Easter Island-Day 3........The Birdman Competition

Hola from HareSwiss Bungalow #2

Yesterday was a combination of relaxing and exploring.  In the morning we enjoyed the simple pleasure of taking it easy.  There was a little bit of reading, a little bit of staring out at the ocean and

for me a little bit of napping.  A bit of our reading was in preparation for the afternoon of exploring.  Much of the information in the blog below, including the Birdman Competition came from a very nice book titled "A Companion Guide to Easter Island".  It was written by James Grant-Peterkin.  It's a nice combination of travel guide, and history of the island, that is written in an easy to read and entertaining format.  I'm also a sucker for trivial information, so here's a few morsels of information on the Easter Island airport I found in the book.
First of all, my good friend Ed Laue and I were texting yesterday.  Ed's quite a scholarly gentlemen so in addition to texting he was looking at a map of Easter Island.  He shared with me that given the location of the airport that it looked like the runway ran the width of the island.  He was pretty accurate in his observation.  Where it is situated there isn't much land on either end of the runway.  There is however a few thousand miles of ocean if a water landing becomes necessary.

The first runway on Easter Island was built by the US military during the Cold War with Russia in the 60's.  We placed around 100 troops on the island along with satellite tracking (spy) equipment.  In 1970 Chile elected as socialist president, Salvador Allende, who had strong ties to Russia and Cuba.  Shortly after the election our troops were expelled from the island.  Leaving behind the island's first runway and a few diesel generators.
In the 90's a passenger plane from Santiago was flying to Easter Island.  It had long passed the "point of no return" where it would have enough fuel to make it back to the mainland.  Suddenly there was a power outage on the island and the airports backup generator failed.  I'm not sure if it was one of the generators our troops left behind or not.  I do know that landing a plane on a dark island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean would have been a challenge.  A call to the citizens of the island went out urging them to bring their cars and motor scooters to the airport.  They lined the runway, turned on their lights and the plane safely landed.  I assume a new backup generator was ordered quickly thereafter.
The runway was lengthened and the Concorde landed here on "Round the World" Charters operated by both Air France and British Airways.  And the final trivial fact about the airport...…….it was designated as an "abort" landing site for the Space Shuttle.  Thankfully it was never used for this purpose, but if the astronauts on board had any idea how cool Easter Island is, they might have tried to land here.
In the afternoon we rented a car and did a little exploring on our own.  We had a couple of destinations in mind that were quite interesting.  First up was Orongo, a ceremonial village perched high up on the rim of the extinct volcano, Rano Kau.  Deep on the floor of the volcano, water and grass have taken over, while on the outside steep cliffs drop over 1000 feet into the ocean.  The village took on special significance near the end of the 17th century.  At that time the island had become quite chaotic.  The once peaceful and cooperative tribes had turned on one another.  In addition to ransacking and killing, they were quickly depleting the islands supplies.  Then someone came up with a new and different idea of a religious belief system in hopes of appeasing the gods and restoring order.  It involved what in todays terms seemed to have been an insane competition, but it apparently accomplished it's goal.
During the spring, which is in September, a migratory bird, the Sooty Tern would come to the small islands just off shore from Easter Island to lay their eggs.  The tribal leaders would designate a participant for that years competition.  These well trained athletes (or crazy people) would await the signal for the start of the competition.  Once it was given, these guys would scale down the 1000 foot cliffs, and swim out through huge waves to the small island which was approximately a mile away, using a surfboard like device to carry supplies.  If they survived the cliffs and the swim, (I think there were numerous casualties along the way) they camped in caves on the island waiting patiently for the first egg to be laid.  The first man to get his hands on the egg would be declared the winner.  This champion, who was declared Birdman and Spiritual Leader for the year, would shave his head and eyebrows   Of course he (and the losers) had one minor detail ahead of them, swimming back through the rough seas and getting back up the sheer cliffs.  The poor guy who won the competition had to do this while keeping the egg intact.  The winning tribal chief was then given the honor of having to live alone for the next five months with only a servant to provide food and make sure his other needs (what could that be?) were met.  The members of the winning tribe were granted greater access to the limited resources of the island.  Sounds a little nutty to me, but I guess it worked.  It seems as if this annual competition continued for close to a century and a half.  At that point the Catholic missionaries arrived and convinced the Rapa Nui people that there might be other ways to maintain peace and cooperation on the island.

You can't really tell by the picture but that's pretty much a straight drop of over 1000 feet.  If the competitor successfully made it down they then had to paddle/swim out to the furthest island to wait on the first egg.

Ceremonial houses on the crater rim

On the rim of the extinct (we hope) Rano Kau volcano

The volcano that was once full of molten lava is now water and grass

On the way down from Orongo we made a quick stop at Ana Kai Tangata.  There was a short trail that led to a small cave whose entrance was just above the water line.  There were some carvings near the entrance to the cave depicting seagulls, possibly a leftover advertisement for the next Birdman Competition?

We also visited Puna Pau, an inland volcanic site.  The red colored rocks found in this area were used to carve the topknot (hats) that were placed on the moai once they had been moved to their final location.  Like the moai, these stones were huge, often weighing up to 10 tons.  I've heard of Texans and their 10 gallon cowboy hats.  Here we have the moai and their ten ton topknots!

A couple of pictures from Pana Pau.  This is where the topknots (hats) for the moai were carved from the red volcanic rock.

Some of the topknots had petroglyphs carved in them

Our last destination was Ahu Akivi.  This platform was composed of seven moai.  Although large, they were smaller than many of the moai we had seen in other locations.  They also gave the appearance of being carved in the likeness of younger men.  These moai are the ones I referred to previously that face out to sea.  It was believed they were honoring and looking after young explorers and their journeys on the sea.  They were positioned astronomically so that they are facing directly to sunset during the spring equinox, and their backs directly to sunrise on the autumn equinox.  For those of you who are like me and didn't know or remember what the equinox is, this is when the center of the visible sun is directly above the equator.

The seven moai of Ahu Akivi staring out to sea