WEBVTT - Easter Island (Update) 0:00:00.560 --> 0:00:03.760 Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class from how 0:00:03.800 --> 0:00:13.680 Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. 0:00:13.800 --> 0:00:16.959 I'm fair doubting and Chuck reboarding. And you guys know 0:00:17.120 --> 0:00:20.320 that we really love a good historical mystery. It allows 0:00:20.400 --> 0:00:23.479 for so much interesting discussion. I think, a discussion of 0:00:23.520 --> 0:00:28.200 different theories, sometimes compelling one, sometimes less plausible sounding theories, 0:00:28.240 --> 0:00:32.480 and then sometimes just completely lucky out their idea, which 0:00:32.600 --> 0:00:34.360 I mean, I'm glad that we at least get to 0:00:34.440 --> 0:00:36.879 mention those most of the time. But we're gonna be 0:00:36.920 --> 0:00:41.800 talking about a historical mystery today. And since Judge explorers 0:00:41.840 --> 0:00:44.960 first arrived at Easter Island in the seventeen hundreds, people 0:00:45.000 --> 0:00:50.479 have wondered about the tiny, remote locations. Most startling feature 0:00:50.640 --> 0:00:55.320 the gargantuan carved stone statues called moi, and in the 0:00:55.400 --> 0:00:59.040 past people tended to focus more on how the islands 0:00:59.080 --> 0:01:03.160 people got ar to this really really far out location 0:01:03.360 --> 0:01:06.839 and who built the moai. So, for instance, the Norwegian 0:01:06.880 --> 0:01:11.720 adventure tour hired all of Kantigie fame suggested that Peruvian 0:01:12.000 --> 0:01:16.760 pre Inca came to the island and built these statues themselves, 0:01:17.160 --> 0:01:20.319 and Swiss author Eric von Donnigen even thought that they 0:01:20.319 --> 0:01:23.360 were built by aliens, you know, a classic catch all 0:01:23.480 --> 0:01:28.200 for the most impressive building. Today, though most of these 0:01:28.280 --> 0:01:32.920 questions are answered, interdisciplinary evidence points to the inhabitants coming 0:01:32.920 --> 0:01:35.679 by boat from the Polynesian Islands in the South Pacific, 0:01:36.040 --> 0:01:38.840 so the focus has been more on how these gargantean 0:01:38.920 --> 0:01:42.920 statues were moved and what led to the populations collapse 0:01:43.120 --> 0:01:47.039 pre European contact, and recently new information on both of 0:01:47.080 --> 0:01:50.200 these points has come out questioning the predominant idea about 0:01:50.400 --> 0:01:54.640 Eastern Island's darker history. It's environmental degradation and the MOA. 0:01:54.680 --> 0:01:57.840 I pardon it, but before we give too much away here, 0:01:57.960 --> 0:02:00.960 let's take listen to Candis and Jane's podcast from two 0:02:01.000 --> 0:02:07.000 thousand and eight. Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm 0:02:07.080 --> 0:02:11.320 editor Candis Gibson, joined by staff writer Jane McGrath. Hey, Candis, Jane. 0:02:11.400 --> 0:02:14.000 I think that if I could go any place in 0:02:14.040 --> 0:02:16.720 the world, it would be Easter Island. Really, it's a 0:02:16.760 --> 0:02:19.560 beautiful place. Have you been. I haven't. I've just seen pictures, 0:02:19.600 --> 0:02:22.160 but it looks beautiful. I am kind of obsessed with it, 0:02:22.360 --> 0:02:25.480 and I was looking at videos of Easter Island the 0:02:25.520 --> 0:02:29.640 other day and I stumbled upon this fabulous piece of information, 0:02:29.760 --> 0:02:32.359 and that is that Easter Island has its own marathon. 0:02:32.960 --> 0:02:36.359 And now I love love running long distances. I love 0:02:36.360 --> 0:02:38.720 half marathons and full marathons. And I'm very slow. I 0:02:38.720 --> 0:02:41.080 won't profess to be the first line or even like 0:02:41.160 --> 0:02:43.880 the eight hundred, but I don't think there'd be anything 0:02:43.919 --> 0:02:47.880 cooler than running around the moai of Easter Island. And 0:02:47.919 --> 0:02:50.600 it's not that big of an island. Actually, I was 0:02:50.639 --> 0:02:53.480 looking at it. I mean I saw that it was 0:02:53.520 --> 0:02:57.160 about sixty four square miles and that's about I mean, 0:02:57.320 --> 0:02:59.560 just to see the point of reference, like, it's about 0:02:59.560 --> 0:03:03.520 the