'Stolen friend': Rapa Nui seek return of moai statue.

Pedro_P

▼ Prominent among the eclectic hoard of treasures in London's British Museum is the imposing figure of Hoa Hakananai'a, a four-tonne basalt statue from the Chilean Pacific territory of Rapa Nui - named Easter Island by European explorers.
The statues, known as moai, were carved by the island's indigenous Rapa Nui people to embody the spirit of a prominent ancestor, with each considered to be the person's living incarnation.
"The British taking the moai from our island is like me going into your house and taking your grandfather to display in my living room," says Anakena Manutomatoma, who is a native of the island and serves on Rapa Nui's development commission.
"For us, the repatriation of Hoa Hakananai'a is an absolute priority."
Long way from home
The statue, along with a second, smaller moai known as Hava, were given as gifts to Queen Victoria in 1869 by the captain of HMS Topaze, Commodore Richard Powell.
His crew excavated Hoa Hakananai'a from a cliff top near the Rano Kau crater in November 1868, and the Queen donated the two statues to the British Museum.
It has been on display 8,500 miles (13,700km) from its spiritual home ever since.
Alongside its clear cultural and spiritual importance, Hoa Hakananai'a is a particularly fine example of the statues that see thousands of tourists visit Rapa Nui each year.
"In some ways the statue is unique because it is made from a very hard basalt lava rock, unlike the majority of statues on Rapa Nui. As such, it is unusually well-preserved and its features are pristine," says archaeologist Mike Pitts, who spent several nights at the museum in 2012 conducting a detailed scan of Hoa Hakananai'a.
"It also has a unique collection of petroglyphs on its back that almost certainly were not part of the original statue, so you have a second layer of history embodied in the stone."
Calls for repatriation
There has been a recent awakening on the island with regard to repatriating the moai, which under Chilean law are considered to be part of the land.
Sculptor Benedicto Tuki, a Rapa Nui native who has dedicated his life to promoting and preserving the island's indigenous culture, attributes the newfound interest in bringing the moai home to a generational shift.
"Perhaps in the past we did not attach so much importance to Hoa Hakananai'a and his brothers, but nowadays people on the island are starting to realise just how much of our heritage there is around the world and starting to ask why our ancestors are in foreign museums."
In order to facilitate the return of the Hoa Hakananai'a, a name often translated as "lost" or "stolen friend", Tuki has offered to make an exact replica to take the statue's place in the British Museum, free of charge.
"Perhaps it won't possess the same ancestral spirit, but it will look identical," the sculptor says. "My only wish is for him to return home; for me this is worth far more than any amount of money. As long as I live, I will fight to see our ancestors returned to the island."
Asking to be heard (▪ ▪ ▪)

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soothsayer

Sad story of colonialism. So you can just pick up what you do not relate to and hand it over to the Queen? Why not dig out your greartgreat Grandpa and hand over the fossils to her? She will really admire it!