Dom walks through turnstile to Moai

Music

00:00

SCHWARTZ: Rapa Nui is a tiny South Pacific island with a towering presence.

00:10

Officially it's part of Chile, three and a half thousand kilometres to the east.

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00:27

SCHWARTZ: Named Easter Island by an 18th century Dutch explorer, Rapa Nui would have been nothing more than a dot on a map if not for its megalithic stone statues - the Moai.

00:29

Dom photographs Moai

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00:42

Dom to camera amongst Moai

SCHWARTZ:   "There are about a thousand Moai scattered round the island and at first glance they all look pretty similar, but once you get up close and personal, and really take a good look, you can see that each one is unique. And rather than all looking austere, some have other expressions like this one which... well, rather wistful I think".

00:56

Moai

Music

01:20

SCHWARTZ:   But the famous faces of Rapa Nui are in danger of becoming faceless. Lashing wind and rain and searing sun are all taking their toll. Now the race is on to preserve these centuries' old sentinels so they and their secrets are not lost to eternity. 

01:29

DR JO ANNE VAN TILBURG: "These objects are very friable, they're very fragile. They're not going to last forever

01:56

Van Tilburg. Super:
Jo Anne Van Tilburg
Easter Island Statue Project

and the record that we have we.... we're certain of, is required in order to take care of them properly".

02:01

Excavation site

02:08

Van Tilburg holds fishhook in container

"Look at that! Can you see it?"

02:14

SCHWARTZ: "What is it?"

DR JO ANNE VAN TILBURG: "It's a fishhook.

02:20

It's a fishhook made of bone".

SCHWARTZ: Californian archaeologist, Dr Jo Anne Van Tilburg, has spent thirty years trying to solve some of the mysteries surrounding ancient Rapa Nui civilisation.

02:22

DR JO ANNE VAN TILBURG: "Oh we're very excited. We've been wanting one of these for a long time. Even if it's broken it's still special".

02:35

Excavation site. Cristian digging

SCHWARTZ: "Cristian, can you explain what you're doing?"

CRISTIAN AREVALO PAKARATI : [digging in a hole] "We are suffering down here!" [laughter]

02:43

SCHWARTZ: Working alongside Dr Van Tilburg is Cristián Arévalo Pakarati, a Rapa Nui graphic artist. Together they run the Easter Island Statue Project.

02:54

"So what you're finding is..."

CRISTIAN AREVALO PAKARATI : "It's all new".

SCHWARTZ: "It's all completely new?"

CRISTIAN AREVALO PAKARATI : "It's all completely new".

03:10

03:15

Van Tilburg examines soil for artefacts

SCHWARTZ: Over more than two decades, they've measured, mapped and documented every Moai on the island. At last count, 1045. 

03:18

Dom and Van Tilburg at excavation site at crater

DR JO ANNE VAN TILBURG: "It's so exciting. Well done!"

03:29

SCHWARTZ: Now they're conducting the first comprehensive scientific excavation of statues inside Rano Raraku, the volcanic crater where nearly all the Moai were carved.

03:32

Aerial/Satellite pics of crater

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03:43

SCHWARTZ:  The inner rim is a place of privilege, off limits to all but a few.

03:52

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03:57

Partially completed Moai

SCHWARTZ:  Nearly 400 statues remain in various stages of creation. Were they abandoned in haste, and if so why? War? Famine? Or were some of them just not up to scratch?

04:00

CRISTIAN AREVALO PAKARATI : "It's like walking into a factory where.

04:16

Cristian. Super:
Cristián Arévalo Pakarati
Dir. Easter Island Statue Project

everybody's assembling cars and they say okay guys, this is finished, yeah and then you find all these cars in the line of assembly."

04:18

Project team clean artefacts

Music

04:26

SCHWARTZ: This season's dig aims to uncover more pieces of the Rapa Nui jigsaw.

"And what are you hoping

04:29

Van Tilburg

that will lead you to?"