same size is Washington, d C. It is itty bitty. Furthermore, 0:03:03.600 --> 0:03:06.560 it is in the middle of nowhere. I think it's 0:03:06.720 --> 0:03:10.239 closest land neighbor. I guess a big land neighbor. I 0:03:10.280 --> 0:03:13.120 think there are other islands smattered around nearby, but not 0:03:13.200 --> 0:03:16.200 too close by would be chilly. And that is about 0:03:16.200 --> 0:03:19.919 two thousand two miles away. That's right. If you look 0:03:19.919 --> 0:03:21.720 at a globe, it looks like just a tiny little 0:03:21.720 --> 0:03:24.720 spook on the globe. And it's fascinating that people were 0:03:24.760 --> 0:03:27.280 able to find it as early as they did. Yeah, 0:03:27.520 --> 0:03:30.960 considering that these are the Polynesians who were not quite 0:03:30.960 --> 0:03:33.079 sure where they came from, and we're not quite sure 0:03:33.120 --> 0:03:36.600 why they left, whether there was some sort of dispute 0:03:36.640 --> 0:03:39.240 the Rows, or whether some got ambitious and wanted to 0:03:39.240 --> 0:03:42.960 start their own colony elsewhere. But because the Polynesians are 0:03:43.000 --> 0:03:46.000 such great sailors and navigators, they were able to make 0:03:46.080 --> 0:03:48.520 it to this island. We know that they sailed and 0:03:48.600 --> 0:03:51.960 wooden boats that were probably lashed together with reeds wrapped 0:03:52.000 --> 0:03:55.040 really tightly like ropes, and they were probably a drift 0:03:55.080 --> 0:03:57.400 in the ocean for about two weeks before they hit 0:03:57.480 --> 0:04:01.040 land Easter Island, and that was around four a d. 0:04:01.440 --> 0:04:05.360 And so you can understand how archaeological evidence can't really 0:04:05.360 --> 0:04:09.400 indicate like what exactly motivated these people because they ended 0:04:09.440 --> 0:04:12.280 up being isolated on this island for so long. Furthermore, 0:04:12.400 --> 0:04:16.040 speaking of isolation, we're not sure how many went the 0:04:16.120 --> 0:04:19.560 first time, and when they arrived at Easter Island, we're 0:04:19.600 --> 0:04:21.920 not sure if they settled there because they had picked 0:04:21.920 --> 0:04:23.800 it and they knew it existed and that was their 0:04:23.839 --> 0:04:26.720 final destination, or if they were so desperate they thinked 0:04:26.760 --> 0:04:29.360 any land that they could have seen, and regardless, they 0:04:29.360 --> 0:04:33.360 actually came very prepared for for being ready to survive 0:04:33.400 --> 0:04:35.760 wherever they landed. Yeah, they had a type of leafy 0:04:35.800 --> 0:04:38.600 green with them to grow. They had sweet potatoes and 0:04:38.960 --> 0:04:43.039 bananas eline. Now, who doesn't love a sweet potato gosh um. 0:04:43.080 --> 0:04:45.960 I think they also had a couple of chickens. And 0:04:46.640 --> 0:04:49.120 again when they pulled up to Easter Island, I just 0:04:49.200 --> 0:04:52.760 I can't imagine how they must have felt, because parts 0:04:52.760 --> 0:04:56.680 of Easter Island were just gorgeous, a very verdant paradise. 0:04:56.760 --> 0:04:59.159 I think that today archaeologists suspect that there may have 0:04:59.200 --> 0:05:02.760 been at one time sixteen million palm trees, just you know, 0:05:02.800 --> 0:05:05.080 an eden in the middle of the ocean. But the 0:05:05.080 --> 0:05:09.440 part that they docked at was a less welcoming landscape. 0:05:09.480 --> 0:05:11.600 And that's the thing about Easter Island, as tiny as 0:05:11.640 --> 0:05:14.560 it is, this little triangle shaped island has very diverse 0:05:14.640 --> 0:05:16.840 landscapes that has white sandy beaches, and then it has 0:05:16.839 --> 0:05:19.240 this very jagged and forbidding cliffs, and it has a 0:05:19.320 --> 0:05:23.040 volcano and volcanoes and palm trees. So who is what 0:05:23.080 --> 0:05:26.400 they thought? But they set to task, and they did 0:05:26.440 --> 0:05:30.720 pretty well. They cultivated the land, and they increased their population, 0:05:31.080 --> 0:05:34.480 and they became a very sophisticated society. Yeah, and you 0:05:34.520 --> 0:05:36.440 can see you how it was probably pretty hard at first, 0:05:36.480 --> 0:05:39.000 especially because they brought most of their sustenance with them, 0:05:39.040 --> 0:05:41.360 as we said, and what was actually on the island 0:05:41.360 --> 0:05:43.320 itself before they came there was not much. There were 0:05:43.360 --> 0:05:46.720 there were lizards, maybe an insect um, but but they 0:05:46.760 --> 0:05:49.880 actually had to start from the ground up mostly exactly. 