Episode 101 – Islands in the Stream – Myths Your Teacher Hated

Episode 101 Show Notes

Source: Rapa Nui (Easter Island) Folklore

This week on MYTH, we’re sailing out to one of the most isolated communities on the planet. You’ll see that meeting the Europeans is usually a bad thing, that you can totally navigate the open ocean with vague directions, and that you need to hide your traps better. Then, in Gods and Monsters, it’s the origin story for some of the most iconic statues in the world. This is the Myths Your Teacher Hated podcast, where I tell the stories of cultures from around the world in all of their original, bloody, uncensored glory. Modern tellings of these stories have become dry and dusty, but I’ll be trying to breathe new life into them. This is Episode 101, “Islands in the Stream”. As always, this episode is not safe for work.
This week, we’re headed out into the wild blue yonder to visit one of the most remote inhabited islands in the world: Rapa Nui, better known in English as Easter Island. Unfortunately, as has so often been the case, the arrival of European colonizers beginning on Easter Sunday, April 5 1722 devastated the local population. Rongorongo, the local language (or possibly proto-language – scholars are divided on the issue), has never been deciphered. Knowledge of the unique glyphs, which could be one of the very few completely independent inventions of writing in world history, was lost as the Rapa Nui people were ravaged by European diseases and were kidnapped by European slavers.
The most famous element of Rapa Nui, the enormous stone statues known as the moai, were originally carved and raised between 1250 and 1500. They were primarily the faces of the deified ancestor spirits and chiefs and towered over the island at up to 33 feet tall, gazing inland towards the villages under their protection. Sometime between 1722 and 1868, all of the completed statues were toppled by the Rapa Nui, destroying most of them. It has been theorized that the protector statues were destroyed in response to the horrors that befell the island after European contact as they had been proven to be ineffective when they were needed most. In recent years, about 50 of the moai have been re-erected on their ahu platforms or in museums around the world.
As a result of these many factors, much of the Rapa Nui mythology has been lost to time. One of the stories that has survived is that of King Hotu Matu’a and his people fleeing their home in Hiva for a new land. Various versions have been recorded by different writers and explorers, including William J. Thompson in 1891, Katherine Routledge in 1919, Alfred Metraux in 1971 and Thomas S. Batherl in 1974. Modern scholars hold that either the storyteller or the interpreter got the directions backwards since the story claims that these people came to Rapa Nui from the direction of the rising sun, a direction that is notably empty of any islands that could possibly have been their origin.
Many, many years ago, Hotu Matu’a and his followers lived in a group of islands that lay far towards the rising sun, known as Marae Toe Hau which means ‘the burial place.’ It was a terrible, inhospitable place that was so intensely hot that people frequently died from the awful heat. Plants that were planted would often shrivel up and die, scorched by the burning power of the sun. Hotu Matu’a succeeded his father, who had been powerful and widely respected, as chief of his people.
Hotu Matu’a had only been in charge for a few years when his brother Machaa fell in love with a maiden famed for her beauty and grace. Unfortunately, he was not the only one to seek the hand of this amazing woman – Oroi, the chief of a powerful rival clan known as Hanau Eepe, was determined to beat his rival for her love. Oroi and his people had invaded Hiva and taken one side for themselves. For her part, this young beauty found it impossible to choose between the two great men. Her heart was torn between them and she flirted with both, urging on first one and then the other until both Machaa and Oroi were absolutely enflamed with passion for her. Everyone could see that this situation was building to an explosion of violence, so her family finally insisted that she make a decision.
After much consideration and agonizing, the young maiden announced that she would marry Oroi, but on one condition – he would need to prove his love by making a pilgrimage around the island. He would need to walk without pause, neither resting nor stopping to eat day or night until his circuit was completed. Not being heartless, she did allow the chief to bring along retainers to carry his food to eat as he walked on his declaration of love. She even walked beside Oroi and his retainers for the first few miles of the journey and, when they separated, she vowed to think of nothing but her beloved Oroi until his return. Unfortunately, she was still every bit as fickle as ever and, as soon as her betrothed was out of sight and out of mind, she missed Machaa and went back to his strong arms. Their passion convinced the pair to elope that very night, even as Oroi was still on his feat of endurance to prove his love for the woman who couldn’t remain faithful for a single night.