DR JO ANNE VAN TILBURG: "The answer to all the mystery. 

04:37

I'm interested first in

04:43

coming to understand human behaviour on this island relative to this clear obsession to produce a very large number of objects.

04:45

The second thing I'm really interested in is how our work and our records can help conserve and preserve the statues".

04:55

Moai

SCHWARTZ: Despite their formidable appearance, the statues are delicate.

05:02

Cristian draws statues

The volcanic tuff from which most were sculpted as many as 900 years ago is crumbling. In some cases, to the ground. 

CRISTIAN AREVALO PAKARATI: "I've been seeing already in 27 years entire statues being

05:08

degraded into the ground. It's melted to the ground already. It's soil now, it's not a statue anymore".

SCHWARTZ: Cristian Pakarati has an artist's eye for detail.

05:27

He sees not only the features of his ancestors in the statues, but also a carved record of their lives, their values and their activities.

05:37

Cristian

CRISTIAN AREVALO PAKARATI: "If you see the nostril of the statue from any angle you're going to see like ...

05:49

Nostril of Moai

that this nostril is actually a fishhook instead of a nostril".

05:55

Cristian draws Moai

SCHWARTZ: The Moai are an invaluable - if still inscrutable - map of the society which created them and about which so many questions remain. 

CRISTIAN AREVALO PAKARATI: "I just want to draw as much as I can before the statues are gone.

06:00

Cristian

The more we archive the better for the statues and for the Rapa Nui people".

06:18

Maori canoe at sea

06:23

SCHWARTZ: It's now largely accepted that Rapa Nui was settled by Polynesian voyagers, sometime between 400 and 1200 AD. Maori sailors from New Zealand last year proved that such a daring journey was possible.

06:28

In traditional, double hulled canoes they sailed the 7,000 kilometres to Rapa Nui using only the sea and sky to navigate.

06:47

Welcoming party in traditional dress at Anakena

Oral tradition has it that Rapa Nui's first king, Hotu Matua, came ashore with his family here at Anakena Beach. That small group was the nucleus for what became an extraordinary civilisation. 

07:00

[Singing]

07:19

DR JO ANNE VAN TILBURG: "And my idea about Rapa Nui is that artists have shaped this island and its culture

07:26

Moai

from its beginning in a profound way, in ways that we don't see on some other Polynesian islands.

07:32

Van Tilburg. Super:
Jo Anne Van Tilburg
Easter Island Statue Project

So I think the ability to articulate in an object an idea is what drives religion".

07:38

Ceremony with Moai. Inserting eye

SCHWARTZ: In ancient Rapa Nui, religion centred on the Moai, the deified representation of a family's ancestor. The Moai watched over their clans and lands and passed on their full power - or mana - when fitted with coral eyes.

07:46

Vaiheri working with tools and taking photos

For Vaiheri Tuki Haoa, handling the tools that her forebears used to carve the statues is spine tingling.

VAIHERI TUI HAOA: "It's a dream

08:20

Vaiheri

that I have since I was a little child".

08:30

SCHWARTZ: She's part of the archaeological team working in Rano Raraku. She believes it's only in understanding their history, that Rapa Nui can build a prosperous future, free of their colonial overlords in Chile.

VAIHERI TUKI HAOA: "When you are in school you learn the history of Chile,

08:36

Super:
Vaiheri Tuki Haoa
Easter Island Statue Project

but you are not learning the history of Hotu Matua, the first kind of Rapa Nui and that is the story that the children really want to know

08:58

and that is what make us Rapa Nui".

09:06

Dom walking through palm trees, Moai in b/g

SCHWARTZ: The ancient Rapa Nui established a highly sophisticated society geared around making and moving the statues. But Moai mania which reached its height between 1200 and 1600 came at a cost.

