Rapa Nui: Thematic and Narrative Shifts in Curriculum

This lesson focuses on reinvigorating often outdated, Euro/American-centric lesson plans about Rapa Nui by replacing those older, one-sided themes with newer research, discussion questions, documentaries, and immersive virtual materials. 

Often known outside of Rapa Nui as “Easter Island,” this lesson plan articulates the political importance of re-centering Rapa Nui and its famous moai as central to art history lessons. Instead of focusing on the “mystery” of the island, educators can shift the narrative around Rapa Nui to address equally engaging and pressing matters from a perspective influenced more deeply by Rapanui and Polynesian perspectives.

Thematic shifts in discussions

• From Rapa Nui to “Easter Island” back to Rapa Nui: Why Names Matter;
• From Ecocide and Collapse to Survivance;
• From the Perils of Climate Change to Cultural Conservation and Healing; 
• From Archaeology to Multifaceted Approaches and Integration of Oral Culture; and
• From Colonial Collections to Repatriation.

Background Readings

• Casey, Nicholas and Josh Haner, “Easter Island is Eroding,” in New York Times, March 15, 2018. Accessed February 20, 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/03/14/climate/easter-island-erosion.html?smid=pl-share
• CyArk, “How Colonisation Changed Rapa Nui’s Landscape Forever,” in Google Arts & Culture, accessed February 10, 2021, https://artsandculture.google.com/story/QgXRpM2R6kw9Ow. 
• CyArk, “What the Heritage of Rapa Nui Means to Local People,” in Google Arts & Culture, accessed February 10, 2021, https://artsandculture.google.com/story/aQUx2LrCH_2MTA. 
• Delsing, Riet. Articulating Rapa Nui: Polynesian Cultural Politics in a Latin American Nation-State. Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press, 2015.
• Diamond, Jared. Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. New York: Viking Press, 2004.
• Forsen, John (director) and Pamela Mason Davey (writer), Song of Rapa Nui, Co-produced by Fidget Films and Rushmore Films, 2020.
• Grant-Peterkin, James. A Companion to Easter Island: A Concise Guide to the History, Culture and Individual Archaeological Sites of Rapa Nui. Glasgow: Bell and Bain Ltd., 2018.
• Google Arts & Culture, “Can You Find the Moai at the British Museum?” in Google Arts & Culture, accessed February 10, 2021, https://artsandculture.google.com/story/xgWR4YJwpC7SuQ. 
• Google Arts & Culture, “Rapa Nui, Easter Island,” in Google Arts & Culture, accessed February 10, 2021, https://artsandculture.google.com/project/heritage-on-the-edge-rapa-nui
• Hau’ofa, Epeli. “Our Sea of Islands,” The Contemporary Pacific, Vol. 6, No. 1 (SPRING 1994), pp. 148-161 (14 pages), Published By: University of Hawai’i Press, https://www.jstor.org/stable/23701593.
• Holland, Oscar. “‘You have our soul’: Easter Island pleads with British for statue’s return, ” CNN, November 21, 2018, accessed February 10, 2021, https://edition.cnn.com/style/article/easter-island-british-museum-moai-return/index.html
• Hunt, Terry and Carl Lipo. The Statues that Walked: Unraveling the Mystery of Easter Island. Berkeley: Counterpoint, 2012.
• Ngata, Wayne Ngata and Steven Zucker, “Voyage to the moai of Rapa Nui (Easter Island),” in Smarthistory, August 30, 2017, accessed February 10, 2021, https://smarthistory.org/moai-waka-2/ 
• Nunes, Keone. “Unwritten Literature of Hawai’i: An Introduction,”in Glen Grant, Unwritten Literature of Hawai’i: The Sacred Songs of the Hula, Honolulu: Mutual Publishing, 1998, p. 1-13.
• Pakarati, Cristián Moreno. Select scholarly journal articles by Rapanui historian on ResearchGate, accessed February 10, 2021, https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Cristian_Moreno_Pakarati.   
• Pakarati, Leonardo and Paula Rossetti. Te Kuhane O Te Tupuna (The Spirit Of The Ancestors), Pacifc Heartbeat, Season 8, Episode 3, Pacific Islanders in Communications and PBS Hawaiʻi, May 14, 2019.
• Rapu, Sergio M. and Elena Kouneski Rapu. Eating up Easter. Kartemquin Films and Pacific Islanders in Communications, 2019.
• Schorch, Philipp. Refocusing Ethnographic Museums through Oceanic Lenses. Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press, 2021.
• The British Museum, “Easter Island Moai,” in Smarthistory, March 1, 2017, accessed February 10, 2021, https://smarthistory.org/easter-island-moai/. 
• Thompson, Christina. Sea People: The Puzzle of Polynesia. New York: HarperCollins, 2019.
• Van Tilburg, Jo Anne. Hoa Hakananai’a (Objects in Focus). London: British Museum Press, 2004. 
• Vizenor, Gerald. Manifest Manners: Narratives on Postindian Survivance. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1999.