News of this betrayal reached Oroi only as he arrived at the far end of the island. He understandably called off the rest of his now meaningless journey and rushed straight home. He threw a great feast and invited all of the warriors of his clan to eat at his table. Once they had eaten his food and shared in his hospitality, he shared with them the terrible insult that Machaa and their shared lady love had committed against Oroi. The assembled warriors were horrified by this betrayal and happily vowed an oath to not rest until Machaa and his entire family, including Hotu Matu’a, had been executed.
Now the chief Hotu Matu’a had a spiritual advisor named Hau Maka, who’d had a dream in which his spirit traveled to a distant land in search of a new home (though they hadn’t known at the time why they would need such a thing). Hau Maka awoke and told his brother Hua Tava about his dream, which had been an extremely detailed tour of the island naming many of the important places, and was told to inform the king. Hotu Matu’a sent his two sons Ira and Raparenga along with Hua Tava’s five sons Kuukuu, Ringiringi, Nonoma, Uure, and Makoi to build a canoe and search for the dream island. All they had to go on were the following directions: i lunga, e tau, e revareva, and i roto i te raa, which translates to upwind or southeast into the trade winds, it juts out, a permanent contour, and in the midst of the rising sun. Not the most explicit directions for exploring the open sea.
Still, the gods were with them and the seven young men found the island revealed by the god Make-Make. They explored the island and found many of the places located by Hau Maka in his dream. They caught many fish with their bare hands and tossed them ashore to eat for dinner. Ira also saw a turtle and, figuring it would make a hearty meal, tried to lift it but it was far too heavy. Raparenga tried as well, but had no more success. Kuukuu decided to show them both up and, to everyone’s surprise, actually managed to lift the turtle off the ground. The turtle, who happened to be a kuhane or spirit, struck the young man on the back, shattering his spine and then swam back to Hiva. Kuukuu begged the others not to abandon him, but they couldn’t stay with him forever. They needed to continue on and then report on what they had found. Kuukuu was taken to a cave and six stones were piled up beside the entrance to take their places looking over their brother after they left. Alas, Kuukuu died there, alone and abandoned in the cave.
They discovered a surfing spot, and rode the waves to more places on the island shore. While the others were busy surfing for fun and exploration, Ira and his brother Raparenga went around secretly placing some stone figures they had brought from Hiva. Three were set up on the shore with shining mother-of-pearl necklaces that could be seen from far out on the ocean to make it easier to find the place again. The six surviving explorers then met a man named Nga Tavake, who had come to the island before them for reasons that are not adequately explained. They warned him that the land was bad, with only grass growing where yams had been planted. They then proved this to be a huge lie by going to the yam farm that had been planted by Kuukuu (rest in peace) and weeding it.
Deciding that they had thoroughly explored the island, the six young men returned to Hiva to report to their king. While they had been gone, the Hanau Eepe had tried to move the border and expand their territory, but many had been captured and imprisoned. With word finally arriving that the dream lands existed, Hotu Matu’a made the tough decision to abandon their home and sail his people, 300 in total, in two large double canoes (said to be 90 feet long and 6 feet deep. The warriors of the Hanau Eepe saw the preparations for this journey and launched a battle to try and kill Machaa and his brother as well as to rescue their captured brethren, but they were repulsed. Hotu Matu’a ordered his people to set sail that very night, bringing along with them their captured prisoners as an insurance policy.
The two canoes made the long voyage across the open sea and came to the island the seven explorers had mapped out on their previous trip. Hotu Matu’a led one of the boats and another man named Honga Hineriru, who wrote rongorongo and had almost as much mana as the chief, led the other. Mana is a concept among the Rapa Nui people of spiritual or divine strength. In many cases, tattoos were used both as a representation of social class and as a receptor for mana, which those blessed by the gods could use to do incredible things. Being very powerful in his own right, Honga Hineriru used his mana and that of a man named Teke who was also in his canoe to establish 14 new fishing grounds in various places around the island. Hotu Matu’a, determined not to be outdone, resolved to be the first to land at Anakena, an anchorage on the north side of the island that had been chosen as the future sight of the royal residence. He ordered a spell chanted to make his own boat move faster and to make Honga Hineriru’s to go slower, giving him time to establish two new fishing grounds of his own before landing first.
Once everyone was ashore, the two canoes were disassembled so that the precious wood could be used to build houses for the people. Seedlings were distributed to the island’s new inhabitants and the captured Hanau Eepe were ordered to be settled somewhere suitable for them to do much of the heavy farming labor of getting the new home settled properly. A man named Iku, which means ‘insect’, was installed as a puppet king of the Hanau Eepe and ordered to keep them in line and working.
