tagged w/ Polynesia
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The world’s most popular fruit is the banana, which originated in the very-much overlooked region of Polynesia. This interesting video explores the relationship between the peoples and cultures of New Guinea, New Caledonia and the Solomon Islands and the world’s most popular fruit, the banana.The world’s most popular fruit is the banana, which originated in the very-much... more
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Jeremy Hildreth writes, "First, the heads.
Archaeologists have inventoried 887 carved figures made between about A.D. 1000 and 1600. These big busts, called moai, are an average of 13 feet tall and are known to islanders as the "living faces." They represent ancestors and elders. "For us, they are people," one descendent of the natives told me.
Perhaps. But for me they are just ancient and alien statues. Their meaning isn't intrinsic at all -- it is abstract, intense and interrogative: I want to sit at their feet and ask questions. I feel these guys know something, and I want to know it too. Gigantic and primitive, the moai provoke not reverence or awe but pure wonder, registered as a definite physical sensation, a kind of cosmic "Huh?"
Such ethereal queries are accompanied by terrestrial ones, such as: How did the moai get from the single quarry where they all were carved to their erect positions -- mostly dotted around the coastal perimeter with their backs to the sea -- up to 12 miles away? Several theories have been demonstrated as feasible, including dragging the statues on wooden sleds. "There are lots of ways they could have been moved," says Sergio Rapu, the only born Easter Islander who is also a trained archaeologist. "'How was it actually done?' is the question."
Oral history claims that the statues walked, and Mr. Rapu believes he has found examples of the "shoes" they wore for the journey: stones, flat on the topside, used by the islanders to pivot a trussed-up statue back and forth and forward -- like moving a refrigerator -- while synchronizing their exertions with chanting. Some experiments show a convincing way the moai, if lashed upright into a wooden frame, could have marched themselves along practically under their own power, as though hobbling on crutches. In truth, islanders may have used a combination of techniques.
And why did they make so many? Well, why not? Easter Island, in the relative far east of the Pacific Ocean, 2,360 miles from South America, was one of the very last places to be settled by Polynesians. People arrived around the year 500, and after several generations the population was sufficient to get into the labor-intensive monument business. Polynesians were carvers anyway; here they had the perfect volcanic rock for it and little else to occupy their time. So statue building became the central activity of Easter's society. Unsurprisingly, the maximum population of 15,000 to 20,000, reached in the 15th or 16th century, corresponds to the peak of moai-making."Jeremy Hildreth writes, "First, the heads.
Archaeologists have inventoried 887... more
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For those uneducated about the issues "Noho Hewa" addresses, Hawaiian activists can appear to be unduly angry, their causes ridiculously unrealistic. But in taking a stand on the side of the Hawaiian cause, the film does an excellent job of providing context to their perspectives. And it even goes one step further: It conveys knowledge that resonates in the heart as well as the mind.
"Honolulu Star-Bulletin"For those uneducated about the issues "Noho Hewa" addresses, Hawaiian... more
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Kepano
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added this
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3 years ago
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One good deed President Bush and his Administration has done for the Polynesian Nations and the Hawaiian Islands. Thank You Mr. Bush, Please protect and save our precious Aina and Kai for if humans continue their course mankind will lose these precious areas.
I'm one of the lucky few to ever step foot on Nihoa – a remote, mysterious little island whose closest neighbor, Ni'ihau, lies beyond the horizon, about 120 miles southeast. The ancestors of my people, Native Hawaiians, somehow lived, farmed and worshipped on Nihoa – in the middle of nowhere – where their remnants still stand, frozen in time.
Accessing Nihoa – which lies within the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument – is tricky. There's a tiny sandy beach in the south bay that may have once been used for access. But endangered Hawaiian monk seals currently haul out there, and federal laws protecting endangered species prevent people from using the beach. Inaccessibility combined with a stringent permitting process has prevented humans from visiting – and thereby impacting – the island. According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, just 26 groups have been onto Nihoa in 28 years, and the vast majority of these visits were by U.S. Fish and Wildlife staff.One good deed President Bush and his Administration has done for the Polynesian... more
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Kepano
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added this
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3 years ago
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