 

Glossary

• Rapa Nui: Rapa Nui (two words) refers to the modern Polynesian name of the island itself; translates to mean “Big Rapa” after Tahitians arrived and thought it resembled the smaller island Rapa Iti (translation: “Small Rapa”).
  
• Rapanui (one word): refers to the language on Rapa Nui and to the adjective used to describe the people or culture of Rapa Nui. (Ex: The Rapanui people speak Rapanui on Rapa Nui.)
• ahu: the sacred stone platform and ceremonial structure upon which moai were erected, often with ancestral burial sites below.
• moai: the monumental and monolithic sculptural carvings for which Rapa Nui is known best. Most often carved from consolidated volcanic ash, or tuff, and occasionally of basalt or scoria. Also called ariŋa ora o te tupuna, or the living face of the ancestor.
• pukao: the red sculpted scoria (a local, red volcanic stone) often placed on moai, sometimes referred to as a “top hat” but more likely referencing a “top knot” or bun.
• Hoa Haka Nanaʻia (or Hoa Hakananai’a): the famed moai housed at the British Museum. Its name translates to “stolen or hidden friend” and it is unusual in that it was carved from basalt, rather than tuff, and has more intricate carvings on its back that are believed to have been added later. 
• mana: spiritual life force, ancestral energy, elemental power, and healing energy that permeates the universe and can be embodied in people and objects; a pan-Pacific cultural concept.
  
• manavai: agricultural enclosures to protect plants from wind and conserve moisture; often made from lava rock as a circular enclosure with sunken gardens inside. (Pictured at end of slides in Vaihu Village.)
  
• Rano Raraku: Rapa Nui’s expansive quarry from which the volcanic tuff for the moai was extracted. Moai were carved at Rano Raraku until separated from the mountains and moved across the island on a network of satellite roads emanating from the quarry.
• Polynesia (as related to Rapa Nui): Polynesia is a triangular subregion of Oceania, made up of more than 1,000 islands scattered over the central and southern Pacific Ocean. Rapa Nui is the eastern-most island of Polynesia, located approximately 2,500 miles east of Tahiti and 2,200 miles off of the west coast of Chile. 
• Chile (as related to Rapa Nui): Annexed Rapa Nui as a “special territory” in 1888, Chile and Rapanui leaders and elders have endured a contentious relationship. (See Riet Delsig’s book for more about the unique Polynesian and Latin American nation state.)
• survivance: term articulated by Anishinaabe and Chippewa scholar Gerald Vizenor in his 1999 book Manifest Manners: Narratives on Postindian Survivance, survivance refers to a narrative of resistance that celebrates a continued indigenous presence in defiance of brutal histories, intentional erasures, and genocides.

List of Rapanui Locations and Moai Ahus from slideshow

• Anakena Beach and Ahu Nau Nau
• Ahu Tongariki
• Rano Raraku (tuff quarry)
• Papa Vaka and Te Pito Kura
• Ahu Orongo, Ahu Tahai, Ahu Riata
• Ahu Akivi
• Rano Kau Crater and Orongo
• Puna Pao (pukao red scoria quarry) and Vaihu Village

Introduction to Rapa Nui

Nestled in the South Pacific Ocean, Rapa Nui measures roughly 64 square miles and rests approximately 2,500 miles east of Tahiti and 2,200 miles off of the west coast of Chile. It is nearly impossible to view a map of Rapa Nui and not marvel at the supreme navigation and wayfinding skills of early Polynesian settlers to the island.  

Many outsiders to Rapa Nui, myself included, have erroneously described it as being remote and isolated.(1) However, Rapa Nui is in fact part of rich, connected cultures and histories that are neither distant nor remote. Tongan and Fijian writer and anthropologist Epeli Hau’ofa conceptualized Pacific cultures as being an active and connected “sea of islands.” He asserts, “[t]here is a world of difference between viewing the Pacific as ‘islands in a far sea’ and as ‘a sea of islands.’ The first emphasizes dry surfaces in a vast ocean far from the centers of power. Focusing in this way stresses the smallness and remoteness of the islands. The second is a more holistic perspective in which things are seen in the totality of their relationships.”(2) Indeed, one of Rapa Nui’s oldest names is Te Pito o Te Henua, which translates to “the navel of the world,” reflecting Rapa Nui’s important position and location in the heart of the Pacific. 

