About
ABOUT
Rapa Nui, Easter Island located in Chile with an approximate population of 5682 people. The Rapanui people descend from the first settlers from Polynesia. Rapanui or Pascuenses society was ruled by the Ariki, with ancestry directly attributed to the gods, and was divided into tribes (kills) with highly stratified classes. Each tribe occupied an area, anything (kāinga). Most of the population lived inland, next to the cultivation areas. On the coast the religious, political and ceremonial centers (Anakena, Akahanga) were established where they worshiped the almost deified ancestors represented by the moáis. It is estimated that the population of Rapa Nui suffered an overpopulation crisis in the 17th and 18th centuries, what would have caused wars between the tribes, with the consequent destruction of the ceremonial altars and the abandonment of the quarries in which the moáis were carved. The natives began to live in caves and had to suffer periodically food shortages. Then a new ceremonial arose: that of Tangata Manu ('bird-man') The first contact of the pascuenses with some Westerner took place on April 5, 1722, when the Dutch navigator Jacob Roggeween arrived on the island.