Hotu Matua

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Hotu Matua is a mythical chief / king (Polynesian: ariki ) from the Southeast Pacific . The legend of Hotu Matua deals with the settlement of Easter Island and is the central epic of Easter Island culture. It has been handed down in several versions, which are based on a uniform basic structure, but in the details z. T. differ significantly from each other.

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dream trip

The beginning of the legend is a dream in which Hau Maka from the country “ Hiva ” - he is referred to as a “royal tattoo artist ”, in Polynesia a special position of trust - sends his soul on a long journey. You pass seven islands, which turn out to be deserted and empty, or are hidden behind veils of fog. Only the eighth island turns out to be fertile and beautiful.

Exploration

He tells the chief Hotu Matua about his dream, who decides to send a reconnaissance team of six youths from his residence "Marae Renga". They leave on April 25th and when they reach Easter Island on June 1st, they find that it corresponds to the description in Hau Maka's dream in every detail. They explore the island . When they turn over a giant turtle lying on the beach to cook and eat it, it struggles and seriously injures one of the youngsters. The companions leave him dying in a cave and set off to return.

colonization

After a quarrel with another chief named Oroi (in some versions Hotu Matua's biological brother), the cause of which is described differently in the various versions of the legend, Hotu Matua has to leave his place of residence. He equips a large double-hull canoe (in other versions three or six canoes) and sails away on September 2 with 200 companions (in other versions 300 or 600). But not only the settlers but all kinds of useful plants and animals, such as on board breadfruit , yams , taro , sweet potato , banana , sugar cane , paper mulberry , Toromiro , chickens, pigs and rats (the Polynesian rat was bred as a food animal) as well as a stone statue (a moai named Te Takapau ) and Rongorongo tablets. On October 15th, the canoe reached the so-called "eighth country", Easter Island. So the journey takes a week longer than that of the scouts. Hotu Matua separates the two boat hulls and ends up on the beach of Anakena , the other canoe goes to the northwest coast. At the moment of landing, Hotu Matua's wife gives birth to a boy. A girl is born in the second canoe at the same time. Settlers settle at both landing sites, Anakena becomes the royal residence .

But his old adversary Oroi finally reaches Easter Island and murders Hotu Matua's son. Hotu Matua then sets a trap for Oroi and kills him after a long fight.

Death of Hotu Matua

Anakena on Easter Island; This is where Hotu Matua is said to have landed

When Hotu Matua gets old, he divides the island among his children, and their descendants form the future tribes of Easter Island. He goes to the Orongo cult site (deviating: on the Rano Raraku ) and looks to the west, towards his old home. When he hears the cry of the rooster of Marae Renga from across the sea, his death is near. His sons carry him to a hut where Hotu Matua dies. However, he is not buried in an ahu , but in a royal tomb, a stone-lined pit near Akahanga.

Lore

There were no historical records on Easter Island, and the Rongorongo tablets are unproductive in this regard. Both actual historical events and legends have been passed down orally from generation to generation. A clear separation is therefore difficult from today's perspective.

European missionaries and researchers began in the middle of the 19th century with an initially unsystematic collection and recording of the traditions. The records of the French Father Eugène Eyraud, who spent nine months as a missionary on Easter Island in 1864, are particularly valuable. The entry into the systematic research and collection of the legends did not take place until the 20th century.

Towards the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries, the Rapanui learned the European alphabet in missionary schools and began to write down the chants and stories of their culture themselves. The best-known manuscript , the so-called Manuscript E , comes from the possession of the Pakarati family, descendants of former Ariki from Easter Island. It was probably recorded around 1920. The above table of contents is based on this template.