Archaeologists and linguists estimate that Polynesian voyagers, possibly from Mangareva or the Marquesas Islands, landed on Rapa Nui between 600-1200 CE. The distance these expert navigators traveled to reach Rapa Nui was more than 2,000 miles and they brought with them the necessary staples for settling a new island. This included both tangible physical life such as plants, animals, and people, as well as intangible knowledge such as skills, experiences, and wisdom embedded in oral languages and art.

Rapa Nui is of course famed for its colossal monoliths known as moai, also called ariŋa ora o te tupuna, or “the living face of the ancestor.” Made from solidified volcanic ash called tuff, the average moai stood 14 feet tall and weighed 12 tons (with some as tall as 30 feet and the largest finished moai weighing up to 100 tons; the largest incomplete moai is said to weigh 270 tons if completed). The Rapanui people carved approximately 950 moai and transported more than 500 of these long distances, with most housed on ahus, or ceremonial platforms and ancestral burial grounds, along the coastal perimeter of the island, facing inward with their backs towards the sea, watching over their descendants. 

Exploring Thematic Shifts in Discussions

Art historically-speaking, there is much to cover in regards to the art, culture, environment, and people of Rapa Nui. The following include some of the activities and possible ways to approach the many potential topics, as related to art history and the moai of Rapa Nui.

From Rapa Nui to “Easter Island” back to Rapa Nui: Why Names Matter

Rapa Nui has had a number of names over time, some assigned by people living on the island, with others, such as “Easter Island” and its Spanish counterpart “Isla de Pascua” assigned by outsiders. Perhaps the earliest name of the island is “Te Pito o te Henua” which translates loosely to mean the “navel of the world” or “end of the earth.”

When Tahitians came to Rapa Nui, it is said that they thought the island looked like a larger version of Rapa Iti, one of the Bass Islands in French Polynesia. They called the island “Rapa Nui” meaning “big or great Rapa,” and this modern Polynesian name has stuck. 

In 1722, Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen stumbled upon Rapa Nui on Easter Sunday. Declaring this long-inhabited island as “discovered” and henceforth renamed as “Easter Island,” Roggeveen’s name has become a more widely recognized name to foreigners and outsiders. In 1888, Chile annexed Rapa Nui as a “special territory,” calling it by the Spanish name of the same translation “Isla de Pascua.” And more recently still, Rapa Nui has been dubbed “Museum Island” by some because of its designation as a Chilean national park in 1935 and a UNESCO world heritage site in 1995, thus declaring the majority of the island as a protected outdoor museum.

To most of the outside world, Rapa Nui is more often called “Easter Island.” It is important to ask students who calls Rapa Nui “Easter Island” and why they do so. (It is equally important to ask which names the assigned readings use and why they do.) As Rapanui filmmaker Sergio Mata’u Rapu puts it in Eating Up Easter, “[e]ver since outsiders first saw our moai, they have tried to write our story…Outsiders named our island Easter and said our past was a mystery, bringing millions of visitors to our shores.”

It is important to explore what colonial and imperial legacies have to do with naming, claiming, annexation, and even an ecologically invasive tourist industry. In my classes, we talk a lot about the power of names and how naming a problem or challenge can give us the power to address it. Ask students how and why are names important and what naming has to do with power. What does reclaiming a name do and how is this related to decolonization and a redistribution of power?

From Ecocide and Collapse to Survivance

Often, outsiders of Rapa Nui know vaguely of the island because of their monumental moai and because of haunting stories of ecocide and collapse. Popularized (and perhaps proselytized) by American geographer and historian Jared Diamond in his 2004 book aptly titled Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, much of the American media frenzy surrounding Rapa Nui focuses on the environmental collapse of the island, both in terms of its steep population decline and its disastrous shortage of natural resources. 

Diamond’s theory of collapse posits that the Rapanui people deforested their small island in order to construct a log-rolling mechanism (similar to a Polynesian ladder-like rolling system used to move canoes) for transporting the moai across the island. Diamond did not come up with this canoe-ladder theory himself, and indeed that theory was tested and popularized in 1998 by Jo Anne Van Tilburg, a longtime and well-respected archaeologist of Rapa Nui and director of the Easter Island Statue Project. 

However, the Rapanui people faced many more troubles than deforestation, and new theories have posited that they likely did not choose to cut down all of their trees, much as they did not “choose” to fail (as Diamond’s title might imply). American archaeologists Terry Hunt and Carl Lipo have a different theory, based on archeological evidence, scientific data, radiocarbon dating, field observation, and Rapanui oral tradition. An island is a particularly fragile ecosystem and Rapa Nui can be seen as a foreboding example of what can happen when many ecological, cultural, and political tragedies occur at once.

