The original inhabitants of Easter Island serve to show us what the ingenuity of the human spirit can accomplish and the follies that can accompany them. The first islanders were the Polynesians that arrived around 400 AD from south-east Asia. It is estimated that their were between twenty and thirty individuals that made the colossal journey. By the innovation of the double canoe it allowed them to travel a great distance to an island where they could establish a brilliant civilization. There civilization was based on being the best one can be which fostered intense competition between the different clans. Competition brought out the best and the worst in the people over their greed for the resources that the island provided.
The only resources 1that the people brought with them to the island were food, chickens and rats. On the island, the temperature was high and the drainage system was poor that caused only a few plant species to grow. They found on the island a few dozen indigenous plants, two types of lizards, many sea birds, a few insects and no mammals (Easter Island. 2011). The lack of available options that the island offered in food supply caused the Polynesians diet to consist of mainly chickens and sweet potatoes. A benefit of this is that it does not require a lot of time to tend to chickens and sweet potatoes. This empowered the citizens with a lot of extra time for the development of their culture.
The islander's culture developed as their population numbers began to increase. At first they started out as families which eventually grew into clans. Each clan had one chief that directed all of the activities of the clan. The immense organization by the islanders caused them to develop their own extr...
... middle of paper ...
...ource usage. We must be careful to limit our usage of them to support our society since if we use up every last remaining resource. We like the islanders will have no means of escape.
Works Cited
1. Brookman, David. Easter Island Home Page. (2007)
<>http://www.netaxs.com/~trance/rapanui.html (visited 22, Jan. 2011)
2. Diamond, Jared. Easter Island Lessons. (14, Sep. 2010)
<>http://away.com/features/easterisland.html (visited 23, Jan. 2011)
3. Easter Island (2011)
<>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter_Island (visited 22, Jan. 2011)
4. Rain Forest Facts (3, Mar. 2010)
<>http://www.rain-tree.com/facts.htm (visited 20, Jan. 2011)
5. Secrets of Easter Island. (Apr., 1998)
<>http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/easter (visited 22, Jan. 2011)
6. Wassmann, Cliff. Easter Island. (2005)
<>http://www.mysteriousplaces.com/Easter_Island/ (visited 21, Jan. 2011)
Captain James Cook and his crew came to Hawaii in 1778. Bringing along many diseases such as, syphilis, gonorrhea, tuberculosis, and viral hepatitis.(Blaisdell, p.44) Native Hawaiians were not immune to these diseases, they were unable to be cured therefore died and a massive depopulation occurred. An estimated 500,000 Hawaiians were living in Hawaii before Western Contact, and in 1878 less than 45,000 Hawaiians remained.(Trask, p.10). With the rapid decrease of Hawaiians, also came the fact that their culture was in danger.
A small archipelago off the northwest coast of Britsh Columbia is known as the “islands of the people.” This island is diverse in both land and sea environment. From the 1700’s when the first ship sailed off its coast and a captain logged about the existence, slow attentiveness was given to the island. Its abundance, in both natural resources physical environment, and its allure in the concealed Haida peoples, beckoned settlers to come to the island. Settlers would spark an era of prosperity and catastrophe for the native and environmental populations.
The arrival of the missionaries in Hawaii changed the lives of the natives in huge ways that lasted forever. The introduction of western houses and culture had a big influence on Hawaii. The native Hawaiians built their houses out of grass and had very simple villages, but when the missionaries established their settlement they built more sophisticated and sturdy homes out of coral and used western architectural methods to construct buildings. The Hawaiians soon following their lead and the royalty all had western palaces for homes. This also lead to an increase in technology, such as the use of wells and water lines to store fresh water for the towns. They also began to bring in and
... harvest fruits and berries and grains from the island. This will supplement the food that can be grown and harvested on the island. Everyone on the island will share the food available equally. If a point comes where there is more food than what the people can eat, at that point we will dry grains, fruit, and vegetables for use later. Even meat can be thinly sliced and smoked and dried to preserve it.
