Rapa Nui – lessons in unsurvival

We recently made a long post about our “trip” to Chile, which you can find here.

We would like to complete with some reflections about one of Chile’s five sites on Unesco list of World Heritage, the Eastern Island, Rapa Nui.

Rapa Nui, the indigenous name of Easter Island, is described by the Unesco as a place “which bears witness to a unique cultural phenomenon. A society of Polynesian origin that settled there c. A.D. 300 established a powerful, imaginative and original tradition of monumental sculpture and architecture, free from any external influence. From the 10th to the 16th century this society built shrines and erected enormous stone figures known as moai , which created an unrivalled cultural landscape that continues to fascinate people throughout the world.

Pic of Easter Island taken from Wikipedia

This reminded us of a really interesting discussion that we had when T. read a book about collapsing societies: The basic understanding of this book (Jared M. Diamond, Collapse – How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, 2005) was that there is a cultural locking in most past and present societies that make us, the inhabitants of this societies, react very (too) slowly because the cultural norms and values are so hard to break. It means that we are not very responsive to our own behavior, although it might be destructive and in the long run could challenge our survival.

The Easter Island and the disappearance of its society is often mentioned as an example of this phenomena. We are however more familiar with another example, the one of the Norse settlers on Greenland. This last example is slightly different since it also shows, through the indigenous Inuits, that surviving on Greenland is possible, which the Norse settlers didn’t manage to.

The Norse settlers identified themselves as Christian Scandinavians and dairy farmers. Their lifestyle depended on livestock although Greenland is not suitable for farming. Because of the cold and long winters, the animals were forced to remain indoors all winter and their survival depended on the quantity of the summer’s harvest. This was associated with great risk because of the erratic weather and made the Norse economy extremely sensitive.

Seals were an abundant food source and both the Inuit and Norse depended on it. But when the climate became colder and the water froze, most of the seal species disappeared from the area. All species but one, ringed seals, which are adapted to such an environment. Inuit had developed techniques to hunt these seals. This, along with their whale hunt, made them escape starvation. The Norse however never developed this technique and were often forced to slaughter some of their livestock.

Their identity as Christians also made them eager to build churches on Greenland and for this they needed heavy materials from Scandinavia. By extension this meant that the settlers had to be self-sufficient in food supply since there was no room for food on the arriving boats. The Norse committed another fatal mistake in their decision to use turf for insulation and heating, since this destroyed the grazing land. Thus this depleted the single most important natural resource they depended upon.

We find this so fascinating: The Inuits have built their culture and way of life based on the environmental conditions of Greenland.They have developed techniques to hunt whale and seal, which enabled food supply for a large population; they also used the blubber for fuel and the hides for clothing and building material for boats. Another arctic adaptation is their choice of building materials for housing, like snow during winter time. Their igloos are very effective and energy-efficient in terms of keeping warm. Inuits have shown that, although the climate was harsh and the living conditions were difficult, it was possible to survive on Greenland.

The Norse settlers on the other hand chose to follow the fashions from Europe, despite the weather conditions, and had a condescending attitude towards the Inuits, being very reluctant to learning or copying theirs techniques and habits. They were so stuck in their cultural identities that they continued with a unsustainable behavior until  the entire settlement was eradicated.

For us, it’s not so hard to draw some parallels with the western societies of today. We have created a very strong cultural identity based on consumerism and although there seem to be clear evidence that we are depleting and destroying the natural resources that we rely upon, we seem not to be able, or not interested in adapting our way of life.

Our intention here is not to paint a picture of the doom’s day but simply to urge our readers to take a minute to reflect on this matter. Our planet should be seen as an island. We can’t move back to the continent. Let’s use our brains and wonderful modern means of communication like the internet to discuss and question the way we live, the social logics that build up the identities of today in order to find a solution to ensure that we won’t only leave stone faces (or empty shopping malls) behind us.

Shopping carts meet Monet – a Banksy creation