0:05:49.920 --> 0:05:52.520 They were able to hunt dolphins and other types of 0:05:52.520 --> 0:05:54.640 fish in the waters. But it's important to note that 0:05:55.000 --> 0:05:57.440 Easter Island is not just remote as far as people 0:05:57.480 --> 0:06:00.240 go and animals. Like you were saying, there aren't very 0:06:00.240 --> 0:06:02.520 many nutrients in the water, or there weren't at that time, 0:06:02.839 --> 0:06:05.760 and so not much could be sustained. So there were 0:06:05.800 --> 0:06:08.039 birds that would pass over, and some people think that's 0:06:08.040 --> 0:06:10.320 how it got to be such a verdant little paradise, 0:06:10.360 --> 0:06:13.120 is that the birds would bring seeds that they deposited. 0:06:13.120 --> 0:06:15.960 And this is actually a point of contention about like 0:06:16.000 --> 0:06:19.400 how things got there and and um, etcetera, because some 0:06:19.520 --> 0:06:21.680 historians claim, like we're trying to figure out where the 0:06:21.720 --> 0:06:24.240 original people came from, and some historians claim, oh, these 0:06:24.240 --> 0:06:28.200 people came from Chile, obviously, like that's the closest land. Um. 0:06:28.320 --> 0:06:33.400 But when explorers eventually stumbled upon the island, the European explorers, uh, 0:06:33.600 --> 0:06:36.200 a Polynesian on the ship was actually able to converse 0:06:36.560 --> 0:06:39.200 with the people there, and so that's so they were 0:06:39.200 --> 0:06:42.240 obviously speaking of variation on Polynesian. So they think the 0:06:42.240 --> 0:06:45.640 people came from Polynesia. And so we could tell y'all 0:06:45.680 --> 0:06:47.760 about Easter Island all day, and if you don't know 0:06:47.839 --> 0:06:50.040 much about it, you may be saying, okay, sure, So 0:06:50.080 --> 0:06:52.360 it's a tiny little island, things are green, people came 0:06:52.400 --> 0:06:56.560 from nowhere. Great, But the really important thing about Easter 0:06:56.720 --> 0:07:03.360 Island is the mo I, and ultimately the Moi brought 0:07:03.400 --> 0:07:06.920 about the height of the civilization. And then they're very 0:07:07.000 --> 0:07:10.160 very darkest hour and the history of Easter Island not 0:07:10.200 --> 0:07:12.160 just how they got there, because that part is interesting 0:07:12.200 --> 0:07:15.480 in and of itself, but it gets so haunting and 0:07:15.520 --> 0:07:17.840 it really gives me chills every time I think about it. 0:07:18.040 --> 0:07:22.679 These people had a very specific religion and culture, and um, 0:07:22.720 --> 0:07:26.920 their spirituality was manifested through art, you know, storytelling and 0:07:27.000 --> 0:07:30.720 string figures and sculpture. And then they got to Easter Island. 0:07:31.120 --> 0:07:34.320 The volcanoes and the quarries had all of this ash 0:07:34.360 --> 0:07:37.080 that was perfect for making sculpture, and so they made 0:07:37.920 --> 0:07:42.160 these giant heads and they're very stylized looking. If you've 0:07:42.240 --> 0:07:44.280 never seen a picture of them, I would encourage you 0:07:44.400 --> 0:07:46.960 to look at the Easter Island Moi and what people 0:07:47.040 --> 0:07:50.160 usually asso associate with Easter Islands these huge hits huge 0:07:50.960 --> 0:07:53.200 And what I found interesting is that there actually found 0:07:53.200 --> 0:07:56.160 other places, like other other cultures did have something like this, 0:07:56.320 --> 0:07:59.560 but it was the Easter Islanders who actually like they 0:07:59.560 --> 0:08:02.000 had the most sophisticated in the biggest and the most 0:08:02.040 --> 0:08:04.800 incredible ones. Well, and you have to wonder too, I 0:08:04.840 --> 0:08:07.680 think they might have gotten bored and there was a 0:08:07.720 --> 0:08:10.560 sense of competitiveness among them because they would build these 0:08:10.560 --> 0:08:12.640 giant giant heads. And