There are also - partly deviating - reproductions of the Hotu Matua legend by Katherine Routledge , Alfred Métraux , Father Sebastian Englert and Edwin Ferdon , an archaeologist on the Heyerdahl expedition. In 1974, the ethnologist Thomas Barthel from the Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen presented a detailed translation, structure and interpretation of the Hotu-Matua material.

connections

Settlement myths exist on almost all islands in the South Pacific . Although each island has its own version of the legend, they are based on a uniform framework: the respective protagonist , a god, king, chief or mythical hero, has to leave a fabulous country of origin and go on a raft , dugout or canoe Canoe on a long journey into unknown regions. It not only brings emigrants with it, but also useful food plants and animals as well as cultural achievements that benefit the settlers in their new homeland. Such a "legend of origin" exists among the Maori as well as on Samoa , Tonga , Mangareva , the Marquesas and Easter Island.

Truthfulness

While the story of Hotu Matua is undoubtedly a legend, recent research suggests a true core. However, it is highly controversial to what extent the events described correspond to true events.

According to the earlier state of research, the settlement of Easter Island took place in two waves, beginning with the first wave of settlement in the 4th or 5th century AD. It was assumed that the legend of Hotu Matua describes the second wave of settlement that began in the 14th Century AD is said to have taken place. However, the mono-settlement thesis is currently preferred (again), with only one settlement from the Marquesas via Mangareva in the 5th century AD. This would mean that the legend of the settlement of Easter Island was preserved in the popular consciousness for more than 1500 years.

The starting point of the settlement, the mythical "Hiva", cannot be clearly identified, several islands or groups of islands come into question. Etymologically it should be noted that Hiva occurs as a prefix or suffix in several Marquesan island names ( Hiva Oa , Fatu Hiva , Nuku Hiva ).

Replica of a Polynesian double hull canoe

Thor Heyerdahl suspected that Hotu Matua came from South America , but this contradicts the traditional text and can be ruled out according to today's archaeological, linguistic and genetic research. The date of arrival and departure of the scouts is specified in the legend (April 25 and June 1, respectively). If you take the journey duration of 38 days for the exploration literally, then the island Pitcairn , the Gambier Islands (especially Mangareva ), large parts of the Tuamotu Archipelago , but also the Marquesas and the Austral Islands come into consideration as starting points.

Roggeveen already reports that at this time of the year in the sea area between the Tuamotus and Easter Island, westerly and northwest winds prevail, so the travel conditions are favorable. As experiments with replicas have shown, an etmal of 100 kilometers is quite realistic for Polynesian double-hull canoes, in good conditions even 200 km. The distance of nearly four thousand kilometers was not an insurmountable obstacle. On the occasion of the Pacific Art Festival in 1995, a non-stop trip from Hawaii to Raiatea over a distance of 4500 kilometers was undertaken with a replica of a large war canoe .

According to descriptions by early European explorers ( Cook , Beechey , Kotzebue ), Polynesian double-hull canoes were up to 30 meters long. A crew of 200 appears to be very high, but is not fundamentally excluded. Carrying seedlings, cuttings and animals with you as a basis for settlement was not uncommon and is known from other traditions throughout the South Pacific.

The text of manuscript E gives the following description of Easter Island - viewed from "Hiva":

  • it is "above" (i runga)
  • it extends beyond the horizon up
  • their contours stand out on the horizon
  • in the midst of the rising sun (i.e. in the east)

“Above” (runga) and “below” (raro) are terms used in Polynesia in navigation and refer to the direction of the trade winds . This and the location in the east of Hiva suggest that the Hotu Matua is traveling from west to east.

The place of residence of King Hotu Matua on “Hiva” is called “Marae Renga” (translated: the beautiful cult place) in the legend. The Protopolynesian word mala'e or marae denotes a ceremonial place in large parts of Eastern Polynesia ( Society Islands , Marquesas, Cook Islands , Austral Islands, Tuamotu Archipelago), but is not used on Easter Island. The corresponding word for this is “ahu”. The use of this unusual name in a legend of Easter Island also allows conclusions to be drawn about the origin.

