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The Tangata manu ("bird-man," from tangata "human beings" + manu "bird") was the winner of a traditional ritual competition on Rapa Nui (Easter Island) to collect the first sooty tern ( manu tara ) egg of the season from the nearby islet of Motu Nui, swim back to Rapa Nui, and climb the sea cliffs of Rano Kau to the clifftop village of Orongo.
In the Rapa Nui mythology, the deity Makemake was the chief god of the bird-man cult; the other three deities associated with it were Hawa-tuu-take-take (the Chief of the eggs, a male god), his wife Vie Hoa, and another female deity named Vie Kenatea. Each of these four also had a servant god who was associated with them. The names of all eight would be chanted by contestants during the various rituals preceding the egg hunt.
The identities of the contestants, all men of importance on the island, were revealed in prophecies by ivi-attua priests, who could be either men or women. [1] Each contestant would then appoint one or sometimes two hopu, adult men of lesser status, who would actually swim to Motu Nui carrying provisions in a bundle of reeds called a pora under one arm. They would each await the arrival of the first sooty terns, hoping to return with the first egg, whilst their sponsors waited for their return at the stone village of Orongo on the southwestern tip of Rapa Nui. The race was very dangerous, and many hopu were killed by sharks, by drowning, or by falling from cliff faces, though replacements were apparently easily available. [2]
Once the first egg was collected, the finder would go to the highest point on Motu Nui and call out to the shore of the main island, announcing his benefactor by the benefactor's new name and telling him, "Go shave your head, you have got the egg!" The cry would be taken up by listeners at the shoreline, who would pass it up the cliffside to the contestants waiting in Orongo. The unsuccessful hopu would then collectively swim back to the main island while the egg-finder remained alone on Motu Nui and fasted; he would then swim back with the egg secured inside a reed basket tied to his forehead. On his reaching land, he would then climb the steep, rocky cliff face and present the egg to his patron (if it were still intact), who would have already shaved his head and painted it either white or red.
This successful contestant – not the hopu, but his sponsor – would then be declared the new tangata-manu, and would take the egg in his hand and lead a procession down the slope of Rano Kau to Anakena (if he was from the western clans) or Rano Raraku (if he was from the eastern clans). The new tangata-manu was entitled to gifts of food and other tributes and his clan would have sole rights to collect that season's harvest of wild bird eggs and fledglings from Motu Nui. He then would go into seclusion for a year in a special ceremonial house; he would be considered tapu for the next five months, and in that time would allow his nails to grow long and wear a headdress made of human hair. He would be expected to engage in no activity other than eating and sleeping during this time. [2] : 263
The bird-man cult was violently suppressed by Christian missionaries in the 1860s. [3] The origins of the cult are uncertain, as it is unknown whether it replaced the preceding Moai-based religion or had coexisted with it. However, archaeologist and anthropologist Katherine Routledge was able to collect the names of 86 tangata-manu during the 1913–15 Mana Expedition. [2]
Easter Island is an island and special territory of Chile in the southeastern Pacific Ocean, at the southeasternmost point of the Polynesian Triangle in Oceania. The island is most famous for its nearly 1,000 extant monumental statues, called moai, which were created by the early Rapa Nui people. In 1995, UNESCO named Easter Island a World Heritage Site, with much of the island protected within Rapa Nui National Park.
The sooty tern is a seabird in the family Laridae. It is a bird of the tropical oceans, returning to land only to breed on islands throughout the equatorial zone.
Moai or moʻai are monolithic human figures carved by the Rapa Nui people on Rapa Nui in eastern Polynesia between the years 1250 and 1500. Nearly half are still at Rano Raraku, the main moai quarry, but hundreds were transported from there and set on stone platforms called ahu around the island's perimeter. Almost all moai have overly large heads, which account for three-eighths of the size of the whole statue. They also have no legs. The moai are chiefly the living faces of deified ancestors.
The Rapa Nui are the indigenous Polynesian peoples of Easter Island. The easternmost Polynesian culture, the descendants of the original people of Easter Island make up about 60% of the current Easter Island population and have a significant portion of their population residing in mainland Chile. They speak both the traditional Rapa Nui language and the primary language of Chile, Spanish. At the 2017 census there were 7,750 island inhabitants—almost all living in the village of Hanga Roa on the sheltered west coast.
Motu Nui is the largest of three islets just south of Easter Island and is the westernmost place in Chile. All three islets have seabirds, but Motu Nui was also an essential location for the Tangata manu cult which was the island religion between the moai era and the Christian era. Motu Nui is the summit of a large volcanic mountain which rises over 2,000 meters from the sea bed. It measures 3.9 hectares in land area and is the largest of the five satellite islets of Easter island. It is one of three islands that is closest to Point Nemo, the place in the ocean that is farthest from land, the other two being Ducie Island, one of the Pitcairn Islands, and Maher Island in Antarctica.
Rapa-Nui is a 1994 American historical action-adventure film directed by Kevin Reynolds and coproduced by Kevin Costner, who starred in Reynolds's previous film, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991). The plot is based on Rapa Nui legends of Easter Island, Chile, in particular the race for the sooty tern's egg in the Birdman Cult.