just to give you guys an 0:08:12.680 --> 0:08:16.320 idea average average wise, they could weigh up to eighty 0:08:16.360 --> 0:08:18.920 two tons and stand up to thirty two ft high. 0:08:18.960 --> 0:08:21.200 They were huge. They were just giant heads. They didn't 0:08:21.240 --> 0:08:23.400 have nacks, but they had these really long earlobes and 0:08:23.440 --> 0:08:26.160 they were very stylized, and their features to their long 0:08:26.240 --> 0:08:29.960 noses and their eyes are sometimes ornamented with coral or absitian, 0:08:30.320 --> 0:08:35.199 but they look very phallic and perhaps archaeologists say that's 0:08:35.240 --> 0:08:39.480 because the population was always struggling to reproduce, and they 0:08:39.480 --> 0:08:42.560 were fertility gods. I believe they were. They were so 0:08:42.840 --> 0:08:47.520 they could be phallic in homage to fertility GUIDs and um. 0:08:47.600 --> 0:08:50.280 Speaking of which, because the population was so challenge they 0:08:50.280 --> 0:08:52.559 had to inbreed. And so even to this day you'll 0:08:52.600 --> 0:08:55.079 find some Easter Islanders who have six toes on each foot. 0:08:55.520 --> 0:08:58.040 It's very interesting, and I guess it also probably stems 0:08:58.040 --> 0:09:00.160 from the fact that they had a class system even 0:09:00.240 --> 0:09:02.839 within this tiny island. Their population had a class of 0:09:02.920 --> 0:09:05.200 like an upper class and a working class sort of thing, 0:09:05.600 --> 0:09:09.559 and I imagine that contributed to separating how people bread. 0:09:10.240 --> 0:09:13.080 I think so. And when it came to the moi, 0:09:13.600 --> 0:09:16.560 this was such a manifestation of honor and spirituality. I 0:09:16.559 --> 0:09:19.040 think everyone was a participant, no matter the class. I 0:09:19.080 --> 0:09:20.560 don't know that for a fact, but I would assume 0:09:20.600 --> 0:09:23.280 that people would come together and there was a very 0:09:23.320 --> 0:09:26.440 specific process with creating the moi. The artist would start 0:09:26.440 --> 0:09:28.200 in the quarry and start, you know, putting the rock 0:09:28.240 --> 0:09:31.600 together and carving it down and chiseling it, and essentially 0:09:31.600 --> 0:09:33.960 it would be sort of on like a little block 0:09:34.400 --> 0:09:36.960 on the Tommey finished carving it, and they would create 0:09:37.000 --> 0:09:40.400 these deep rivets alongside the block. So finally there was 0:09:40.440 --> 0:09:42.760 just like a tiny little sliver of stone that connected 0:09:42.800 --> 0:09:46.080 the head to the quarry and this was the keel. 0:09:46.080 --> 0:09:48.520 And once they could sever the keel, they would lay 0:09:48.559 --> 0:09:52.160 the head on a series of of logs. We'd imagine, 0:09:52.280 --> 0:09:57.000 and archaeologists are in dispute about how they transported these heavy, 0:09:57.080 --> 0:09:59.640 heavy monoliths. Yeah, and it's it's sort of like the 0:09:59.679 --> 0:10:03.480 stone hinge of Easter Island, because people are historians are 0:10:03.480 --> 0:10:05.679 boggled by the fact how could these people have the 0:10:05.920 --> 0:10:08.880 technology in the in the in the ingenuity, I guess, 0:10:09.040 --> 0:10:12.280 to move these humongous structures. And that's like a huge 0:10:12.320 --> 0:10:16.000 feat it is. And so people either imagine that about 0:10:16.080 --> 0:10:20.000 seventy men got together and pulled them with ropes fashioned 0:10:20.080 --> 0:10:22.280 from parts of trees, or else they laid them on 0:10:22.320 --> 0:10:24.640 a series of logs in which two layers of logs 0:10:24.679 --> 0:10:26.760 to be perpendicular to each other. They'd grease them with 0:10:26.760 --> 0:10:29.480 palm oil and they'd roll them on a platform. And 0:10:29.520 --> 0:10:32.079 I imagine this was such a painsticking process. I think 0:10:32.080 --> 0:10:34.200 that it could take up to two weeks to move 0:10:34.240 --> 0:10:37.880 the MOI important to them exactly. It was very important 0:10:37.880 --> 0:10:40.040 to them because they put such labor into it, and 0:10:40.200 --> 0:10:43.880 their final resting spot were on ahu or platforms, and 0:10:44.000 --> 0:10:47.040 the moi faced inland towards