While everyone was distracted by these activities, another figure slipped ashore from the canoes before they were taken apart. It was none other than Oroi, who had managed to sneak onto Hotu Matu’a’s canoe disguised as a servant without being discovered. He hid himself on the island and waited for an opportunity to wreak havoc. That chance came not long after when five children of a loyal man named Roro went to bathe at a small cove named Ovahe. Once they were nice and clean, they climbed onto a rock out in the water to sunbathe and dry off.
As they lay there on their bellies, Oroi swam silently out to the rock. He captured a lobster and fashioned its shell into a weapon. One by one, he rammed the lobster weapon up the assholes of the sunbathing children and ripped their intestines out (and yes, the story is very specific about the method of death). When the children didn’t return, Roro asked their mother where they had gone. She directed him out to the rock where they had gone bathing, but it had been lost beneath the high tide. Once enough time had passed and the water level dropped again, he saw the mutilated corpses of his children rotting there on the rock.
Roro knew violence intimately, and it was clear to him that their deaths had not been an accident or an animal attack – they had been murdered. After establishing that the captured Hanau Eepe all had rock-solid alibis, Roro came to the undeniable conclusion that someone else must have come to the island somehow. It didn’t take much pondering to come to the conclusion that Oroi was responsible. He took his suspicions to the king. Concerned, the king decided to confer with his adopted daughter Veri Hina, who lived with her husband at Mahatua.
Oroi was waiting for him. Anticipating this little trek, the hidden enemy left a noose trap lying across the road to snare the king. Having been warned about the possible existence of an assassin on the island, he was forewarned and forearmed, so he saw the trap and skirted around it. Calling together his daughter and his son-in-law, he told them his concerns. “I need you to follow me and watch for signs above me. If the dark terns circle high above, I will live, but if they dive down at me, I am surely dead.” They agreed to follow the king and watch his back.
Hotu Matu’a made his way carefully back along the path and saw that the noose still lay in waiting. Oroi was here. Glancing up, he saw that the terns were circling high above, which gave him hope. The king took a deep breath. “I hope I’m not about to get my ass handed to me,” he said and took a deliberate step into the noose. The rope yanked his foot out from beneath him, dropping Hotu Matu’a heavily to the ground. Oroi leapt out of his hiding place, bone knife held high. Kicking sharply with his free foot, Hoto Matu’a bought himself precious seconds to summon his mana and cast a spell at his would-be murderer. The magic caught Oroi square in the chest, stopping his heart mid-beat, and the enemy chief toppled over into the dust.
Having seen the scuffle from afar, Veri Hina and her husband rushed down from their vantage point to check on her father. Both combatants had crashed to the earth, leaving them terrified that both had died. They were relieved to find Hoto Matu’a disentangling his foot from the snare next to the bloodless corpse of Oroi. They knew that the dead chief had also been powerful in mana and needed to be further dealt with to make sure he stayed good and fucking dead. The three of them gathered up the corpse and carried it back home to cook in the oven.
Hotu Matu’a lit the flames , which rushed into the dead man with an unearthly cry as Oroi sat up, very much alive again. Unfortunately, Veri Hina and her husband were waiting for just such a thing, and so they bashed him across the skull until he was once again good and dead. This oven wasn’t going to do the trick, so they took him over to the other side of the island. The ahu there was able to cook the corpse to charred flesh with ease, and it was later named Oroi after the dead chief. His corpse nicely broiled now, the assembled family ate his flesh (likely to take his mana as their own).
Having secured Rapa Nui for his people, Hotu Matu’a set up his home in Oromanga in a house called Hare Tupa Tuu. Years went by in peace until his eldest son Tuu Maheke was 15. The king’s cook Rovi went to catch inaki or eel as a side dish for their sweet potatoes. The best eels were a long distance away from the house and so Ravi stayed away overnight. Likewise, the boy’s mother Vakai left to dig up sweet potatoes for the meal, leaving the king alone with his son. The story doesn’t explain why, but the teenager apparently began to cry, which pissed off the king who, to be fair, apparently had a splitting headache. Being a right bastard of a father, he screamed insults at his son rather than trying to help or at least ask nicely to be kind to his aching head. “Stop your fucking crying, you gods-damned bastard! You weeping, sniveling crybaby!” When this predictably did nothing to make him stop crying, Hotu Matu’a stormed out.
