While it's well established that the islands of Polynesia, including Rapa Nui, were first settled by migrants arriving from the west, in a gradual process since the Lapita culture of the 1st millennium BCE, what's less clear is that if any movement came from the other direction; if communities from the New World, with capable enough craft, found their way deliberately or accidently in contact with the world of the Pacific. The Kon-Tiki voyage undertaken by Thor Heyerdahl in 1947 certainly proved it was possible, but so far, no tangible evidence has been publicised to argue that it indeed took place.
However, there have been recent advances in ecology, genetic analysis and fresh interpretations of the enigmatic Rongorongo script; a ritual language that was only preserved on a handful of wooden tablets; and its pronunciations known only from the aggressive interrogation of an elderly surviving indigenous priest in the 1930s. These have the potential to challenge the mainstream opinion about the proto-history of Rapa Nui, which tends towards a story of innate isolation and socio-environmental collapse, even if the viability of seaborne travel to the island has largely been accepted.
A raft of claims made by professor Robert Langdon in the Journal of Pacific History includes the contention that the sweet potato, native to South America, was introduced to the Polynesian islands by prehistoric Ecuadorian sailors, first arriving at Rapa Nui then eventually making its presence felt in the Hawaiian archipelago and New Zealand, as well as several Cook Islands and in the Society Islands. He states that the similarity between the word for the tuber in eastern Polynesian languages and Quechua, kumara and kumar respectively, makes it likely that it was an introduction into Rapa Nui, as was the bottle gourd which was a staple crop in the New World from the start of the Archaic period (~8000 BCE) onward. Based on studies of the remains of domestic fowl, he also argues that the blue-egg chicken was introduced from the continent, and on a handful of linguistic correspondences, such as the correspondence between pindung and *bitung, words for bamboo in prehistoric Ecuador and the southern Phillipines, he claims that contact between the New World and the Phillipine archipelago occured by a way of bamboo rafts, around 200 BCE.
All very tenuous stuff that steers well clear of archaeology, although there is a mention of an apparent ceramic and textile tradition existing in both Ecuador and Costa Rica, which could only have come about through long-distance maritime contact that would have been equally feasible for Easter Island. A little more substantial is Rjabchikov's interpretation of the Rongorongo script, which essentially is a pictorial hieroglyphic system that is highly symbolic, and any reading of it is heavily dependent on how a vowel or phrase is pronounced.
One inscription, known as the Apai chant, recorded by William Thomson in 1883, tells of two arrivals to Rapa Nui; one led by a man called the Swift Canoe, a nickname of the Mangarevan monarch Hotu-Matua, the first to rule over the island, and of the arrival of the Tupa-Hotu tribe, whose primary god was the sun god Kamaka, during the reign of king Atarangi. This appears to match up with a list of kings compiled from oral tradition, which tells that the 9th or 10th king after Hotu Matua was Tupa-ariki, or King Tupa, following his predecessor Anakena. The fact that this Anakena is also the name of a coastal ceremonial complex, dated from stratigraphic radiocarbon samples to 1300 - 1450 CE, is potentially significant; if king Tupa led an arrival of the Tupa-Hotu tribe around 1400 CE, then his identity has one good candidate; the sapa Inca Tupaq Yupanqi, who ruled from 1470 to 1490 CE. Alternatively, since Tupaq or Tupac was a common honorific Quecha name, Tupa may have been a naval commander or subordinate to the sapa Inca who led the first expeditions to Rapa Nui, paving the way for Tupaq Yupanqi to launch his royal voyage to the islands to the East. The name of the sun-god, Kamaka, may also be a version of the epithet of the Quecha sun-god, Qun Tiksi Wiraquocha; Kamaq or Maker.
Other artefacts featuring Rongorongo script, such as the Mamari tablet and the 'Santiago staff', also tell of a foreign, Andean tribe known as the Hanau Eepe, renowned for their wealth and architectural skill, and overall supports relatively new genetic research indicating contact between Easter Island and the Andes between 1280 and 1495 CE.
Lake Rano Raraku on Rapa Nui, a site of Moai quarrying with evidence for possible Andean contact.
The most convincing strand of evidence comes, however, from the ground. Pollen cores taken from Lake Rano Raraku in the 1990s suggest a single introduction event of tropical sponges by humans from South America, radiocarbon dated to 1300 - 1450 CE. These dates also correspond with the end of the practice of moai quarrying and carving. The implication is that the Incas caused a period of tribal conflict, or their arrival persuaded the descendants of Hotu Matua's Mangarevans that the moai had failed or served their purpose in guarding the island's shores, and were thus no longer neccessary. These incomers may have also introduced the tradition of dressed stone, purposefully cut stone used for elite and feasting houses, known as paenga, that are prevalent across many proto-historic sites on the island. Dressed stones were also used for moai foundations, wells, earth ovens and platforms, and were shaped by a distinct class of specialists. The basis for this is very similar architecture found on the remains of Cusco, Machu Picchu and other major Andean urban centres. However, oral tradition appears to contradict this in suggesting it arrived with the Mangarevans, or else emerged by the time of Hotu Matua's sons for use in ahu or ritual platforms. Excavation of some of these platforms in the 1950s and 1960s made clear that they had been used well before European contact, and were constructed soon after the first arrival. Perhaps both claims are possible; the dressed stone tradition emerged independently, but was encouraged, expanded or improved upon by incoming Andean settlers and traders.
In summary, there is in fact a great deal of evidence to back up the idea that sailors and royal fleets of the Tawantinsuyu made contact with Easter Island, and some indication that these contacts dated back deep in prehistory, perhaps even as far back as 200 BCE.
References:
Bloemendal, J., Oldeld, F., Steenbergen, C. L. M., Korthals, H. J., & Zeeb, B. A. (1998). The end of moai quarrying and its effect on Lake Rano Raraku, Easter Island. J Paleolimnol, 20, 409422Ehrlich.
Langdon, R. (2001). The bamboo raft as a key to the introduction of the sweet potato in prehistoric Polynesia.
McCoy, P. C. (2014). The dressed stone manufacturing technology of Rapa Nui: A preliminary model based on evidence from the Rano Kau, Maunga Tararaina, and Ko Ori quarries. Rapa Nui Journal, 28(2), 5-23.
Rjabchikov, S. V. (2017). Some Remarks on the Rongorongo Script from My Diaries. Polynesia Newsletter, 8, 4-25.
Rjabchikov, S. (2017). The Ancient Astronomy of Easter Island: The Mamari Tablet Tells (Part 2). arXiv preprint arXiv:1702.08355.
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