09:14

Dom to camera among palm trees

"Giant palm trees with massive trunks once covered much of the island. They provided food, shelter, fabric and wood for the Rapa Nui. Those trees no longer exist. This is one of the few pockets of palms on the island. They're not native trees, they were imported from Tahiti".

09:32

Palms/Coast/Barren landscape

Music

09:55

SCHWARTZ:  By the time European explorers arrived in 1722, Rapa Nui was denuded. Its population had shrunk from perhaps ten thousand people to a few thousand.

10:02

Some scientists argue that cutting down trees to move and erect the statues was largely responsible for deforestation and ultimately the collapse of Rapa Nui's ecology and society. 

10:14

Stills from Moai hauling experiment

Dr Van Tilburg is not entirely convinced by the collapse theory. From her own experiments, she believes logs were used to move the Moai in much the same way as the sea-faring Polynesians moved their heavy canoes across land. 

10:34

Video from Moai hauling experiment

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10:51

SCHWARTZ:  But she says other factors, such as climate, may have played a key role in determining the highs and lows of Rapa Nui society.

DR JO ANNE VAN TILBURG: "We don't know for example about how nature intervened here.

10:55

Van Tilburg. Super:
Jo Anne Van Tilburg
Easter Island Statue Project

And one of the things that we're looking at, particularly in the quarry because of the water there, is what drought would mean on this island. It would cause serious problems".

11:13

Artwork of tattooed men

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11:24

SCHWARTZ: What is known is that European contact had a devastating impact on a proud and resourceful people.

11:30

Artwork

By the late 1800s, Peruvian slave raids and introduced disease had reduced the population to just 111.

11:38

Music

11:47

Hanga Roa

SCHWARTZ: Rapa Nui had been annexed by Chile, leased to a foreign company and turned into a sheep and cattle farm. Its indigenous people confined to the settlement of Hanga Roa. 

11:51

Hanga Roa/Market

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12:05

SCHWARTZ:  Hanga Roa is still the only town on Rapa Nui, but today it's home to nearly 6,000 people.

12:14

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12:21

SCHWARTZ: Only half have Rapa Nui roots. A growing number of residents are from mainland Chile.

12:27

Tourists buy souvenirs

Then there are the tourists - 50,000 a year and rising. 

12:34

Music

12:39

Pantu with horses

12:45

PANTU TEPANO: "Today in Rapa Nui the only solid source of employment is tourism.

12:52

Pantu. Super:
Pantu Tepano
Tour leader

If tourism didn't exist Rapa Nui would have a lot of economic problems".

13:01

Pantu with horse riding tourists

SCHWARTZ: Pantu Tepano runs a successful horse-riding business. He takes tourists across his ancestral lands, but needs permission to do so.

13:09

Music

13:23

Tourists at Moai

SCHWARTZ:  Most of the island's 170 square kilometres is national park - administered by the Chilean government and that gives it control of Rapa Nui's most precious resource - the Moai.

13:258

ERITY TEAVE: "Chile is making good deal of money because of Rapa Nui.

13:45

They publish their tourism with Rapa Nui Moai, with our intellectual property.

13:53

Music

14:00

ERITY TEAVE:  The Rapa Nui parliament

14:05

Erity. Super:
Erity Teave
Minister for Human Rights

is fighting to return all the land that today remains in the hands and administration of Chile, to return to the Rapa Nui people, to the owner, to the inheritors".

14:07

Prayer in parliament

PRAYER AT PARLIAMENT: "I thank the Gods for allowing us to meet today on this special occasion".

14:25

Erity in parliament

SCHWARTZ: Erity Teave is the Human Rights Minister in the Rapa Nui parliament, a self-styled group comprising representatives from each clan.

14:32

ERITY TEAVE: [in parliament] "Every word and everything we say, it's the law of the land - law given to us by our ancestors. We need to start believing that".

14:44

SCHWARTZ: The parliament is suing the Chilean Government for allegedly breaching its 1888 treaty with the Rapa Nui king. MPs say nothing short of independence will safeguard Rapa Nui's heritage.

