Elad’s blog

No matter how hard I tried, I just couldn´t find out many details about the birdman cult which flourished in Easter Island parallel to its war and declining years. I found about the cult´s major ceremony, and I can make some educated guesses about more details (e.g., if you´re stuck on an island and the situation is bad, it makes sense to worship birds who appear to be free to fly - not that they have a place to fly to) but all and over, no matter who I´d talked to, which sites I visited, and where I looked - this remains another one of the misteries connected with this island.
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Just a few pics from Easter Island

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This is becoming ridiculous. Every time I want to ride bicycles, no matter at which continent, it starts to rain. It also happened today: just when I went to the rental shop, with full intentions of doing a nice ride to the petrogliphs, the sky became grey and a strong rain begun. Three hours later, when I abandoned the idea, the sky became bright again. Someone just doesn´t want me to ride bikes on this travel.

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The most surprising fact about Easter Island is, perhaps, its owners. Over a century after the 1888 annex to Chile, all the land of this island belongs by law to the descendants of its indegineous people, the Rapa-Nui. No mainland Chilean, and certainly no foreigner, can own anything on the island. This is even more interesting as virtually no Rapa-Nuis are left, certainly not pure-blooded: the population at the time of the annex was merely 140 people, only 34 of them fertile women; yet, at this last chapter of the sad story of this island, the community rebuilt itself, and with 3400 people now populating the island, this corner of Polinesia is perhaps better preserved then most of its other parts. I will now give a short version of the fascinating history of this place, for the benefit of those few from my readers who can find interest in this seemingly legendary tale.

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