Rapa Nui among world's sacred sites

The world's most sacred sites
Telegraph.co.uk, United Kingdom - October 10, 2007
The hundred of carved heads that adorn Rapa Nui (Easter Island) were in use as early as 500 BC. They are said to represent an ideology of male, ...

Tourism and media spotlight bring changes to Rapanui life

Easter Island Fights Prosperity
Mayor Pedro Edmunds wants "his people" to be lovable. They're more interested in getting rich.
Juliet Samuel
Reason Magazine
July 13, 2007

“My people are changing due to development,” explains Pedro Edmunds, the democratically elected mayor of Chile’s Easter Island. “The people are getting more and more individual-thinking—and it’s not good.”

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Hope for Rapa Nui's mahute plant

CHILE: PROJECT LAUNCHED TO SAVE TRADITIONAL EASTER ISLAND PLANTS
SOURCE: LA NACION
By Santiago Times Staff (editor@santiagotimes.cl)
Santiago Times
May 10, 2007

A new project being carried out by the Universidad CatÛlica looks to rescue the mahute plant, a traditional and endangered species that for centuries Easter Island residents have used to make cloth.

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Rapanui seaweed and algae as vaginal suppositories

A history of contraception
What do elephant dung, sheep innards and wild yams have in common? Long before the time of multicoloured condoms and "morning-after" pills, these items were once used by couples who wanted to prevent pregnancy.
Mandy Lo
The Varsity Online
Issue date: 2/12/07

Women in ancient times ingeniously used materials native to their habitat-crushed roots from Western Africa, bamboo tissue from Japan, seaweed and algae from the coast of Easter Island-as vaginal suppositories to physically block the entry of sperm.

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Rapanui culturally connected to other peoples in Oceania

The ties that brine
Tracing connections between the people of Oceania.
ANU Reporter
January 16, 2007

Melanesia butts up against Polynesia, which dips down beneath New Zealand and stretches as far east as Easter Island.

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Rapa Nui "archaeological theme park?"

Easter Islanders wonder how many statues are enough
By Larry Rohter
International Herald Tribune
Published: January 4, 2007

RANU RARAKU, Easter Island: As remnants of a vanished culture and a lure to tourists, the mysterious giant statues that stand as mute sentinels along the rocky coast here are the greatest treasure of this remote island. For local people, though, they also present a problem: What should be done about the hundreds of other stone icons, many of them damaged or still embedded in the ground, that are scattered around the island?

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Rapa Nui presentation by John Kahn in New Paltz, NY

Arts Briefs Oct. 19-25
By Germain Lussier
Times Herald-Record
October 19, 2006

Unison Arts & Learning Center. "Easter Island," a multimedia presentation with John Kahn, 7:30 p.m. Oct. 20, 68 Mountain Rest Road, New Paltz. Cost $10. Call 255-1559.

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