thousand miles away. Sailing in open double-hulled canoes, they braved the ocean waters. As many as twenty or thirty people crowded into each canoe. They brought with them chickens, bananas, sugar cane, and taroa sweet root vegetable like a sweet potato.

The Polynesian people were excellent sailors. They knew how to use the stars to guide them and the ocean currents and winds to sail fast. Still, the trip to Easter Island took at least three weeksmaybe longer. When they finally found the island, they gave it a name, Te Pito o te Henua, which meant the navel of the world or the end of the world. Years later, they named the island Rapa Nui. Rapa Nui means greater extremity or lands endas in the end of the landthe farthest thing from anything else. The people who live on the island are called the Rapa Nui people, and the language they speak has the same name.