Easter Islanders

Want A Polynesian Federation

By R. W. Robson

The idea of a Federation of Polynesia has come up again— this time in a strange way and from a remote and isolated

place.

A REUTER’S message in January reported that the residents of Easter Island are clamouring for a separatist decision and that Chile has sent a warship with marines to the island, presumably to subdue the movement. The islanders say they wish to join their nearest neighbour (French Polynesia) in a Federation of Polynesia.

Easter Island is one of the most isolated places in the world—it is 1,500 miles east of Tahiti and 2,000 west of South America, It has been a Territory of Chile since 1888.

Chile’s Government is now push ing through Congress a law under which the Easter Islanders will be incorporated into the metropolitan administration of Chile—and the islanders do not like this.

Chile appears to be annoyed about the situation. It blames the separatist movement upon a French archaeological team which has been at work in Easter Island for some time.

Bare, wind-swept and treeless, the island is 12 miles long by five miles wide, and has no economic value, but is interesting archaeologically— it is the home of two mysteries.

The reason for the gigantic statues scattered around the island, and the meaning of the strange glyph writing upon them, are unknown: and no one has traced the origin of the Easter Islanders.

There is evidence that an early race, which may have had something to do with the rock carvings, were either exterminated or absorbed.

There were between 1,000 and 3,000 people there when the island was dis covered by Roggeveen in 1722, but they were decimated later by European epidemics and, between 1850 and 1870, slavers from South America carried off most of the able bodied men to work South American plantations and guano deposits. By 1900 there were only two or three hundred of these people left.

Since then, under Chile’s care, the population has slowly increased to 800 or 900—not 1,500, as re

ported by Reuter. They speak a language of Polynesian dialect.

A staff member of the Pacific Islands Monthly who called there in 1960 reported that the men swarmed onto the ship in an endeavour to sell their small carved replicas of the famous statues; but, when the visitors wanted to buy, their dollars were of no use—the islanders wanted trousers.

Clothing is in short supply— especially men’s wear—and those travellers who wanted the unusual souvenirs had to part with some of their wardrobe. American women, in particular, were reduced to the necessity of purchasing worn-out pants from members of the crew, and then trading them to the islanders for the statuettes.

In theory, the idea of a Federa tion of Polynesia has something to commend it. The peoples of Poly nesia—principally the French Islands (between Tahiti and the Marquesas), the Cook Islands, American and Western Samoa, Tonga, and the Ellice Islands, and some smaller places—are similar in type and languages; and their archipelagoes are alike, being mostly within the south tropical region of the Pacific Ocean. Psychologically they are very much alike. One might also include the Maoris, of New Zealand, and the islanders of Hawaii— ethnologically, they are the same people.

"An Empty Dream"

But, in practice, the idea of a Federation of Polynesia— at present, anyway—is an empty dream. The French never would surrender French Polynesia, voluntarily. The Maoris now are completely absorbed in New Zealand, and the Hawaiians in the American State of Hawaii. Western Samoa now, like Tonga, is an in dependent state.

Three countries (or archipelagoes) probably would be readily sur rendered by their present admini strators to a Federation of Poly nesia—namelv, the Cook Islands, of which New Zealand gladly would be rid; American Samoa, which really is only a pampered plaything of the United States, and of no real value to that Power; and the Ellice Islands, which are retained by the British Colonial Office simply because the British Colonial Office does not know what to do with them.

If such a Federation ever came into being it would have a hard time economically—it would have to depend, for overseas exchange, upon the sale of copra, and upon the growing tourist traffic.