Rapa Nui Journal: Journal of the Easter Island Foundation Volume 5 Article 1 Issue 1 Rapa Nui Journal 5#1, Spring 1991 1991 Rapa Nui Journal 5#1, Spring 1991 Follow this and additional works at: https://kahualike.manoa.hawaii.edu/rnj Part of the History of the Pacific slI ands Commons, and the Pacific slI ands Languages and Societies Commons Recommended Citation (1991) "Rapa Nui Journal 5#1, Spring 1991," Rapa Nui Journal: Journal of the Easter Island Foundation: Vol. 5 : Iss. 1 , Article 1. Available at: https://kahualike.manoa.hawaii.edu/rnj/vol5/iss1/1 This Research Report is brought to you for free and open access by the University of Hawai`i Press at Kahualike. It has been accepted for inclusion in Rapa Nui Journal: Journal of the Easter Island Foundation by an authorized editor of Kahualike. For more information, please contact [email protected]. et al.: Rapa Nui Journal 5#1, Spring 1991 the premier source for cum:nt EasterIsland events and scientific studies._. I RAPA NUl JOURNAL I VolS, No 1 Spring 1991 New Archaeoastronomical Rapanui Group Photo Dated Results from Rapa Nui August 1873 William Liller, Ph.D. Steven Roger Fischer, Ph.D. Instituto Isaac Newton, Ministerio de Educacion de Chile. With the present advent of photohistoriography, great In the Wmter 1987-88 issue of Rapa Nui Notes, I presented interest has arisen thoughout the world in "earliest-knowns"­ evidence that lead me to the conclusion that on Easter Island that is, the first photographic documentations we possess at least some half-dozen ahu had been intentionally oriented treating of every spot under the sun. Although no one as yet such that their moai faced the rising or setting solstitial or has effected a study on the history of the photographic equinoctial sun. These included the five platforms at documentation of Rapanui, a great number of such earlY Englert's three most outstanding ahu: Tongariki, Vmapu, photographs are known from a variety of scientific and and Heki'i. Most convincing of all, however, was Abu Hurl A .popular publications; many more lie in archives, awaiting Urenga where at least nine independent lines of evidence discovery. made it virtually certain that this small one-moai ahu had The very earliest known photographs having anything to do been designed to be used astronomically. with Rapanui appear to be those taken on board H.M.S. Since early 1988 the case for astronomy has been Topau during her 1868 transport of the Orongo statue supported by far stronger statistical evidence, thanks in part "Hoa-Haka-Nana-Ia" (incorrectly dated by Alazard, where to the survey of the orientations of some 2n coastal ahuthat these photographs appear in his edition of Roussel William Mulloy made in 1962. One thing that his data clearly 1926:496f., to the 1911 Challenger visit). showed had been obvious for years: that the great majority of The earliest known photographs of Rapanui themselves these coastal ahu-roughly 90 percent-were situated with the are apparently those taken by the Pape'ete, Tahiti, long axes parallel to the adjacent shoreline. Indeed, on some photographer C.B. Hoare in August of 1873, on instigation ofthe aerial survey maps made by the Chilean Air Force, the of the resident American merchant Thomas Croft. These ahu look almost like a picket fence strung out along the unpublished photographs are today to be found in the coast. archives of the Padri dei Sacci Cuori, Casa Generalizia, Via However, my interest was drawn to the 23 coastal ahu Rivarone 85, 1-00166 Rome, Italy. whose long axes were significantly skewed to the shoreline. Among these several photographs is one that could well be Why were they oriented differently? The answer given by the earliest Rapanui group photograph in existence, and thus Mulloy's data (and checked by my own measurements) was of inestimable significance to the Rapanui people oftoday. that almost a third of them--seven--were oriented such that On t:he back of the original photograph is written: "tire Ie .perpendiculars to their major axes or principal facades 28 Aoiit 1873. Au lieu du P.Joseph on a mis un drelle de type pointed within 1.9 degrees of the direction due east-west; dans les annales de la Prop. de la foi" ('taken 28 August i.e., the platforms were accurately aligned north- south. 