Festivals - Part 34

Tapati Festival, Easter Island

Easter Island, known to its inhabitants as Rapa Nui, is best known for its mysterious stone statues (above) that were carved centuries ago by its Polynesian inhabitants.  

The island was discovered by Europeans on Easter Sunday, 1722, resulting in the name Easter Island.  Above is a drawing of a native man by Abel Dupetit-Thouars, 1838.  At that time, before European settlement, the inhabitants were happy to be naked.

In the 1860s, Peruvian slave traders carried away 1500 men and women, half of the island's population.  In 1888, Chile annexed the island and ended the slave trade, but by then, almost all the native islanders had died of European diseases such as tuberculosis.  Only 101 of them were left, of which only 12 were adult men.

Today, the population has recovered.  The current population is about 7700, of which half are Rapa Nui (Polynesians).  The island is still under Chilean sovereignty.

Every February, the residents hold a festival called Tapati to celebrate their Polynesian heritage.  For the festival, the men wear a rather minimal G-string called a hami (above).

The hami (G-strings) were traditionally made from strips of bark, but these days most are literally made from string.

There are dancing exhibitions, such as the women in the background.  Speaking of exhibition, this guy seems to be exhibiting something else to us.

The whole population gets decorated with volcanic mud, and some get body-paint designs.

And then they have a parade.

But the high point of the festival is the competition to be crowned "king" for the next year.  It consists of 60 athletic competitions between the island's two factions, the Yellows and the Blues, but there are three main events.  The first is a triathlon race held in the volcanic crater Rano Raraku, where at one time the mysterious statues had been carved from volcanic rock.  For the first part of the race, the competitors paddle a reed canoe across a small crater lake.

For the second part, they run around the crater lake carrying bunches of bananas weighing 20 kg (44 pounds).

Then they drop the bananas and race halfway around the lake on a track higher up the crater.  Note that this guy's G-string seems to be disintegrating.

Here's a rear view of the runners running past some of the mysterious statues.

Here's another view of the runners, but they're naked.  Perhaps this is an old photo.  I'm wondering if the athletes used to compete naked, but more recently they were forced to wear G-strings.

In the third part of the race (not pictured), the competitors swim across the crater lake to the finish line.

The second major Tapati athletic competition is held in the ocean.  It involves body-surfing from some offshore rocks to the shore.  Youths body-surf with a float made of reeds (above).  In the men's competition, they body-surf with no float, just their body.

The third major athletic competition is called Haka Pei.  Before the event, the competitors join hands and ask the god Make Make for a blessing (above), because this competition can be quite dangerous.  By the way, these same guys call themselves Catholics and go to church on Sundays.

Some of the Haka Pei competitors.

Haka Pei consists of riding a heavy sled made from banana tree trunks (above) down a steep hill.  The winner is the one whose sled goes the farthest at the bottom of the hill.

We end with a video of a Haka Pei competitor riding his sled down the hill.  The sleds can reach speeds of more than 50 miles an hour (80 kph).  It's dangerous because the hill is bumpy, and the rider could be thrown off.  This rider made it to the bottom unscathed, but in another video, the rider's sled overturned, he was thrown off, and he had to be taken away in an ambulance.

Points are awarded for all the competitions.  The island is divided into the Yellows and the Blues.  The side that gets the most points gets to make their champion "king" for the coming year.

Isn't culture fascinating (especially when it involves G-strings)?