Easter Island Culture

Easter Island stretches 64 kilometres long and is situated in the South Pacific Ocean. It is located 2,300 kilometres from Chile’s west coast and 2,500 kilometres east of Tahiti. The island was originally known as Rapa Nui by its inhabitants who held the same name as the Island, but its name was later changed when the Dutch explorers discovered it in 1722 to Paaseiland which is Dutch for the current name 'Easter Island' to commemorate the day they found it. Easter Island’s main source of income comes from tourism, and the most popular tourist attraction is an array of almost 900 giant stone figures that date back centuries. The statues reveal that the Rapa Nui people were master craftsmen who had a distinctive style, unlike any other Polynesian

Easter Island displays this in their craftsmanship creating the Moai and being able to move these 14 ton stone statues over an island with only manual labour; next in the criteria is -“to exhibit an important interchange of human values, over a span of time or within a cultural area of the world, on developments in architecture or technology, monumental arts, town-planning or landscape design”. This is shown in the distinct style the Moai were created in and that is unlike any other Polynesian art of that time. Another criteria is “to bare a unique or at least exceptional testimony to a cultural tradition or to a civilization which is living or which has disappeared”. The Rapa Nui people have disappeared and naming Easter Island a heritage sight bears testimony to them; “to be an outstanding example of a type of building, architectural or technological ensemble or landscape which illustrates (a) significant stage(s) in human history”. This would be demonstrated in how the Moai were built to remember deceased ancestors and living chiefs mana, people do not remember their ancestors by building huge statues any more. The way we remember and celebrate people has progressed; “to contain superlative natural phenomena or areas of exceptional natural beauty and aesthetic importance”. Again, the Moai would be a brilliant example of exceptional natural

Hanga Roa is the islands largest village, with a population of 3,300. In 1995, UNESCO named Easter Island a world heritage site, and it is now home to a mixed culture consisting of Polynesian descendants of the Short-Ears and Long-Ears tribes. The two main languages spoken are Spanish and Rapa