As Hunt and Lipo put it, “[t]he disruption of the delicate balance of life on Rapa Nui that followed European contact is familiar in history. It occurred in many parts of the world when once-isolated populations were discovered by European explorers.” (3) Europeans likely arrived with multiple infectious diseases, prior to bringing smallpox around 1836. Rapanui people were also enslaved and forced to become laborers in Peruvian mines. In addition to these great tragedies for the people of Rapa Nui, the island’s ecosystem also suffered greatly because of deforestation of the island’s once lush-palm trees, possibly stemming from an invasive and overpopulated rat species (likely brought to the island as protein or accidental cargo). Tragically, data shows that by 1872, the Rapanui population had dwindled from 15,000 to 111 people.  

But if we look at the flipside of Diamond’s title, there is another way to explore and celebrate Rapa Nui’s lasting culture and descendants who in fact “chose” to survive. In 1999, Anishinaabe and Chippewa scholar Gerald Vizenor coined the term “survivance” in his book Manifest Manners: Narratives on Postindian Survivance. Vizenor articulates indigenous survivance as “an active sense of presence over historical absence, deracination, and oblivion.” (4) Pit against genocide and forced, brutal cultural and religious assimilation, survivance outlines a narrative of resistance that celebrates a continued presence in defiance of such odds and brutal histories. Instead of focusing on Rapa Nui’s “chosen” or inevitable collapse, there should be a much greater celebration of the survivance of the Rapanui descendants who still live there and continue to care for both the island and the moai, their great ancestors. 

In Rapu’s documentary Eating Up Easter, he explores the impacts of Diamond’s theories, while providing examples to counter it as well. He notes, “[o]ne of the biggest misconceptions is that our people died out because we destroyed our environment. The trees did disappear. The good soil washed into the ocean and food could not easily grow. But our people survived.” Standing in a part of Rapa Nui with flat hills and no trees, he continues, saying that there are “a lot of documentaries and photographers that come out here. They use this as a visual example of the deforestation on the island. And the famous line is ‘What were the natives thinking when they cut down the last tree?’ [a reference to a quote from Diamond’s book Collapse].” 

But Rapu describes how these filmmakers and photographers miss the mark because across the street from this deforested area, there are rock mulch gardens and agricultural enclosures, called manavai (pictured in the Viahu Village slides). These demonstrate the Rapanui people’s ingenuity and determination to survive. Rapanui archaeologist Sonia Haoa explains this innovative adaptation: “[t]hey only had the rocks to use in order to survive. Once you place the plants [in the rock-laden gardens], you draw the nutrients from the rock, protection from the wind, and, at the same time, stable temperature and humidity. For example, if you pull out a taro root, it has more minerals and more calories — it’s much more concentrated. You have to survive with what nature provides in this site.” 

There is, indeed, much to celebrate in thinking how Polynesian voyagers were able to navigate over 2,000 miles to find and inhabit this island, but also to live through and survive such devastation, continuing life and their lineage to this day. Of the approximate 7,600 inhabitants on Rapa Nui today, roughly half are said to be descendants of the original Rapanui people. 

From the Perils of Climate Change to Cultural Conservation and Healing

In 2018, the New York Times featured an interactive and immersive online article about the perils that the Rapanui people face in relation to climate change and rising sea levels. Again, the topic of ecology and environmentalism is often unavoidable on islands. This article is complete with maps and high resolution photographs that offer students great visual insight into Rapa Nui and the moai, while also challenging them to consider both environmental degradation to the moai and possible solutions. To pair with this article, one could assign Eating up Easter, a documentary written and produced by local Rapanui filmmakers Sergio Mata’u Rapu and Elena Rapu, exploring the island as “a microcosm of a planet in flux” and analyzing environmental and cultural concerns arising from an invasive tourism industry. 

In Philipp Schorch’s 2021 book Refocusing Ethnographic Museums through Oceanic Lenses, he and his contributors argue that in curating the sites of this “Museum Island,” Rapanui people have also been able to “cure” the island. In the chapter aptly titled “Curating an Island, Curing Rapa Nui,” Schorch examines “archaeological intervention as a form of curation.” (5) He uses the archaeological site of Ahu Tongariki, one of Rapa Nui’s most breathtaking sites, to analyze multiple restorations directed by both foreign and Rapanui leadership. He notes that in “the depicted ahu, archaeological curation allows for dis-membered moai to be re-membered, to be made whole again, while reactivating underpinning dormant mana and caring for genealogical relations, thus even producing ‘new mana.’” (6) This concept of curatorial restoration and curing is another complex and multifaceted way to discuss cultural conservation as a deeper and more spiritual healing.