1873. Instead of Father Joseph one used a comical figure in Statistics say that for this to happen by chance is extremely theAnnales de la Propagation de la Foi. For Reverend Father unlikely; the odds are approximately the same as rolling a Idlefonse [Alazard]"). A different hand also notes *Indigenes single die six times and having the same number come up de l'lle de Paques avec Ie RP. Georges Eich et Ie Fr. every time. Most, perhaps all, of these ahu must have been Theodule Escolan. Congreg. SS. Coeurs Picpus 1873" intentionally oriented in this way. (Natives of Easter Island with Reverend Father George Bich Another set ofahu that attracted my attention were those and Brother Theodule Escolan. Congregation des Sacres­ located well inland--more than a kilometer from the coast. Coeurs de Picpus 1873"). With no shoreline nearby, what influenced the Rapanui This original photograph was later used as a model for a builders in their selection of an orientation? Again, an rather dubious sketch published in the Annaies de la astronomical direction is indicated, this time towards that of Propagation de la Foi which curiously metamorphosed the . the rising sun at winter solstice, the shortest day ofthe year: bearded European into a Rapanui patriach, omitted other continued on page 4 persons, and altered gestures and objects. No less erroneous, Vol 5, No 1* Page 1 Published by Kahualike, 1991 1 Rapa Nui Journal: Journal of the Easter Island Foundation, Vol. 5 [1991], Iss. 1, Art. 1 however, are these handwritten notes· themselves. For there to only a few, for the temporalities of a missionary bishop exism important source material which allows a more precise are but slight The California Academy of Sciences lost all its interpretation. collections in the destruction of the city." This latter fact was At the 6 July 1874 regular meeting of the California recently confirmed to me by Charles L. Cecil (1990), Academy of Sciences, San Francisco, the President, Department of Anthropology, California Academy of Professor George Davidson, donated a series of twenty-five Sciences, San Francisco. photographs from Pape'ete, Tahiti, dealing mostly with the Of these undescribed photographs, only Mgr. Jaussen's has inscribed tablets of Rapanui, but including as well a number apparently survived, for it was included within the pages of reproducing Rapanui themselves, as the accompanying letter his 1886 handwritten manuscript "Ecriture Kyriologique, from Thomas Croft, dated 30 April 1874, explains. The Empire Maori" (also in the SS.Cc. archives, Rome; excellent group photograph we present here is clearly Croft's Nr.23 descriptions by Barthel 1958:169-173) but has since been (Croft 1875:323): removed from this volume and stored separately. "No. 23 is a photograph taken at the request of the Bishop, The identity of any of the assembled Rapanui is unknown; lOme time since. I have procured two copies to send to you. perhaps the names are marked on the back of the original because it is interesting. The gray-bearded priest in the individual portraits, also in the SS.CC. archives, Rome. Croft center is one of two priesm who were formerly on Easter (1875:323) merely mentions them as being "in the employ of Island, and who are accused by a portion of the islanders of the mission here"; that is, each is in immediate seIVice to causing that act ofvandalism, the destruction of a great many Mgr. Jaussen in Pape'ete. They most likely all would have of the records. On each side of him stand the two husbands arrived two years earlier, in 1871, when a great number of of the two women, and the fathers of the two small children, Rapanui either left to work Brander's Tahitian plantations or whose mothers hold them in their arms.... In No. 23 you may accompanied Father Roussel to Mangareva (it is doubtful see, in the hands of another whether they were among priest, one of the blocks from those very few who arrived in which I have had two of the Pape'ete in 1863 as survivors photographs taken. You may from the 1862/1863 also see in the hands and on international raids). the persons of different The.priest on the left of the natives, some of the idols, photograph is, as we know paddles, and implements used from the collection of his by the heathen priests in their (unpublished) photographs in worship.... I have presented to the SS.CC. archives, the the Bishop, in your name, a German Father Georg copy of each of the "Joseph" Eich. Born 17 May photographs, as some 1845 in Karlich by Koblenz, he compensation to him for his joined the Congregation des kindness and trouble." Sacres-Coeurs in 1864 and Croft retained a copy of each TIle earliest known group photograph: 28 August 1873, at came to Tahiti in 1867, where of the photographs for the Pape'ete, Tahiti, residence of Monseigneur Tepano he was ordained in 1869 himself, and presented to Jaussen, Bishop of ~re: Twelve RapanuJ, eight In the (Biblioteca Missionum, Vol.21 Monseigneur Jaussen, "for his employ 01 Mgr. Janssen; left, the German Father Georg [1955]:221); according to kindness and trouble," also a "Joseph" Ekh holding the rongorongo tablet "Kelti"; center, Hoorebeeck (1979:88), Eich copy of each; the Father Hippolyte Roussel (1); in the window, Mgr.