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February 7, 2004

On our third day in Easter Island, Chile, our fabulous tour guide, China picked us up at our hotel for a day exploring another aspect of Rapa Nui Culture: the Birdman competition.  After seeing the modern-day version involving skimpily-clad men running around a lake carrying bundles of banana, we were interested to see some of original sites.

China drove us to Orongo, part of the Rapa Nui National Park.  Orongo was formerly a village set on a cliff with spectacular views of the Ocean, over looking a small island called Moto Nui.  The micro-island was famous as a nesting ground for the sooty tern, a bird whose eggs were prized by the early Rapa Nui people.  In the 17th to 19th centuries, European explorers wrote of a "birdman cult" in which young men would compete in a contest to see who could recover the first sooty tern egg of the season by jumping off the cliff at Orongo, swimming across shark-infested waters, stealing an egg, and then scaling the cliff without breaking the egg.  The first to do so would hold be crowned as Tangata Manu ("bird man") and hold a place in the tribe for the following year.  The Birdman competitions were held long after the moai-building ceased, despite any Hollywood representations to the contrary.

The remains of the village were a set of low stone huts, that you would have to crawl into to get inside.  They were big enough for Alex to crawl into, but Frank & I would have had a terrible time in these structures.  From what I've read in this fascinating history of Easter Island, Orongo was mainly a ceremonial site.

All around the site, China pointed out various petroglyphs or stone carvings with symbols of the birdman cult.  The symbol of the Birdman was like a man with a bird's head with a large beak, in a crouching position. This particular one looked like a lizard to me.

This was one of the most scenic and beautiful spots on the island, with some interesting ruins, dwellings, and petroglyphs to explore.

This is one of my favorite pictures of Frank & me from all of our travels. 

For more favorite travel photos from all over the world, check out Delicious Baby's Photo Friday this week.