In this lesson, students often get into passionate and heated debates about the “correct solution” to preserving, conserving, and curing both the moai and the island. Some argue that it is good for international museums across the globe to “safely” preserve Rapa Nui’s art and culture, away from rising sea levels. Others argue that this is in fact not art and that the moai are ancestors and family with mana and souls who belong only in Rapa Nui, even if the shorelines and moai might eventually be destroyed. And still others argue that all moai and art should be returned to Rapa Nui to be housed more safely in a museum on the island. Students have argued that the moai could be replaced with replica carvings as a holding spot — both in the museums from where they are repatriated and on the crumbling coastline of Rapa Nui. 

Regardless of one’s stance on this, this thematic topic and exploration is sure to spark interest in your students.

From Archaeology to Multifaceted Approaches and Integration of Oral Culture

Much of the lore around and fascination with the “mystery” of Rapa Nui stems from the monumental moai. With these 10-100 ton monoliths, it is a wonder to contemplate how they were moved to their ahu around the island’s perimeter. Archaeologists have spent a great deal of time, research, and money in exploring possible ways that these colossal stone sculptures were transported from the quarry of Rano Raraku across the island. As mentioned previously, Jo Anne Van Tilburg has a very different tested theory than Terry Hunt and Carl Lipo’s tested theory. Hunt and Lipo popularized their theory of the “walking moai” by surveying the island’s roads, radiocarbon dating, and testing a unique theory based on oral histories of Rapanui elders and descendants. In this sense, they melded science with oral tradition, something quite enticing to teach.

There is a term neke neke in Rapanui that translates to mean “walking without legs” and it is this phrase and such oral histories that Rapanui elders and descendants often would recall in answering visitors’ questions about how the moai were moved across vast distances without any machinery. And it is this phrasing that inspired Hunt and Lipo’s theories. In studying the land of Rapa Nui, the angles of the hills on which the moai were moved, the “road moai” that lay abandoned on the sides of some roads after presumably falling down during their long journey from the island’s quarry, and the angles of the moai themselves, Hunt and Lipo determined that there must be a reason for the oral history saying that the moai walked. They hypothesized that science could back this up and were able to have a five-ton replica made to test this walking theory in Hawaiʻi. 

Hunt and Lipo’s book The Statues that Walked: Unraveling the Mystery of Easter Island provides the science and data behind their controversial and celebrated theory. Additionally, the PBS NOVA documentary Mystery of Easter Island, while overly dramatic in its presentation at times, often leaves students both applauding and crying by the time the moai replica succeeds in “walking” at the end. 

It is also important to note that it is not just outsider archaeologists working on and studying the archaeological sites of Rapa Nui. Philipp Schorch points out that Rapanui people’s roles have shifted “not as informants but as scholars and professionals.” Specifically, he looks to the 1978 restoration of Ahu Naunau at Anakena, which re-erected seven moai and was completed under the direction of two Indigenous Rapa Nui archaeologists, Sonia Haoa and Sergio Rapu. He argues that this restoration thus can be seen “as a scientific intervention aimed not only at archaeological reconstruction but at cultural revitalization and economic development.” (7) Sergio Rapu has also argued that such Rapanui involvement in the scientific community has been empowering for Rapanui people as well. (8)

In teaching about oral tradition, Rapanui involvement, and community knowledge production, it is important to remind students that oral history does not amount to a “game of telephone” as many American students are often quick to bring up because of a “Western” reliance on written word. In Keone Nunes’ 1998 introduction to Unwritten Literature of Hawaiʻi: The Sacred Songs of the Hula, he argues that people “who rely solely upon the written word sometimes mistakenly believe that oral cultures have a faulty ability to pass on information, that each person responsible for the information changes the facts in retelling. In ancient Hawaiʻi, as in other Polynesian societies, the telling of traditions was critical to continuity with the past and to survival of the future. Therefore, Hawaiians realized that listening was equally important as speaking if the traditions were to accurately survive.” (9)

In shifting from focusing solely on different theories of how the moai moved to contemplating the science and oral histories that impacted those theories, this lesson expands exponentially. Students discuss the merits of oral cultures and even reconsider their college textbooks that often undermine oral literacy. 

From Colonial Collections to Repatriation

The last thematic shift in curriculum is to move away from simply assigning an OER article written by the British Museum to instead explicitly discuss colonization, museum collections, art repatriation, and decolonization. Repatriation has been a much-discussed topic in recent years, months, and weeks, with the Dutch government recently promising to return any stolen colonial era objects back to the country of origin. 

