The Arrival of the First Polynesians on Rapa Nui

By Cristian Moreno Pakarati, Historian

The arrival of the first Polynesians on Rapa Nui is one of the great enigmas of Pacific history. (sentence added) The original settlement of Rapa Nui is still one of the most debated mysteries among archaeologists and scholars. Although the origin of the first immigrants to Eastern Polynesia is already fairly well established, the nature and flow of the migrations and the exact date when the first human beings reached Rapa Nui remain hidden. The only two sources of information we have about its most distant past are archaeological research and the oral tradition of the local community.

For more context, read the origins of the Polynesians.

Early and Late Settlement: The Two Archaeological Interpretations

The most up-to-date archaeological evidence offers two interpretations for the Polynesian colonization of Rapa Nui:

1. Early Settlement, whose proponents are co-authors Paul Bahn and John Flenley and the Swedish author Helena Martinsson-Wallin, who consider dates between 300 and 700 AD. They rely especially on the available radiocarbon dating (the first C14 datings were carried out at the time of the Norwegian Archaeological Expedition of 1955-1956), on obsidian hydration and on the pollen record.
2. Late Settlement, put forward mainly by archaeologist Terry Hunt, who has moved this date up to 1250 AD, arguing that earlier radiocarbon dates were calibrated using an unreliable method rather than the one known as “chronometric hygiene.” The problem with this interpretation is the short time it leaves for the development and evolution of a culture as specialized as the Rapanui one. Today, most authors prefer “not to get their hands burned” and place the settlement of the island within an interval, namely “800-1200 AD” or something similar.

The Polynesian Navigation Route and the End of Contact

Undoubtedly, the Polynesian discovery of Rapa Nui required a great deal of luck, added to the maritime skills of the Polynesians who undertook the voyage. The most important scientific work on this subject is by Professor Geoffrey Irwin of the University of Auckland, complemented by large-scale archaeological work by authors such as Patrick Kirch. Rapa Nui was part of the southeastern navigation route across the South Pacific, connecting it with the Gambier archipelago via Ducie, Henderson, Pitcairn and Oeno. Contact with the rest of Eastern Polynesia was certainly maintained until 1300 AD, and perhaps even later, although not its frequency. The end of this contact and the period of extreme isolation in which megalithism and the seabird cult developed were caused by the decline of long-distance Polynesian navigation during the so-called Little Ice Age.

The Little Ice Age and “the Cursed Century”

This period extends from the 1640s to 1690, with episodes of global cooling that caused a crisis with political, economic and social changes. The seventeenth century is often called “the cursed century.”

Hotu Matu’a and Rapanui Oral Tradition

As for oral tradition, the sources are the oldest legends, collected in the time of the French missionary priests, whose records appear in the writings of foreign researchers from the 1870s to the present day. They tell that the first organized migration from Polynesia was commanded by an ariki named Hotu Matu’a, who came from a nation called Marae Renga, located in a now-vanished land called Hiva, believed to have been the Marquesas or Mangareva. To complicate matters further, before the king arrived an expedition of 6 or 7 explorers had been sent, and when they reached the island they met two men: Nga Tavake a Te Rona and Te Ohiro a Te Runu. An earlier immigration? If we add the well-known appearance of the Hanau E’epe in later times, the number of immigrations would have been greater.

When Did They Arrive? Father Sebastián Englert’s Calculation

As for the date of arrival of the first Polynesians, oral tradition tells us nothing. However, Father Sebastián Englert was one of the few who tried to calculate it using the genealogical tables of the families closest to the Miru royalty, especially the Ika family, since theirs are the most complete. The date obtained with this method would be approximately 1400 AD. This date comes close to the late settlement theory, but it is unreliable unless we accept that Hotu Matu’a and his people were by no means the first to reach Rapa Nui, and that long-distance Polynesian navigation remained active until at least the fifteenth century.

Legends That Reinvent Themselves: From Manuscripts to the Seven Explorers

The most detailed legendary versions of these early Polynesian voyages to our island were collected by Rapanui people in the early twentieth century in a series of manuscripts. These were presented to the Norwegian Archaeological Expedition in 1955-1956. Today the traditions have been renewed and reinvented, especially with the arrival of tourism on Rapa Nui. Some ancient legends are almost unrecognizable today. Many Rapanui have begun to interpret the archaeological remains in a “mythical” and personal way based on the ancient legends (for example, the recent association of the moai of Ahu Akivi with the famous Seven Explorers that many tour guides tell visitors about). This is an attempt to reconcile “mythical thinking” with logical reality, blurring the sharper boundaries between the two. This need has arisen from Western influence on the thinking of present-day Rapanui, increasingly oriented toward “logical thinking,” but with such enormous pride in the traditions of their land that giving up belief in their myths and legends would be unthinkable.

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