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Memorial
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The paina seems to have been separate from funeral ceremonies as such. For `death' on Easter was a prolonged affair, often lasting for years after the dying person had stopped breathing. The body was taken to the family abu, which was then declared taboo. While this order remained, no fishing was allowed near the aku and fires must be `smothered with grass'. The body, which was wrapped in a bark cloth, remained on the platform for up to three years, until the flesh was all gone and the death completed. Four relatives kept watch at any one time and they were likely to kill anyone who broke the sacred taboo ortapu. When the bones were clean they might be left on the platform or might be stored underground. At that time the tape was lifted and a great family feast of chickens was held to celebrate the release of the dead person. Most ahu were family affairs, but some the larger ones in general were those of chiefs, whose monument involved the honour of the whole clan. And it was from the competition between the 10 clans in the middle period that the magnificence of the Easter monuments grew. This had one extraordinary result the spirit of aggression among human males found an outlet of statue making which seems to have diverted Easter men away from war for many centuries. The statues were memorials, `living faces' in the words of the islanders, despite their frequent close likeness to each other. It is no accident that most of the abu are along the shore, for tine and again sacred ceremonies on Easter refer to the sea and the people's arrival from it. From the water's edge, the statues gaze hypnotically over the land, reminders of that first arrival. Much of their potency lay in the eyes. For only the eyes were not carved at the quarry before the huge works were transported to their ahu. When the statue was in place at last, its eyes were chiselled in and its full strength was unleashed across the island. A few surviving early statues are of stone from various parts of the island after that, all were quarried from the side of the volcano Rano Raraku towards the eastern tip. Volcanic tuff rock has the great quality of softness when quarried, hardening to great durability after some months in the open air. The great busts of the upper parts of human beings were quarried like the ancient Egyptians cut their obelisks by carving down around them into the rock until, with most of their detailing completed, the final spinal join underneath was severed and the rock heaved upright. The system is clearly shown by half completed statues (moai) in the Rano Raraku quarry |
Much has been written, and many vivid imaginations exercised, about the method of transporting the moai from quarry to their ahu. Some of these arc more than 10 kilometres (6 miles) from Rano Raraku. Some have seen the transportation as the work of marla, others as a harnessing of high pressure vapour front the volcano. Sleds and bipods have been invented retrospectively to do the job, as have systems of encircling ropes with teams of heaving men trundling the upright statue while others steady it. This last fits in with accounts in the legends and with one piece of circumstantial evidence on the slopes below the statue quarry at Rano Raraku there arc dozens of statues, still blind eyed, left scattered across the hillside when work stopped suddenly. These moai were apparently on their way to their intended sites and the majority of them arc still upright. If
the stones were moved in the standing position, the puzzle remains just
how the Easter people raised the hats or topknots which were originally
on the heads of most. These topknots were of a different stone from the
moai themselves, a dark red rock from the western side of the island.
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