In addressing repatriation of moai, other cultural relics, art, and ancestral remains (all containing mana), the 2015 documentary Te Keuhane O Te Tupuna: The Spirit of the Ancestors is a very helpful and didactic tool for students. Directed by Leonardo Pakarati and Paula Rossetti, the documentary tells the story of one Rapanui family’s journey to London, showing three generations in search of the lost moai Hoa Haka Nanaʻia. Although this moai is of great cultural importance to Rapa Nui, it has resided in the British Museum for over 150 years.

The documentary, which is filmed as a kind of love letter to the producers’ son, poignantly traces a family’s international journey for repatriation. It also beautifully shows the terrain of Rapa Nui—both geographical and familial. Through the film, viewers are emotionally invested in the relationship between the young protagonist Mikaela Pakarati and her Aunt Noe, her grandfather Benedicto Tuki, and her father (and filmmaker) Leo Pakarati. Viewers get a sense of what mana is and means through Mikaela’s family ties, relationships, and connection to both the moai and her ancestors. In his analysis of the film, Philipp Schorch argues that even though it is unlikely that the British will return Hoa Haka Nanaʻia to Rapa Nui, the film “has been successful in sparking dialogues among Oceanic people who connect their experiences to those featured in the film.” (10) And in this sense, he argues, “the moai’s spirit, then, has been returned, at least partially, to Rapa Nui and spread across Oceania and the world.” (11)

Indeed, the depth of my students’ understanding of mana and the cultural imperative of repatriation has been inspiring. Rapanui ecologist Ida “Mama Piru” Huke summarized her people’s living connection to the moai most compellingly in Eating up Easter: “I am proud to be Rapanui. I am proud to be born from the moai. And we are the living statues. You and I? We are living statues.” By incorporating Rapanui perspectives into lesson plans, educators can distill a much deeper understanding of both lived experience and perception of a culture and people that has been profoundly misconstrued in Euro-American media and scholarship.

1. Thompson p. 59 and Hunt and Lipo, p. 4.
2. Hau’ofa p. 153-154. [Editor’s note 2.16.22: The author has edited this and the following paragraph, and added the citation to Epeli Hau’ofa’s work thanks to Dr. Ngarino Ellis’ correspondence, insight, and important suggestions.]
3. Hunt and Lipo p. 178.
4. This summary of Vizenor’s articulation of survivance comes from his edited volume Survivance: Narratives of Native Presence, 2008.
5. Schorch p. 105.
6.  Ibid.
7.  Ibid., 98.
8. Ibid. To note, Sergio Rapu was also Rapa Nui’s first Native governor and is the father of filmmaker Sergio Mata’u Rapu, referenced here for his film Easting Up Easter.
9. Nunes p. 2.
10. Ibid., 105.
11. Ibid., 105-106.

Below are notes for approaching this lesson; for assigning readings, videos, and immersive online activities; for offering optional focus questions on the readings; and finally, for leading a culminating discussion at the end of class. These are broken up into subsections that mirror the modules I program into my college’s Learning Management System (LMS).

1.1 An introductory note about Rapa Nui 

• We will be reading about Rapa Nui this week. It is an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, at the farthest eastern edge of the “Polynesian triangle.” 
• Rapa Nui (two words) is the name of the island, while “Rapanui” (one word) is used to describe the people, culture, and language:
  • ex: Rapa Nui is an island in the Pacific Ocean. 
  • ex: The Rapanui people believe that the moai walked into place.
  • ex: Most Rapanui people speak Rapanui and Spanish, because Chile annexed the island in 1888.

1.2 Assigned & Optional Readings

• The British Museum, “Easter Island Moai,” in Smarthistory, March 1, 2017.
• Oscar Holland, “‘You have our soul’: Easter Island pleads with British for statue’s return,” ” CNN, November 21, 2018.
• Introduction from Terry Hunt and Carl Lipo, The Statues that Walked: Unraveling the Mystery of Easter Island, 2012. (Alternatively, you could assign a condensed book review such as this one from The Guardian.)
• Interactive article about the Erosion of Rapa Nui (Easter Island), New York Times, March 14, 2018.
• Optional Additional Readings: These are completely optional. I include them in case you want to learn more about the complex cultural and socio-political history of Rapa Nui (Riet Delsing); or the concept of curation as curing (Philipp Schorch); or the theory of ecocide that Diamond popularized and against which Hunt and Lipo theorized (Jared Diamond):
  • Riet Delsing, Introduction from Articulating Rapa Nui: Polynesian Cultural Politics in a Latin American Nation-State, Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press, 2015.
  • Philipp Schorch. Chapter 4: “Curating an Island, Curing Rapa Nui,” from Refocusing Ethnographic Museums through Oceanic Lenses. Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press, 2021.
  • Jared Diamond, Chapter 3 on Rapa Nui from Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, New York: Viking Press, 2004.