the island. It was obviously 0:10:47.320 --> 0:10:50.040 meant to watch over the residents and to protect them, 0:10:50.440 --> 0:10:52.440 so they put these around the perimeter, right, it's like, 0:10:52.520 --> 0:10:54.319 and so all of these all around the perimeter, we're 0:10:54.360 --> 0:10:57.000 looking inward. Yeah, and it's really interesting. We think over 0:10:57.000 --> 0:10:59.439 the course of five years, about nine hundred of them 0:10:59.440 --> 0:11:03.240 were car and you can see where the artists got 0:11:03.280 --> 0:11:05.880 competitive because there were so many that were left unfinished 0:11:05.920 --> 0:11:08.959 in the quarry and archaeologists found them later on um 0:11:09.240 --> 0:11:12.600 ones that had a flaw maybe, or ones that were broken, 0:11:12.760 --> 0:11:15.520 you know, whether in transit or whether in construction. They 0:11:15.520 --> 0:11:19.920 were just abandoned completely. And they were perfectionists. They were perfectionist. 0:11:20.000 --> 0:11:22.080 This is, you know, how they were expressing their division 0:11:22.120 --> 0:11:24.559 to the gods. And they got bigger over time too. 0:11:24.720 --> 0:11:27.040 They started out more modest, and then there was one 0:11:27.080 --> 0:11:29.800 that they call El Gigante, and it's so big. Of 0:11:29.840 --> 0:11:31.680 course it's in the quarry. No one could possibly have 0:11:31.720 --> 0:11:35.640 moved it. But here in lies the problem with what 0:11:35.679 --> 0:11:38.360 they were doing. Uh yeah, So if we go back 0:11:38.360 --> 0:11:41.520 to how they transported them, they obviously can'd just suggested 0:11:41.559 --> 0:11:44.360 that they were using logs and and it must have 0:11:44.400 --> 0:11:46.880 taken a lot. And obviously they made a lot of 0:11:46.880 --> 0:11:49.600 these moai, So they ended up cutting down a whole 0:11:49.640 --> 0:11:52.679 lot of trees. And this ended up being their huge flaw. 0:11:52.800 --> 0:11:56.839 They're they're huge mistake. You're right, because over time they 0:11:56.880 --> 0:11:59.200 had such an abundance of resources. I think that they 0:11:59.320 --> 0:12:02.960 used it throwing cautious the wind, and today we sort 0:12:02.960 --> 0:12:05.720 of think of trees as the most renewable resource there is. 0:12:05.760 --> 0:12:10.680 But of course, like on that isolated island, they must 0:12:10.679 --> 0:12:13.160 have just used up. No, you're right. When you're living 0:12:13.160 --> 0:12:15.920 in isolation like that, when you use up your resources, 0:12:15.960 --> 0:12:17.959 and no matter how renewable it is, if you're not 0:12:18.000 --> 0:12:21.240 getting any more seeds to plant and you're cultivating the landscape, 0:12:21.559 --> 0:12:24.240 it's over. And that's what happened, because not only did 0:12:24.280 --> 0:12:27.560 they cut down all the trees, but they essentially caused 0:12:27.559 --> 0:12:29.920 all the top soil on the island to wash away 0:12:29.960 --> 0:12:32.440 because the roots were in there to hold it down. Furthermore, 0:12:32.480 --> 0:12:34.640 they were using the trees to make boats to go 0:12:34.679 --> 0:12:38.120 out and fish for dolphins. And purposes. This is especially 0:12:38.160 --> 0:12:40.400 said to me, it's just that they couldn't make boats anymore. 0:12:40.440 --> 0:12:42.480 You know, they couldn't fish because they couldn't make boat 0:12:42.520 --> 0:12:45.320 because they didn't have tree. And what's worse than that, 0:12:45.440 --> 0:12:47.200 not only could they not fish, not only could they 0:12:47.240 --> 0:12:49.760 not grow crops. After they realized that they had destroyed 0:12:49.760 --> 0:12:52.360 their island and all the trees were gone, they didn't 0:12:52.400 --> 0:12:55.200 have anything left to make boats with to flee the 0:12:55.240 --> 0:12:58.800 isand they were prisoners of their own making. And that's 0:12:58.840 --> 0:13:03.800 when things got really dark and really dangerous. Paul started starving. 