Onychoprion, the "brown-backed terns", is a genus of seabirds in the family Laridae. The genus name is from Ancient Greek onux, "claw" or "nail", and prion, "saw".
Rapa Nui National Park is a national park and UNESCO World Heritage Site located on Easter Island, Chile. Rapa Nui is the Polynesian name of Easter Island; its Spanish name is Isla de Pascua. The island is located in the southeastern Pacific Ocean, at the southeastern extremity of the Polynesian Triangle. The island was taken over by Chile in 1888. Its fame and World Heritage status arise from the 887 extant stone statues known by the name "moai", whose creation is attributed to the early Rapa Nui people who inhabited the island starting between 300 and 1200 AD. Much of the island has been declared as Rapa Nui National Park which, on 22 March 1996, UNESCO designated a World Heritage Site under cultural criteria (i), (iii), & (v). Rapa Nui National Park is now under the administrative control of the Ma´u Henua Polynesian Indigenous Community, which is the first autonomous institute on the island. The indigenous Rapa Nui people have regained authority over their ancestral lands and are in charge of the management, preservation and protection of their patrimony. On the first of December 2017, the ex-President Michelle Bachelet returned ancestral lands in the form of the Rapa Nui National Park to the indigenous people. For the first time in history, the revenue generated by the National Park is invested in the island and used to conserve the natural heritage.
Makemake in the Rapa Nui mythology of Easter Island is the creator of humanity, the god of fertility and the chief god of the "Tangata manu" or bird-man sect. He appeared to be the local form, or name, of the old Polynesian god Tane. He had no wife.
Rapa Nui mythology, also known as Pascuense mythology or Easter Island mythology, refers to the native myths, legends, and beliefs of the Rapa Nui people of Easter Island in the south eastern Pacific Ocean.
Motu Iti, or Little island in the Rapa Nui language, is a small uninhabited islet near Motu Nui, about a mile from Rano Kau on the south western corner of Easter Island, a Chilean island in the Pacific. It has a land area of 1.6 hectares, which makes it the second largest of the five satellite islands of Easter Island, after Motu Nui.
Hoa Hakananai'a is a moai, a statue from Easter Island. It was taken from Orongo, Easter Island in 1868 by the crew of a British ship and is now in the British Museum in London.
Orongo is a stone village and ceremonial center at the southwestern tip of Rapa Nui. It consists of a collection of low, sod-covered, windowless, round-walled buildings with even lower doors positioned on the high south-westerly tip of the large volcanic caldera called Rano Kau. Below Orongo on one side a 300-meter barren cliff face drops down to the ocean; on the other, a more gentle but still very steep grassy slope leads down to a freshwater marsh inside the high caldera.
Totora is a subspecies of the giant bulrush sedge. It is found in South America, notably on Lake Titicaca, the middle coast of Peru and on Easter Island in the Pacific Ocean. The genus Schoenoplectus is closely related to Scirpus and sometimes included therein. This plant can reach a height of 6 m (20 ft) and commonly reaches 4 m (13 ft). The word totora comes from the Quechua language.
Anakena is a white coral sand beach in Rapa Nui National Park on Rapa Nui, a Chilean island in the Pacific Ocean. Anakena has two ahus; Ahu-Ature has a single moai and Ahu Nao-Nao has seven, two of which have deteriorated. It also has a palm grove and a car park.
Rano Kau is a 324 m (1,063 ft) tall extinct volcano that forms the southwestern headland of Easter Island, a Chilean island in the Pacific Ocean. It was formed of basaltic lava flows in the Pleistocene with its youngest rocks dated at between 150,000 and 210,000 years ago.
Geologically one of the youngest inhabited territories on Earth, Easter Island, located in the mid-Pacific Ocean, was, for most of its history, one of the most isolated. Its inhabitants, the Rapa Nui, have endured famines, epidemics of disease, civil war, environmental collapse, slave raids, various colonial contacts, and have seen their population crash on more than one occasion. The ensuing cultural legacy has brought the island notoriety out of proportion to the number of its inhabitants.
Anakena is a privately owned winery based in the Alto Cachapoal area of the Rapel Valley of Chile. It produces a variety of styles. In September 2015 Anakena was bought by Accolade Wines for $30 million.
Easter Island is one of the world's most isolated inhabited islands. Its closest inhabited neighbours are the Chilean Juan Fernandez Islands, 1,850 km (1,150 mi) to the east, with approximately 850 inhabitants. The nearest continental point lies in central Chile near Concepción, at 3,512 kilometres (2,182 mi). Easter Island's latitude is similar to that of Caldera, Chile, and it lies 3,510 km (2,180 mi) west of continental Chile at its nearest point. Isla Salas y Gómez, 415 km (258 mi) to the east, is closer but is uninhabited. The Tristan da Cunha archipelago in the southern Atlantic competes for the title of the most remote island, lying 2,430 km (1,510 mi) from Saint Helena island and 2,816 km (1,750 mi) from the South African coast.
Ana Kai Tangata is a sea cave in Easter Island that contains rock art of terns on its ceiling. It is located near Mataveri, and the cave opens up directly to the incoming surf. The cave is accessible and one of the most visited caves in Easter Island.
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