1.3 Optional Focus Questions for Readings 

Focus questions are optional questions to guide you while reading. Answering and considering these will help you prepare both for discussions and quizzes. Answers are for you, not to be turned in.

1. Why is Rapa Nui also referred to as Easter Island? Who calls it “Easter Island”? 
2. What is a moai, ahu, and pukao?
3. You read about a specific moai called Hoa Haka Nanaʻia (‘lost or stolen friend’) from two different perspectives — first in an article written by the British Museum and then in an article that details Rapanui elders’ pleas to return this moa to Rapa Nui. How do these two views differ? Do you think Hoa Haka Nanaʻia should be returned? Why or why not?
4. How did people make moai? What are some of the (conflicting) theories about how they moved into place?
5. Why did Carl Hunt and Terry Lipo start looking into the science behind the walking moai theory?
6. Describe some of the environmental concerns on Rapa Nui. How might this affect the land and also the art?
7. What is repatriation and how does it tie into Rapa Nui?

1.4 Watch three Film Clips

The following are the three film clips I ask my students to watch prior to class. Depending on your institution’s film databases, some of these titles might need to be substituted.

A) Western Versus Polynesian Navigation (6 minutes; accessed via Films on Demand)

The following video helps to provide more context for your readings this week. Consider the content of the video and what it tells us about Polynesian navigation.

B)  “Easter Island” from Great Sites of Antiquity (3 minutes; accessed via Films on Demand)

Consider the narration of this film clip:

• • • Who is telling the story?
    • What tone of voice does the narrator take? 
    • What feeling do you have watching this? 
    • Why is the island presented as a site of mystery and wonder?
    • Do you think the narrator and production company who made this are from Rapa Nui? Why or why not?

C) The documentary Te Kuane o te Tupuna: The Spirit of the Ancestors (57 minutes; accessed via Kanopy)

Please watch this documentary in its entirety, thinking about how it differs from what you know, what you’ve seen, and what you’ve read about Rapa Nui. Particularly think about how Rapa Nui and the moai were presented above in the “Easter Island” feature from Great Sites of Antiquity.

Consider the narration, how these videos differ, and why you think that is? We will talk about this more in our discussion this week.

A Note for Educators about Video Selections: There are a plethora of documentaries on Rapa Nui and the moai. Many of these documentaries such as The Lost Gods of Easter Island, Mystery of Easter Island, and Lost Empire of Easter Island focus on the “mystery” of the island, narrated by an over-enunciating, deep voice over a soundtrack imbued with mysterious and adventurous undertones. These are great resources to show (in full or in short segments as I did above with film clip B) in comparison to more locally-produced and -informed documentaries such as Te Kuane o te Tupuna (The Spirit of the Ancestors) or Eating up Easter (2019), both of which are available on Kanopy. Another newer documentary with a musical and ecological-focus is Song of Rapa Nui (2020), currently available on Amazon Prime.

1.5 Moai in Museums: Neocolonialism or Repatriation?

• Please take some time to explore these two short exhibits on Google Arts & Culture (below). Please do so after watching the videos this week.
  • Can You Find the Moai at the British Museum?
  • What the Heritage of Rapa Nui Means to Local People
• After viewing both of these (and after watching Te Kuhane O Te Tupuna: The Spirit of the Ancestors), please consider and reflect upon the following for our discussion this week:
  • How does the British Museum’s search activity make you feel, particularly in light of the Pakarati family’s hope to return Hoa Haka Nanaʻia, a statue of significant cultural importance?
  • Just as we compared the documentary clip about “Easter Island” to the full length documentary Te Kuhane O Te Tupuna, please consider comparing these two virtual “exhibits.”
  • How is the moai Hoa Haka Nan’ia presented at the British Museum?
  • Why do you think it is presented in this manner?
  • What do the moai mean to the Rapanui people?
  • What feelings do each of these virtual “exhibits” bring about

1.6 Culminating Discussion

Participate in this week’s discussion, focusing on differing views, shifting thematics, and changing narratives of Rapa Nui and its moai.

Lead students in a culminating discussion, mixing our new themes together in your analysis.

The following questions are ones that particularly struck my students and led to productive and proactive conversations, in face-to-face class discussions as well as in asynchronous distance learning environments.Pacific Heartbeat: Stories from the Pacific Islands shared a Discussion Guide for their series, and I’ve linked here to page 10 of the guide here, focusing on Episode #803 Te Kuane o te Tupuna. 