0:13:03.960 --> 0:13:08.160 Some scholars posit that maybe some may have resorted to cannibalism. Yeah, 0:13:08.200 --> 0:13:10.680 that's true. And this is a point of contention because 0:13:10.800 --> 0:13:16.079 some some historians, notably UM Jared Diamond says that these 0:13:16.200 --> 0:13:20.079 Um Islanders resorted to cannibalism after, like other food sources 0:13:20.440 --> 0:13:25.560 dwindled UM and he points to how cannibalism is the 0:13:25.760 --> 0:13:28.360 their oral tradition. The islanders oral tradition is rife with 0:13:28.360 --> 0:13:30.720 with cannibalism and talk of it. And there's a little 0:13:30.760 --> 0:13:35.480 bit of archaeologic archaeological evidence that um human bones were 0:13:35.520 --> 0:13:39.560 found in these pits of of garbage that where these 0:13:39.600 --> 0:13:41.480 are the pits where they threw their their food trash 0:13:42.000 --> 0:13:46.280 and so um. People like Jared Diamonds used this to 0:13:46.280 --> 0:13:48.720 to say, oh, well, they must have resorted to cannibalism. 0:13:48.960 --> 0:13:51.319 Other historians are like, oh, no, there's not enough evidence 0:13:51.360 --> 0:13:53.040 to say that, and we shouldn't say that unless it's 0:13:53.120 --> 0:13:55.280 unless for sure, and they say that maybe you know, 0:13:55.320 --> 0:13:58.440 after people naturally died, they there were rituals that people 0:13:58.440 --> 0:14:00.319 did with people's bones. We know that have and two. 0:14:00.720 --> 0:14:03.600 So at the point of contention, so however you interpret 0:14:03.640 --> 0:14:06.120 these relics of bones, you can look at the things 0:14:06.160 --> 0:14:08.720 that are alongside them that the date to around the 0:14:08.760 --> 0:14:11.520 same time, and you see that this is the first 0:14:11.559 --> 0:14:15.319 time and Easter Island that they've manufactured weapons like spears 0:14:15.360 --> 0:14:17.760 and arrows and things like this, so that there was 0:14:17.840 --> 0:14:20.480 strive between the tribes were yeah, and we know that 0:14:20.520 --> 0:14:23.000 when they came there were very very few of them around. 0:14:24.000 --> 0:14:26.600 The population was somewhere from seven thousand to nine thousand, 0:14:26.920 --> 0:14:30.040 sixteen hundreds. That was the height of the civilization. It 0:14:30.120 --> 0:14:33.280 was around ten thousand in population then. But then when 0:14:33.360 --> 0:14:37.080 things started declining and population started dwindling, we see that 0:14:37.120 --> 0:14:40.520 people broke off into different clans and essentially they were 0:14:40.560 --> 0:14:43.720 all fighting for the very tiny parcels of arable land 0:14:44.040 --> 0:14:47.880 that were left. And it was very, very difficult to 0:14:47.920 --> 0:14:49.800 stake a claim to this because I think that the 0:14:49.800 --> 0:14:53.760 Eastern Islanders they were respectful of their gods and they're 0:14:53.760 --> 0:14:56.760 respectful of women and children. Even the scholars who point 0:14:56.840 --> 0:14:59.520 the fact that they may have resorted to cannibalism point 0:14:59.520 --> 0:15:03.280 out that women and children never watched this happen, which 0:15:03.440 --> 0:15:05.120 I don't know if that means that men were the 0:15:05.160 --> 0:15:08.000 only ones who resorted to cannibalism if they ate it 0:15:08.040 --> 0:15:10.720 in private, away from women and children, but I think 0:15:10.760 --> 0:15:13.120 that they, you know, they were still trying to hold 0:15:13.120 --> 0:15:16.080 their civilization together, but it got harder and harder, and 0:15:16.360 --> 0:15:20.080 finally there was this cult that rose out of all 0:15:20.120 --> 0:15:23.240 the distress and was called the Birdman cult. And the 0:15:23.280 --> 0:15:26.600 premise was pretty simple. Be the first person to grab 0:15:26.640 --> 0:15:29.600 the egg from a city turned nest and you're gonna 0:15:29.600 --> 0:15:31.800 be the leader for twelve moons. And that may sound 0:15:31.800 --> 0:15:34.760 like a pretty simple feet, but the city turns nests 0:15:35.200 --> 0:15:37.760 are in the highest cliffs on the islands. That would 0:15:37.800 --> 0:15:40.600 involve like a swim and then rock climb and then 0:15:40.760 --> 0:15:43.200 a massive truck back to be the first person to 0:15:43.280 --> 0:15:45.880 have this egg. And if you lost this contest, it 0:15:46.080 --> 0:15:49.120 was all that's off because the losers were typically expected 0:15:49.160 --> 0:15:53.800 to