Te Pito o Te Henua, The Center of the World, is the islander's name for the island we know as Easter Island, so named by a Dutchman, Admiral Jacob Roggeveen, who re-discovered the island on Easter Sunday,1722. Until recently, the early history of Easter Island was largely conjecture as to the gods that the undoubtedly Polynesian settlers venerated. More importantly, why had the original settlers disappeared and taken their history with them?
Two simple questions await answers. Where did the original inhabitants come from and where did they go?
Archaeologists believe that about 1,500 years ago, Polynesians ventured out from the Marquesas Islands, as part of an ongoing exploration that had begun, centuries before, they think, somewhere in the Indonesian Archipelago.
It is commonly held that the people who created the statues on Easter Island occupied the island for a millenium, give or take a century or two. Somewhere along the way, "the veneration of their ancestors lost their meaning and significance, becoming merely icons of bygone times or were even destroyed to consolidate new ideologies" (Mordo 16). The islanders made clear distinctions between living beings (tangata) and ancestors that had supernatural powers (atua). In this regard, they were in tune with their Polynesian forefathers.
The Dreams of Haumaka
Hoti Matu'a, a Polynesian chief, who lived on one of the Marquesan Islands had a dream in which the spirit of a priest, Haumaka, appeared. In the dream Haumaka was flying toward the east and in his dream had discovered an uninhabited island, which he had named Te Pio o Te Kaiinga, which can be translated as the Center of the Earth. Hoti Matu'a sent a scouting party to seek this island. After the scouting party had returned in their double-hulled canoes (Mordo 49) with glowing tales of the wonders of the island, the chief said that he would soon set off with them and he did.
When Hoti Matu'a reached the Centre of the World, he found the island similar in many respects to the Marquesan Island that he had left. Niether the Marquesas nor Easter Island have fringing reefs or lagoons because of the tremendous drop-offs due to the steepness of the submarine volcanic structures. The Marquesan Polynesians and the Easter Island dynasty were imbued with ancestor worship.
It is likely that the inhabitants of Easter Island painted themselves into a corner, so to speak. They cut trees down to make rollers for the movement of the statues.
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