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Easter Island: land of mystery

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Kara Sundstrom
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« Reply #15 on: July 06, 2009, 12:39:17 am »

Robert Langdon and Darrell Tryon argued that at the time of contact, Easter Island’s language was made up of three elements: one of west Polynesian origin, one from east Polynesia, and a third of unidentified origin, probably from the east. Other researchers hold that there is no satisfactory evidence for the existence of a pre-Polynesian language or second wave of Polynesian immigrants, and that the Rapanui language is a member of the eastern Polynesian subgroup.9

The Easter islanders had their own writing system, known as Rongorongo (see section 7). The orthodox view is that either the islanders invented it after the arrival of the Europeans, or that they brought it with them from another Polynesian island, even though no Polynesian tribe is known to have possessed the art of writing. Heyerdahl points out that a variety of writing systems were in use in pre-Columbian America.

Some plants on Easter Island clearly come from South America, such as the islanders’ staple food the sweet potato (which is known by its Quechua name kumara), and also manioc and gourd.10 As already mentioned, mainstream researchers prefer to believe that the Polynesians made contact with the South American mainland and returned with the sweet potato. They also point out that the island had no maize, beans, or squash – which are staple resources in South America. On the other hand, the French visitors of 1786 brought maize and various domestic animals with them, but they were never seen again by subsequent visitors. The first settlers apparently did not introduce pigs or dogs, which conventional researchers admit is surprising if they came from Polynesia.
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