14:59

Erity

ERITY TEAVE: "Our ancestor left behind a fortune for us. Like the Middle East have oil, this is our oil, our patrimony, our culture. We don't need Chile. We are three thousand people".

15:14

Vaiheri taking photos at excavation site

SCHWARTZ: Vaiheri Tuki Haoa is a strong supporter of independence.

VAIHERI TUKI HAOA: "Oh wow, it's a dream, that is a dream, because we are losing now our language, our culture. There's many

15:40

Vaiheri. Super:
Vaiheri Tuki Haoa
Easter Island Statue Project

people from... foreigners... they came here, they start their life here, their business... and they change our cultural system".

16:01

Pro-independence march

[Singing]

16:14

SCHWARTZ: Despite a strong turnout at a recent pro-independence march, not all Rapa Nui believe going it alone would work. Many favour regional autonomy - under the umbrella of Chile but only if it delivers them control of their resources such as the Moai.

16:22

RAFAEL RAPU: "For me it means managing our own resources.

16:46

Rafael. Super:
Rafael Paoa Rapu
Easter Island Statue Project

I think that is one of the important points here in order to protect archaeology".

16:52

Excavation site

[calls from pit] "Jo Anne?"

DR JO ANN VAN TILBURG: "Yeah?"

16:59

MAN AT EXCAVATION SITE: "We have a bone, maybe a human bone".

17:02

Rafael at excavation site

SCHWARTZ: Rafael Rapu is a 24 year old archaeology graduate, a trained scientist who also feels a deep emotional connection with the Moai. 

17:06

RAFAEL RAPU: "For me it is very moving especially when I am discovering things beneath the moai. It totally affects me".

17:19

SCHWARTZ: His discovery of a bone fragment should be a triumph, but as a Rapa Nui he has mixed feelings about potentially digging up the remains of an ancestor.

RAFAEL RAPU: "Really, I don't like to take these bones,

17:30

because maybe my great, great grandfather he wanted to stay in here. I can't explain it really.

17:47

Rafael

If we find a rock or an arrowhead or bone hooks, regardless of whether the body is there or not, the human ideas are there. That is why it's a very sensitive issue especially because we are in a community that still exists and has a sense of belonging".

18:06

Van Tilburg collecting artefacts

SCHWARTZ: The history being uncovered here is important not only to the Rapa Nui but to all of us. It's as much a tale about survival as it is of collapse.

18:24

DR JO ANNE VAN TILBURG: "I think the Rapa Nui people have shown themselves, historically and prehistorically, to be highly adaptable. They do, and have, shown us through the archaeological evidence that they can change, that they changed. They changed their architecture, they changed their art".

18:35

Rano Kau/Orongo village

SCHWARTZ: And their religion.

19:00

Music

19:02

SCHWARTZ:  At the other end of the island from the statue quarry is the spectacular Rano Kau.

19:06

Music

19:12

SCHWARTZ:  Perched on the cliffs between the crater's rim and the ocean is Orongo village. Its low, rock-slab houses were built in the shape of traditional canoes.

19:15

Dom at Orongo

Between the 17th and 19th centuries, Orongo became the beating heart of a new religion, the bird man cult. 

19:30

Petroglyphs

Music

19:38

SCHWARTZ: On the rocks around the village are 500 petroglyphs, carvings of the birdman Tangata Manu and the creator god, Make-Make. The religion may have been used to channel bitter inter-clan conflict into a much healthier competition for resources. 

19:44

Dom to camera

"At the heart of the bird man cult was an annual do or die race to determine which clan would hold power for the following year. The chiefs would choose their bravest warriors and they had to be pretty brave to scramble down the cliffs at the edge of the crater there, then swim across often treacherous waters to the islands and find the first egg of the Sooty Tern. If they could get that bird egg back in one piece, their chief was effectively king for a year".