Vakai came back to find her beloved son weeping silently, eyes swollen and red. She asked him what had happened, and he told her all about what his father had said. She cooked dinner for her son to help him feel a little better, then went to confront the king. “You asshole – Tupa Tuu is not the bastard, you are! Your real father was Tai a Mahia; Kokiri Tuu was your foster father, you dick. Next time, keep a fucking civil tongue in your head.” Hotu Matu’a was shocked at this news and distraught that no one had ever bothered to tell him the truth about his own parentage (and he hopefully also felt guilty about being a shitty dad).
The king ruled over the island for many years of relative peace and prosperity, and he grew old. Hotu Matu’a could sense that his time was at an end. He fit the last two stones of a great construction project together, his last work in this life, and then called his children together to receive his final blessings. That done, he went to Orongo to announce his imminent death. Looking out across the sea towards his long lost homeland Hiva, he called out to his guardian spirits Kuihi and Kuaha: “Let the rooster of Ariana crow soft and sad. The stem with many roots, the king of Rapa Nui, is coming to the land of the spirits.” Even as his voice echoed over the waves, he collapsed to the sand and died.
His children collected his body and brought it to Akahanga and buried him in Hare o Ava. His eldest son, Tuu Maheke (I’m not sure if this is the same boy with a different name or an inconsistency in the tale) cut off the dead king’s head, dried and cleaned it, wrapped it in tava, and hid it in a stone crevice. The reasons for this are not explained, but I would assume it had some spiritual significance, possibly associated with the ancestor spirits who watched over the island. Perhaps this was the first step in making the king one of these protectors. On the other hand, maybe the son just really hated his asshole of a dad and wanted one posthumous fuck you. I’m leaning a little bit towards the second based on what happened next.
A man named Ure Honu was out weeding his banana plantation when a rat wandered up, bold as brass. This little furry critter didn’t act like a normal rat – it showed far too much intelligence and curiosity for that. Ure Honu was intrigued by this strange turn of events and decided to follow the furry little bugger, which just so happened to be Hotu Matu’a’s spirit. It led him through the banana trees to a hole where, to his surprise, he found a dried yellow skull.
Ure Honu wasn’t entirely sure what to make of this development but it was clearly something he had been led to by the spirits, so he decided to keep the skull. When he built a new home at Vai Mata, he hung his macabre trophy on the wall. As was tradition, he threw a great feast to celebrate the building of his new house. Everyone who was anyone was there, including the new King Tuu Ko Ihu. He was shocked to recognize the old king’s skull. “Holy shit, those are the teeth that ate turtles and pigs back in Hiva!” He thought that, as king, he should have the old king’s skull but he didn’t want to ask for it and be denied by its owner, so he just straight up stole it.
Having yoinked the skull, Tuu Ko Ihu couldn’t exactly display his ill-gotten booty so he buried it under a stone near his house. He hadn’t gotten away clean though – Ure Honu’s foster son had spied the new king taking the skull. Furious at the insult, Ure Honu gathered up a posse and set out in search of the stolen skull. They stormed the king’s house and tore down a wall looking for it, but found nothing inside. They searched the grounds, digging up the earth itself. Through all of this, King Tuu Ko Ihu had been sitting on a rock out in the field outside his home. This…seemed odd. He hadn’t so much as stood up to confront them for tearing the shit out of his house. The crowd snatched the king up, dragging him off the rock and rolling it aside. Sure enough, the skull was beneath it. Ure Honu took it up happily and returned home, putting his skull back on the wall. Thus was Hotu Matu’a allowed to rest in peace and his people prospered on the island for a thousand years.
Some scholars have pointed out the striking resemblance of the name of this mythical Rapa Nui king to the early founder god from Mangareva in the Gambier Islands in French Polynesia: Atu Motua. It is suspected that Hotu Matu’a was only added to the Rapa Nui mythology in the 1860s when the Mangarevan language was also adopted. It’s believed that the true first king was actually Tuu Ko Ihu, who was reduced to a supporting character in Hotu Matu’a’s story. And with the two founder kings firmly established, it’s time for Gods and Monsters. This is a segment where I get into a little more detail about the personalities and history of one of the gods or monsters from this week’s pantheon that was not discussed in the main story. This week’s guardian spirits are the moai.
