Easter Island Part 9: Akahanga
Aug. 21st, 2005 11:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
urbpanLegend tells that the first people to arrive at Easter Island were the king Hotu Matu'a and his entourage. Also according to legend, the tomb of Hotu Matu'a is located at the site of Ahu Akahanga. Archaeology has not spoken definitively on the legends yet.
The site is archaeologically rich however, with many artifacts of the stone age settlements (ceremonial villages) of the island. The above picture shows the foundation stones for houses called hare paenga: the rectilinear slabs of basalt with holes drilled in them. The holes were places to insert sugarcane rods for wall support. The smooth, weathered stones were brought from miles away, to create a mud-free place to walk and live.
The wind and salt-spray of the island make agriculture challenging. A solution the early settlers devised was to construct stone circles in which to protect growing crops. Here a thistle takes advantage of the human-improved growing area.
12 Moai lay face-down at Akahanga. This one has a particularly stylized and attractive face.
...which has grown a healthy skin of lichen.
(I decided to spare you the other lichen photos I have from this site. If you are interested you can see them here.
Many moai were topped with pukao, which were hats or topknots made of the reddest stone that occurs on the island (red scoria). The meaning of the pukao is a matter for discussion, but McLaughlin notes that red feather headdresses are important for many Polynesian people, and Simpson noted that the moai could be viewed as phallic symbols and the pukao could be seen as vulvic symbols to create a complementary fertility image. Our co-tourists here passing a fallen pukao give an idea of the scale of these monuments--the red stone is just the crown of one of the moai--it alone weighs thousands of pounds, and was raised to the top of a statue using stone age technology.
There is a cave there, a "material cave," meaning that it was a source of gathered stone--and later a hiding place from outsiders. Dale warned of black widow spiders, but in the webs I found only the exuviae of common house spiders.
There's something tragic and meaningful to an unrestored site, where the moai are left where the descendants of their creators dashed them to the ground.
Next: Rano Raraku: the birthplace of the Moai stones.
The site is archaeologically rich however, with many artifacts of the stone age settlements (ceremonial villages) of the island. The above picture shows the foundation stones for houses called hare paenga: the rectilinear slabs of basalt with holes drilled in them. The holes were places to insert sugarcane rods for wall support. The smooth, weathered stones were brought from miles away, to create a mud-free place to walk and live.
The wind and salt-spray of the island make agriculture challenging. A solution the early settlers devised was to construct stone circles in which to protect growing crops. Here a thistle takes advantage of the human-improved growing area.
12 Moai lay face-down at Akahanga. This one has a particularly stylized and attractive face.
...which has grown a healthy skin of lichen.
(I decided to spare you the other lichen photos I have from this site. If you are interested you can see them here.
Many moai were topped with pukao, which were hats or topknots made of the reddest stone that occurs on the island (red scoria). The meaning of the pukao is a matter for discussion, but McLaughlin notes that red feather headdresses are important for many Polynesian people, and Simpson noted that the moai could be viewed as phallic symbols and the pukao could be seen as vulvic symbols to create a complementary fertility image. Our co-tourists here passing a fallen pukao give an idea of the scale of these monuments--the red stone is just the crown of one of the moai--it alone weighs thousands of pounds, and was raised to the top of a statue using stone age technology.
There is a cave there, a "material cave," meaning that it was a source of gathered stone--and later a hiding place from outsiders. Dale warned of black widow spiders, but in the webs I found only the exuviae of common house spiders.
There's something tragic and meaningful to an unrestored site, where the moai are left where the descendants of their creators dashed them to the ground.
Next: Rano Raraku: the birthplace of the Moai stones.
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no subject
Date: 2005-08-22 04:30 am (UTC)Just in case you aren't as geeky as me, I must tell you that I am reminded of this poem every time I see the moai; I can hear the words echoing across the ahu...
I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said--"Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert . . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandius, King of Kings,
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away."
P.B. Shelley, 1817
That, and could I share your father? He is just what I always wanted. Intelligent, interesting, credible, unarmed...what more could one ask, in a father?
Doc rocks
Date: 2005-08-22 06:32 am (UTC)Say what?
Date: 2005-08-25 05:12 pm (UTC)he's only in his early 70s after all.
Re: Say what?
Date: 2005-08-25 05:42 pm (UTC)Actually there seems to be a remarkably strong streak of klutzy I share with him. I haven't seen it so much in Jef, maybe he's better at hiding it. It's balanced out with remarkably fast damage control instincts which allow me to do things such as...
Habitually knock glasses off of tables and catch them before they spill.
Back off a cliff with my hand on Frankie's shoulders and manage to disengage and leave her at the top as I slide down.
Trip and fall head first toward pavement while carrying an infant Duncan in a baby sling and some how manage to turn it into a tuck and roll and come up on my feet with laughing Duncan.
It makes for a more exciting, if somewhat spastic life.
Re: Say what?
Date: 2005-08-25 05:45 pm (UTC)I just came back from a visit with the new baby and my grandmother who's something like 87, so your dad doesn't seem old AT ALL.
My parents are still in their early 60s ... I wonder what they'll be like in 10 years.
Oh, and your dads poem about your mom in his last letter saddened me. A lot.