• Why is Rapa Nui also referred to as “Easter Island”? Who calls it that?  (Related: How and why are names important? What do they have to do with power?)
• Why is navigating and wayfinding so important to so many Oceanic cultures? Was it different from European navigation? (And can you think of any examples of navigating-related art from our earlier readings on Oceanic art?)
• You watched two very different excerpts of documentaries about Rapa Nui. You also read two very different articles about the moai called Hoa Haka Nanaʻia which has been at the British Museum for over 150 years. How do these documentaries and articles differ? What stories did each tell? What tones do they take? And why were they told from the perspectives they were? What does story-telling have to do with power?
• Te Kuane o te Tupuna is a documentary film about a journey from Rapa Nui to London, showing a family in search of the lost moai Hoa Haka Nanaʻia, a statue of significant cultural importance. 
  • What do museums have to do with this story? 
  • Has this class changed the way you think about museum collections and the provenance (or origin and history) of art in museums?
  • What about the British Museum “scavenger hunt” activity on Google Arts & Culture asking users “Can You Find the Moai at the British Museum?” How does this activity compare in tone to the Te Kuane o te Tupuna documentary?
• What is mana? What does this important concept have to do with the moai of Rapa Nui?
• Why have Rapa Nui’s elders had to plea to have moai returned to the island? When and why were they taken in the first place? Do you think they should be returned?
• Te Kuane o te Tupuna is about a personal journey to retrieve, and possibly even correct the past. How do you feel about the end of the documentary? Are the goals of Benedicto Tuki, Leo Pakarati, and Mikaela Pakarati met? Why or why not?
• Te Kuane o te Tupuna is produced by Pacific Islanders in Communications, whose mission is “to support, advance, and develop Pacific Island media content and talent that results in a deeper understanding of Pacific Island history, culture, and contemporary challenges.” This means that the filmmakers are telling their own stories and through their own lenses.
  • What does storytelling have to do with art and art history?
  • How do some of these themes tie into our class and previous readings?
• You read about Terry Hunt and Carl Lipo’s newer theory that the moai “walked” into place. This differs from previous theories, including an ecocidal theory championed by Jared Diamond in his 2004 book Collapse.Hunt and Lipo based their research on radiocarbon dating, fallen moai found on the island, and on Rapanui oral tradition which says that the moai “walked” into place. (Rapanui even has a term neke neke that translates to mean “walking without legs.”)Thinking about all of this, how is oral tradition as valid as written history? How does Rapa Nui’s oral history impact and inform current scientific research on the island and why is that important?
• What are some of the past historical or contemporary (present) environmental concerns on Rapa Nui? What does this have to do with the immediate importance of art, heritage, and cultural preservation?

Since I have only taught this newly-revised lesson plan a couple of times since visiting Rapa Nui, I gave my students an anonymous survey about the module and wanted to share the positive feedback. 

Below is a sampling of quantitative and qualitative feedback from 60 respondents. The results and feedback were overwhelmingly positive. 99% of students rated the module on Rapa Nui positively, with 57% saying “it was great” and 42% responding that they “liked it overall.” Additionally, 98% of the respondents liked the inclusion of the documentary Te Kuane o te Tupuna: The Spirit of the Ancestors. 

When asked what students would do to improve the unit, the comments were overwhelmingly positive and often included suggestions to include more optional readings and films because they liked the materials so much. 

When asked what students liked most about the unit, here is a sampling of their responses:

• The navigation clips and the documentary. The NYT article was really great also, and the text chapter was really comprehensive which helped frame the module. I really enjoy the variety of media we are presented with and I think that is a very successful approach.
• I enjoyed learning about art through the perspective of Rapanui people. This unit enlightened me on how art is acquired. I also enjoy learning from a perspective that isn’t western.
• It opened my eyes to the practices and values that some museums have. I also learned that many cultures fight to obtain the items that were stolen from them. It was a very eye-opening module. I enjoyed the film because the people in it had very raw and personal emotions that expressed how much they cared for their culture.
• The way we saw a greatly-impacted culture and how significant their values are because my family too were greatly impacted by colonialism. I never had that connection but I can only imagine what my family over in Peru, especially the older generation, felt knowing their Incan culture is missing many of its great treasures. In other words it was closer to a personal matter and the way you see the pain and compassion the elders had while explaining what the moai meant to them was touching.
• The best part was being able to hear from the Rapanui people themselves and have them explain to us what the moai meant to them. It felt more genuine coming from people of the culture rather than reading about it in a textbook.
• I enjoyed the film so much, I watched it two more times with different members of my family. It made me look at repatriation in a different light, and made me very emotional. The movie really got to me and I could not only see, but feel the emotional significance that returning the moai means for the people of Rapa Nui.