Anakena on the north coast of Easter Island, the landing site of Hotu Matua, is undoubtedly an exposed site. Here is the only notable sandy beach on Easter Island, an immediately eye-catching natural harbor for shallow boats. Archaeological investigations have shown that it was an outstanding cult site of particular importance. The region has always been linked to the miru clan , who traced their ancestry directly to Hotu Matua. The miru clan chief was not the political leader in the sense of a king of the whole island, but the spiritual and religious head, the holder of mana , of the highest spiritual power.

In the vicinity of Anakena Beach there are two archaeologically detectable relics, remains of dwellings that, according to the Rapanui tradition, can be associated with Hotu Matua: a cave dwelling (Hotu Matua's Cave) and foundation parts of a Paenga house (Hotu Matua's House ).

Hotu Matua's cave is about 200 m southwest of the beach. The Rapanui claim that this is where Hotu Matua lived after landing on Easter Island until his house was completed. The cave is located in a natural channel along with other caverns. Arne Skjølsvold from Thor Heyerdahl's Norwegian Easter Island expedition in 1952/53 examined the low cave, which is only about 6 m deep and whose entrance was artificially narrowed with stone layers. He found a spearhead made of obsidian ( mataa ), which must be dated to the 17th or 18th century, as well as some remains of European trade products. He did not find any signs of early residents.

From Hotu Matua's house near the Ahu Nau Nau, only a single row of worked basalt foundation stones has been preserved (for the construction method → Paenga house ). The location suggests an exceptionally large, north-south-oriented building. However, the entire west side is missing. Skjölsvold suspects that the plant was never completed. During excavations inside, he did not find any household effects or other relics, so Hotu-Matua's house may never have been inhabited.

It is noticeable that there is no identifiable statue of Hotu Matua, although the moais of Easter Island are probably images of ancestors that once existed. It could be assumed that such an important personality would have been "immortalized" as a priority. This fact actually speaks against the truth of the legend and remains unexplained for the time being.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Thomas Barthel: Das Echte Land. Munich 1974, p. 323 ff.
  2. ^ Heide-Margaret Esen-Baur: Investigations into the Vogelmannkult on Easter Island. Wiesbaden 1983, p. 287 ff.
  3. ↑ Thor Heyerdahl: Aku Aku. Berlin 1957, Chapter 4, p. 83 ff.
  4. ↑ Geo Special: South Seas. Hamburg 2000, p. 67.
  5. ^ Karlo Huke Atan: Culture, Philosophy, History of Easter Island. Freiburg 1999, p. 22.
  6. ↑ Geo Special, p. 68.
  7. ↑ J. Flenley and P. train: The Enigmas of Easter Iceland. Oxford, New York 2002, p. 173.
  8. ^ Thor Heyerdahl and Edwin N. Ferdon: Reports of the Norwegian Archaeological Expedition to Easter Island and the East Pacific , Volume 1, London 1965, pp. 273-276

literature

  • Thomas Barthel: Das Echte Land - The discovery and settlement of Easter Island. Munich 1974, ISBN 3-87673-035-X .
  • Sebastian Englert: The first Christian century on Easter Island (1864–1964). Frankfurt am Main 1996, ISBN 3-89354-973-0 .
  • Sebastian Englert: Island at the center of the world - New light on easter island. New York 1970.
  • Heide-Margaret Esen-Baur: Investigations into the Vogelmann cult on Easter Island. Frankfurt am Main 1983, ISBN 3-515-04062-5 .
  • Eugène Eyraud: Nine months on Easter Island. In: Globus. Geographic journal. Volume X, Braunschweig 1866, pp. 313-315.
  • Thor Heyerdahl: Aku Aku - The secret of Easter Island. Frankfurt am Main, Berlin, Vienna 1974, ISBN 3-550-06863-8 .
  • Alfred Métraux: Easter Island. Stuttgart 1958.
  • Katherine Routledge: The Mystery of Easter Island. London 1919, ISBN 0-932813-48-8 .