20:04

Petroglyphs

DR JO ANNE VAN TILBURG : "It's hard to find many cultures of this size that have created two versions, if you will, of religion, two ways of expressing their belief, two icons to represent their belief.

20:38

Van Tilburg

I think that's what happened with the Moai, I think that's what happened at Orongo with the birdman. That carving so fully articulated what the priests were saying, what people were believing, that wow, let's carve that all over the place!"

20:55

Moai

Music

21:12

SCHWARTZ: Which brings us back to the challenge of saving Rapa Nui's ageing rock stars. A chemical coating and water repellent is being trialled on the Moai being excavated by the Easter Island Statue Project.

21:22

Weather monitoring equipment

It's hoped the treatment will minimise the eroding effects of the elements. 

DR JO ANNE VAN TILBURG: ‘We're monitoring the ambient environment, the rainfall, the sun, the temperature, the wind direction, the wind velocity - all of these things both around the statue and in the stone

21:37

Archaeologists sifting through soil

and at the end of a five year period when we complete our work in this particular quarry, we'll be able to report what we know is attacking the statue".

21:53

Cristian and Van Tilburg in Mana Gallery

22:09

SCHWARTZ: Dr Van Tilburg believes the best way to conserve the incredible skill and art of the ancient Rapa Nui may be to remove a handful of the statues from the landscape. Otherwise their detail may be lost to all but Cristian Pakarati's drawn records. 

22:22

DR JO ANNE VAN TILBURG: "Could a museum be built on the island within which

22:47

Van Tilburg

five or six perhaps statues of the most importance could be taken and erected and protected?

22:50

Cristian's drawings

Yes that's a real option and that should, in my opinion, be considered".

22:58

SCHWARTZ: Cristian agrees.

23:04

Mana Gallery exterior

CRISTIAN AREVALO PAKARATI: "I think it's time to do something for them. They already have made so many for us. Why don't we do something for them?

23:07

Cristian

Put them somewhere else under protection - like under a dome, or in the museum or in a chamber, or whatever.

23:14

Moai by ocean

Maybe the best idea is to roof some of them right there in the field without moving them. Put something on top".

SCHWARTZ: But it's a controversial idea which has yet to win over powerful figures such as Mario Tuki, a member of the Rapa Nui parliament.

23:25

Mario

MARIO TUKI: "We have to have a process of conservation because the erosion process has already started on the statues. If the idea is to take them to a museum

23:42

Moai

so archaeologist can repair them, I have no objection to that. Take them, repair them, but you must bring them back to their place. This is the land of the Moai and our ancestors.

23:57

Walking in crater

24:18

SCHWARTZ: That debate about conservation will be fought for some time yet.

24:26

Excavation site

Music

24:31

SCHWARTZ:  For now though, Moai number 156 - fondly known as Papa - will be left in peace.

24:35

Music

24:43

SCHWARTZ:  The excavated soil is being returned to the pit because, at the moment, that's Papa's best protection.

DR JO ANNE VAN TILBURG: "It's difficult because you know we've had, you know, taking that dirt out has been arduous and we've screened every inch of it,

24:45

Van Tilburg

so seeing it go back in, hearing it go back in is really hard sometimes, [laughs] but I thinks it's obviously the best thing to do, so we're okay with it."

25:00

Excavation site

SCHWARTZ: Jo Anne Van Tilburg and her team will be back in a few months to do it all again as they continue their dig to the bottom of the statue's six metre form. Such is archaeology and a particular obsession with saving the Moai. 

25:10

Music

25:30

DR JO ANNE VAN TILBURG: "I think that the value of the statue as an art object, as an aesthetic expression,

25:34

Moai

as an icon of religion, as a museum object even in a way is incalculable..

25:39

Music

25:47

DR JO ANNE VAN TILBURG:  I think it would be a failure, a tremendous failure of us as scientists if we let this go"

25:51

Music

26:00

26:06