Probably the most famous feature of Rapa Nui, the moai (whose name means ‘statue’ in the Rapa Nui language) are enormous human figures carved from stone. Despite the common image of them just being giant stone heads, the moai do in fact have bodies, though the heads are quite oversized, typically making up ⅜ of the total statues. The iconic image of disembodied heads comes from the fact that the standing moai were toppled following European contact. It is believed that this mass toppling was either due to a crisis of faith following the horrors of European contact (disease, enslavement, and slaughter with advanced weapons) or as a result of inter-tribal war, with the statues toppled to destroy their power and weaken enemy forces. Most of the surviving statues were those that had never made it out of the Rano Raraku quarry, many of which were buried up to their shoulders.
There is a truly fantastic story about the reasoning behind the moai’s iconic shape that was part of the modern oral tradition on Rapa Nui. The version here was narrated in 2013 by 60 year old Carlos Edmunds of Hanga Roa, Rapa Nui. When the settlers had first arrived on Rapa Nui from Hiva, Hotu Matu’a realized that they hadn’t brought any moai, and their guardian spirits, with them. He sent six men to retrieve the moai named Tauto and bring it to their new home. Unfortunately, they dropped the moai as they were loading it into the canoe and broke it into two parts. Hotu Matu’a had a vision of this terrible event and cried out. He rushed to the beach to watch for the return of the expedition, but the six men never returned. A few days later, the head and neck of Tauto did wash ashore, laden with mana and in some versions was used as the model for later moai.
It was Hotu Matu’a’s grandson who first thought of crafting the moai to represent important people who had died. The first moai, known as Tai Hare’Atua, lies near the front of the quarry. The artists hadn’t figured out their craft yet and they couldn’t decide how to finish the carving and get it out, so they left it where it was, forever unfinished. The man sent his two sons, Miru a Hotu and Tangi te Ako a Hotu, to go back to Hiva and ask how the moai were made. He knew from the stories his grandfather Hotu Matu’a had told of their old home that there was a wise man who might still be alive who knew the secrets.
The two young men traveled to distant Hiva to find the old man, named Kave Heke, who lived not far from the main town. They walked out to sacred Ahu Makere, near the coast, to ask how the moai were made. They found him busily occupied with his daily business. No matter how many times they asked him their questions or how many different ways they tried to phrase it, Kave Heke ignored the shit out of them. They waited a long time for him to say something, anything to them, but he never acknowledged their presence. Eventually, they grew frustrated and decided to leave. It was getting late and he clearly wasn’t going to help them, so there was no point in staying any longer. As they walked away, Kave Heke finally looked up and called out one enigmatic phrase: “Not to worry – just go, you have it down below.” Or at least, it was something like that. It’s difficult to translate the full context from the original Rapa Nui.
The two young men hurried back to the old wise man. Unfortunately, he had gone back to ignoring the fuck out of them. They gave up much more quickly and wandered away again, though they kept one hopeful ear out for any further words of wisdom, but none were forthcoming. They discussed the cryptic words as they walked, but neither of them had any idea what they meant. They returned back to their own island and began the long trek home. As they came to a small forest, one of the two needed to take a piss. He pulled out his dick and began to pee when it dawned on him. “Bro, look at my dick! This is what that wacky old man meant – our penises are down below. That’s what the moai need to look like!” The two returned home and shared their wisdom with the island. From that point on, the moai were carved as enormous penises with a face and arms and eyes.
That’s it for this episode of Myths Your Teacher Hated. Keep up with new episodes on our Facebook page, on iTunes, on Stitcher, on TuneIn, on Vurbl, and on Spotify, or you can follow us on Twitter as @HardcoreMyth and on Instagram as Myths Your Teacher Hated Pod. You can also find news and episodes on our website at myths your teacher hated dot com. If you have any questions, any gods or monsters you’d want to learn about, or any ideas for future stories that you’d like to hear, feel free to drop me a line. I’m trying to pull as much material from as many different cultures as possible, but there are all sorts of stories I’ve never heard, so suggestions are appreciated. The theme music is by Tiny Cheese Puff.
Next time, we’re heading off the forest path to meet one of the most famous fairy tale characters ever – Little Red Riding Hood. You’ll see that you shouldn’t feed a wolf shit and tell him it’s pancakes, that little kids shouldn’t drink an entire bottle of wine, and that the outhouse is a dangerous place. Then, in Gods and Monsters, it’s the Taiwanese predecessor to the Big Bad Wolf – Great Aunt Tiger. That’s all for now. Thanks for listening.