In order for the reader to understand how colonization affected Ocean Island, the reader needs to understand the history of the Island. In Pearl Binder’s book, Treasure Islands: The Trials of the Banabans, she tells of what Ocean Island first looked like. Ocean Island, or Banaba, is one of the many islands in the Pacific. It is situated almost exactly on the equator. The whole island is three miles long and two and a half miles wide. The highest point of Banaba is 270 feet. The island was rocky but had quite a bit of land for growing crops. After living peacefully by themselves for a long time, the Banabans allowed travelers to enter their land, which changed their lives forever. Blackbirders, who are labor recruiters, came to Banaba in 1862 as a result of the Civil War happening in the U.S. (Binder). The need for cotton was in high demand so they needed workers to harvest it all. The blackbirders came and kidnapped strong young men from the villages to use them for working in Fiji, Honolulu, South America, and Queensland where enterprising planters had started cotton plantations. While slavery was ending in the U.S., it was just starting in the Pacific (Binder). At the end of the nineteenth century...
The Island is used to battles and struggles for independence. Even going back as far as the 16th century when the Conquistadors had control of the island, the Indigenous people that lived on the Island called Taínos, united and revolted against the Spaniards. But only armed with spears, and bows they were no match for the flintlock weapons, cannons, and steel breastplate of the Conquistadors. In time the Spaniards all but wiped out the Taíno population and culture, and took control of the Island. Remnants of Taíno genes still exist due to the in...
Sahlins work provides in a depth-analysis of the Hawaiian culture and how it developed through past events. Sahlins was able to show how paying close attention to culture can be helpful when studying the past. With a detailed tale of Captain Cook’s importance in the Hawaiian culture, the cultural interactions with the British and how it led to dynamic changes in the Hawaiian culture.
One reason for the lack of communication and cooperation between different groups of Native Americans was the instituted political system. The Indian political system was broken up into three main levels. These “three levels of social connections” (5) were clans, villages and tribes. Clans were led by their eldest members, villages were ran by sachems who referred to the counsel of elders and communal approval and tribes were headed by one or more sachems who were advised by clan and village members in order to act according to community compromise. In the Native American political system men and women were both permitted to serve as sachems and provide political guidance on important communal issues. Although this system tended to promote unity within individual ...
Jean Giddens (2013) defines culture as “a pattern of shared attitudes, beliefs, self-definitions, norms, roles, and values that can occur among those who speak a particular language, or live in a defined geographical region.” (Giddens, 2013). A person’s culture influences every aspect that person’s life. Beliefs affected by culture include how someone interacts within the family, how to raise children, the types of foods eaten, the style of clothes chosen, which religion is practiced, and the style of communication (including verbal, and body language, slang used etc.) (Giddens, 2013). In addition to these beliefs, health care practices are also affected by culture. The cause
In the chronological, descriptive ethnography Nest in the Wind, Martha Ward described her experience on the rainy, Micronesian island of Pohnpei using both the concepts of anthropological research and personal, underlying realities of participant observation to convey a genuine depiction of the people of Pohnpei. Ward’s objective in writing Nest in the Wind was to document the concrete, specific events of Pohnpeian everyday life and traditions through decades of change. While informing the reader of the rich beliefs, practices, and legends circulated among the people of Pohnpei, the ethnography also documents the effects of the change itself: the island’s adaptation to the age of globalization and the survival of pre-colonial culture.
Today most experts believe that Easter Island was first settled by Polynesians looking for a new homeland. About 1680 A.D, the quality of life on the island began to decrease. At this time, clan rivals erupted in a bloody battle between long ears and shorts ears. This destruction of the islands natural resource undoubtedly contributed to its decline.
Cherokee villages were made up of groups of relatives that included members of at least four clans. They grew their own crops outside their villages, alt...
All and all, the Ancient Hawaiian civilization is something to marvel at. From its climate, politics, education, religion, art and architecture, technology, economics, and social live. The ancient Hawaiians has shaped modern Hawaii and our lives
According to legend, the island of Curacao, was founded by Portuguese crew members from the ships of Christopher Columbus who were dying of scurvy and asked to be dropped off on this island. The Portuguese, who had originally intended to die on the island as an alternative to dying at sea and being fed to the sharks, ate some of the island’s fruits and vegetables and miraculously recovered.
The Polynesian peoples have a lifestyle quite different than that of any other culture, as living on an island requires a level of flexible adaptability in order to cope with such a different, sometimes difficult environment. We see the way diverse cultures build their lives around their circumstances and how they respect them in their cultural myths and stories. The Polynesian legends emphasize the physical environment that they live in. They are quite different than any other region in the world, but the beauty and individuality of the Polynesian culture is prominent as seen in their mythology.