stop themselves with spears. So the Barman cult does 0:15:53.920 --> 0:15:58.480 sound pretty drastic, but through this there actually was a 0:15:58.560 --> 0:16:01.200 rebirth and arable land end and cultivation of crops. I 0:16:01.200 --> 0:16:03.640 think the sweet potato reared its head again, So I 0:16:03.640 --> 0:16:06.440 think it's for tuvers. Yeah, and they were struggling. They 0:16:06.440 --> 0:16:08.960 were they were still struggling to to um an extent, 0:16:09.080 --> 0:16:12.360 and this is when you know, Europeans actually started stumbling 0:16:12.400 --> 0:16:15.360 upon these people and they finally had sort of contact 0:16:15.400 --> 0:16:18.760 and access to the outside world. But this ended up 0:16:18.800 --> 0:16:22.960 causing a lot of harm as well as good um 0:16:23.000 --> 0:16:29.360 because like obviously Europeans come uh with their own diseases 0:16:29.480 --> 0:16:31.800 like that they have become immune to, and so they 0:16:31.840 --> 0:16:35.880 exposed these diseases to the islanders at the time, and 0:16:35.880 --> 0:16:38.960 so that hurt their population even more. And I think 0:16:39.000 --> 0:16:43.160 that when the nineteenth century came around, the population had 0:16:43.200 --> 0:16:46.120 dwindled to only gosh, just a little over a hundred 0:16:46.120 --> 0:16:49.800 maybe a hundred ten Easter Islanders. And not only did 0:16:49.800 --> 0:16:53.480 the Westerners bring their diseases, they also brought their religion 0:16:53.800 --> 0:16:56.880 or ideas. And one of the reasons that it's called 0:16:56.920 --> 0:16:59.840 Eastern Island is because when it was first discovered, I guess, 0:16:59.840 --> 0:17:02.600 just governed by Europeans, was that it was Easter Sunday. 0:17:02.960 --> 0:17:06.040 And it's interesting and throughout the the I guess the 0:17:06.119 --> 0:17:09.680 nineteenth century, eventually Christian missionaries did come over and start 0:17:09.840 --> 0:17:13.840 and start converting the islanders um to uh, most of them, 0:17:13.880 --> 0:17:16.119 I guess, and they ended up sacrificing a lot of 0:17:16.119 --> 0:17:18.719 their culture, which is of course necessary when you sacrifice 0:17:18.920 --> 0:17:22.280 um your religion. Right when the Christian missionaries came, the 0:17:22.359 --> 0:17:25.040 exchange for giving up their religion and their culture like 0:17:25.040 --> 0:17:29.680 their storytelling and their their tattoos and there everything else 0:17:30.000 --> 0:17:31.920 was that they learned how to use their land to 0:17:32.000 --> 0:17:34.520 be a ranch essentially, so they had livestock and they 0:17:34.520 --> 0:17:36.600 were able to say, okay, so we have this very 0:17:36.720 --> 0:17:38.840 treeless land. Now that's not good for much, but it 0:17:38.920 --> 0:17:41.840 is good for using as a ranch. And at this 0:17:41.920 --> 0:17:44.960 time the Easter Islanders, I think for the most part, 0:17:45.080 --> 0:17:48.800 they were very wearied with their culture and when things 0:17:48.800 --> 0:17:52.080 had gotten really dark, they turned to the Moai and 0:17:52.080 --> 0:17:55.280 what and rather they blamed them, blame the gods for 0:17:55.520 --> 0:17:58.960 what had befallen them, or whether they realized that it 0:17:59.080 --> 0:18:03.480 was their own very overenthusiastic production of the sculptures that 0:18:03.480 --> 0:18:06.400 brought them down and they started knocking them down, and 0:18:06.440 --> 0:18:08.080 you know, like you said, like, we're not really sure 0:18:08.080 --> 0:18:11.479 why it happened. I remember reading one theory was that 0:18:11.720 --> 0:18:15.399 like when when the population split into different clans, one 0:18:15.440 --> 0:18:18.360 clan would destroy those those statues because they believe those 0:18:18.359 --> 0:18:21.240 were the source of their power of the opposite clans power, 0:18:21.720 --> 0:18:24.400 and so there's all kinds of theories about this, but 0:18:25.000 --> 0:18:28.360 um regardless, it is interesting that they made such amazing 0:18:28.400 --> 0:18:30.480 feats and yet they ended up tearing it down. They did, 0:18:30.560 --> 0:18:32.880 and you can see where they galuged at the eyes, 0:18:33.000 --> 0:18:35.560 the