Life on Easter Island with Marc Shields
Rapa Nui, also known as Easter Island.
Photo:
AFP/ Pablo Cozzaglio
The small island of Rapa Nui - also known as Easter Island - sits off the coast of Chile and is home to about 8600 people.
It's known for the huge historic statues, called Moai, which are dotted around the island.
Marc Shields hails from West Auckland but is a long-term resident of Rapa Nui, with his wife and three children.
The population was only about 7750 in the 2017 Chilean census.
Shields told Paddy Gower on RNZ's
Easter Monday
show that what a lot of people didn't know was that Rapa Nui was closely linked to New Zealand and Māori.
"The name Easter Island comes from the first European explorer who saw it on Easter sunday on 1722... but Rapa Nui - it's polynesian name - was used by most on the island."
Shields said the arrival of the first Rapa Nui was about 1200AD.
"They are Polynesian, so basically cousins of the New Zealand Māori. They have a lot of intercultural kind of relationship with the Māori people, the language is very very similar, much more similar for example Samoan and Tongan.
"Māori people who come here can understand to a degree the language even though it's 8000km away."
Mark Shields.
Photo:
Youtube/RapaNuiLife
Shields said after the Rapa Nui's first arrival, at about 1250AD, they began to build the famous statues called Moai.
In 1680-1750 a civil war broke out over resource scarcity, and after that the birdman competition began.
"Each year someone from each tribe would gather and they would have a competition climbing down cliffs, swimming off the coast to try and find the first egg of the Sooty Tern bird, and whoever got that egg, his respective chief would be the chief of the island for that year."
Shields said people began to convert to Catholicism in about 1860, with their underlying beliefs and traditions still remaining.
He added that since the 70s, tourism had become an important part of the island's day to day life.
"It's the only thing on the island that generates money. You are either employed by the government or you are employed in tourism.
"Tourism is where the money is, but it is perhaps a little bit less stable," he said.
Mark Shields on Easter Island coast with his family and dogs.
Photo:
Youtube/RapaNuiLife
Shields also said the Rapa Nui language was "going through a tough time".
"So you got people in their 70s speaking it as a first language, people my age speak it as a second language quite comfortably, the next generation are really struggling to speak it.
"So you've got this kind of loss of the language where now the grandparents can't speak to their grandchildren in Rapa Nui."
But Shields for the moment, most on the island would be enjoying their Sunday off work.
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