name city and eyes, and they would arrange really 0:18:35.600 --> 0:18:38.760 sharp stones underwear, the head would falls, and then when 0:18:38.800 --> 0:18:41.320 they knocked from the yahoo the head with sever so 0:18:41.400 --> 0:18:44.960 they were in essence decapitating these gods. And it wasn't 0:18:45.040 --> 0:18:49.080 until archaeologists came back and tried to restructure them that 0:18:49.359 --> 0:18:51.840 they were able to rehoist the moai. And I think 0:18:51.880 --> 0:18:54.199 that today the Easter Islanders very much accept that as 0:18:54.280 --> 0:18:57.800 part of their culture. But another thing that they lost 0:18:58.080 --> 0:19:02.119 forever was their language, which was wrong goo, wrong goo, 0:19:02.400 --> 0:19:05.280 and it actually came about from a very dirty trick 0:19:05.320 --> 0:19:08.120 that the Spanish pulled back in seventeen seventy two. They 0:19:08.160 --> 0:19:11.639 came over and essentially they tricked the tribal leader into 0:19:11.720 --> 0:19:15.640 signing a treaty that turned Easter Island over to Spanish control. 0:19:16.359 --> 0:19:20.000 So while that in itself was not diplomatic to any extent, 0:19:20.480 --> 0:19:22.879 it inspired the Easter Islanders to create their own system 0:19:22.920 --> 0:19:25.280 of writing. And so there's still tablets today with wrong 0:19:25.280 --> 0:19:27.440 goo wrong but that exists, and I think Easter Islanders 0:19:27.440 --> 0:19:30.280 continue to carve these little symbols that no one knows 0:19:30.320 --> 0:19:32.879 what it means, because again, part of giving up the 0:19:32.880 --> 0:19:37.200 culture the Christian missionaries was getting you know, ranches established 0:19:37.240 --> 0:19:41.399 and getting their crops re established and essentially surviving. So 0:19:41.520 --> 0:19:44.760 they made that choice. That's interesting that both the introduction 0:19:44.800 --> 0:19:47.320 of writing sort of hurt and helped them sort of 0:19:47.359 --> 0:19:51.080 in a way like, uh, it's certainly a nasty trick. 0:19:51.160 --> 0:19:53.320 Could be like, hey, this is what writing is. Write 0:19:53.359 --> 0:19:56.240 anything on this line and you're sacrificing your island and 0:19:56.320 --> 0:19:58.520 knowingly sort of thing. But if I also brought about 0:19:58.520 --> 0:20:00.960 the faut at the Birdman cult to because the tribal 0:20:01.040 --> 0:20:04.800 leader was able to reassert his power through riding. So 0:20:05.320 --> 0:20:07.800 it's just such an interesting history and the Easter Islanders 0:20:07.800 --> 0:20:09.520 are very very proud of their history. I think that 0:20:09.600 --> 0:20:13.000 today there are maybe around two thousand people on the island. 0:20:13.359 --> 0:20:16.400 Their population is really rebounded. Thankfully they have and they 0:20:16.440 --> 0:20:19.399 have I think joint citizenship with Chile, so they can 0:20:19.440 --> 0:20:21.359 go back and forth. And if you want to go 0:20:21.400 --> 0:20:23.119 to Easter Island, I think that you have to fly 0:20:23.200 --> 0:20:25.440 to Chile first, and then there are flights certain days 0:20:25.440 --> 0:20:27.480 of the week that go out to Easter Island. And 0:20:27.520 --> 0:20:29.520 that's what I mean. It's awesome that Easter Island has 0:20:29.680 --> 0:20:32.560 has um an airport now and so people can come 0:20:32.600 --> 0:20:35.480 and they like archaeologists can study and tourists can can 0:20:35.520 --> 0:20:38.720 find out the rich culture and it's pretty interesting. And yeah, 0:20:38.760 --> 0:20:40.960 they had Chili actually has control over it because they 0:20:40.960 --> 0:20:43.399 annexed it in eighty eight. We should probably mention that. 0:20:43.480 --> 0:20:45.879 But the culture of Easter Island is still alive. The 0:20:45.960 --> 0:20:49.240 people are incredibly friendly and I think that people have 0:20:49.359 --> 0:20:51.960 written that as they've traveled to Easter Island. If hotel 0:20:52.040 --> 0:20:54.840 rooms are booked, you can stay with any Easter Island 0:20:54.840 --> 0:20:57.760 family in their house and they'll happily welcome you. So 0:20:57.880 --> 0:20:59.760 it's just it seems like such a great place to visit. 0:20:59.800 --> 0:21:02.400