Few times throughout history a form of writing originated ex novo, without deriving from systems already in use1. This is the case, for instance, with the ancient Sumerian cuneiform or some pre-Columbian systems from Central America. Such a rare occurrence also seems to concern a very special writing that no scholar still could decipher: the rongorongo glyphs of Easter Island.
The rongorongo glyphs and Rapa Nui
The term rongorongo originated in the island’s Polynesian language, Rapanui, with the meaning of “declaiming” or “reciting by singing”. A local oral tradition says that it was the mythical founders of the Rapanui civilisation who brought with them strange tablets full of glyphs and inscriptions. However, beyond the legend, it is likely that rongorongo glyphs developed among the population of Easter Island independently, without any influence by Central American or Polynesian languages.
Moreover, even the Rapanui civilisation has ancient and mysterious origins. Reconstructing its cultural aspects is an interesting archaeological and anthropological challenge. The isolation of Easter Island, precisely Rapa Nui, the Great Rock, and the absence of written sources are major obstacles to understanding the people who lived there for hundreds of years. Genetic analyses have shown that the inhabitants are descended from pre-existing Polynesian peoples2. However, many aspects still remain unclear. Colonisation, for instance, could start after 800 A.D.
The decline of a civilisation
We know with certainty that the island’s inhabitants had to cope with the limited natural resources of such a small territory. After a few centuries of demographic balance, the population therefore began to decrease. It is possible that the totemic approach of the Rapanui society contributed to this: from 1200 A.D. onwards it began the construction of moai, gigantic monolithic stone statues, whose erection on the ground required large quantities of wooden logs. Although Easter Island was at first rich in palm forests, it underwent progressive and inexorable deforestation. This had as a collateral consequence the reduction of fauna and edible resources.
Thus, around 1400 A.D., population growth and timber shortages reached a critical threshold. This led to violent struggles to defend and conquer the remaining natural resources. By the time the first Western explorers arrived, such as the Dutchman Jakob Roggeveen on Easter Sunday 17223, the Rapanui population was extremely low and by then there was not a single palm tree left on Easter Island.
The mysterious writing of the rongorongo glyphs
The rongorongo writing developed in this historical context, ranging from 1200 to 1600 A.D. Later times seem unlikely, since some glyphs represent the Easter Island Palm, which disappeared around the mid-17th century. The wide time span on the origins of the rongorongo, and the impossibility in determining a more precise historical moment, stem from the fact that the first studies arose only following the Spanish expedition of 1770, when Eugène Eyraud discovered some tablets engraved with strange glyphs4.
“Inside every house there are wooden tablets and canes covered with hieroglyphs; they represent images of animals unknown at the island that natives carve with sharp stones. Every figure has its name, but the little attention they give to these tablets makes me thinkthat these symbols, remnants of a primitive writing system, are now for them a habit they preserve without trying to find
E. Eyraud, Lettre du Fr. Eugène Eyraud, au T.R.P. Supérieur général (1864), in Annales de la Propagation de la Foi, 1866. Translation by Dina Tricca and Angélica Alister C.
out the meaning“.
A fascinating hypothesis about the rongorongo glyphs
One plausible reason is only priestly caste could use the rongorongo. Their members knew the meaning of the glyphs and how to decipher them. The decline of population on Easter Island and of the priests could explain the forgetting of the rongorongo. Also the lost of the engraved tablets, since no one could read them anymore. The rest of the population reused them as decorations, to make other objects or even as firewood. To date only about 20-255 tablets have survived, on which scholars have had to base all attempts of decipherment.
Description, glyphs and recent attempts to decipher the rongorongo
The reading of the rongorongo followed a boustrophedon path. One proceeded to the edge of the support by reversing the direction in the line below, from the bottom true to the top. These were characteristic glyphs that mostly reproduced human, animal or plant figures. With rare exceptions, the support used for writing was made of wood, and engravings were impressed with shark’s teeth. Scholars have deduced the direction of writing from the orientation of the human figures. Nevertheless, there are rare exceptions of “inverted” glyphs of unknown meaning.
Conclusions
Efforts to decipher rongorongo were numerous, and often with uncertain outcome. The scarcity of sources and the gradual disappearance on Easter Island of early phonetics due to modern colonization, make the task of scholars arduous or prohibitive. The most accepted view today is that rongorongo was not a complete writing system of the logographic or syllabic type6, but an “aid for memory or decorative purposes,” as the Atlas of Languages mentions. Perhaps it was a peculiar, idiosyncratic method of remembering notions and events concerning astrology. This is evidenced by a fragment of a tablet with a lunar calendar. So the rongorongo allowed knowledge transmission concerning agriculture, geography and genealogy of the people who once inhabited Easter Island.
Samuele Corrente Naso
Notes
- A. Robinson, The death of RongoRongo, in Writing and Script: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press, 2009. ↩︎
- A.G. Ioannidis, J. Blanco-Portillo, K. Sandoval et al., Paths and timings of the peopling of Polynesia inferred from genomic networks, Nature 597, 522–526, 2021. ↩︎
- Since Jakob Roggeveen reached the island on Easter Sunday 1722, it was renamed “Easter Island”. ↩︎
- E. Eyraud, Lettre du Fr. Eugène Eyraud, au T.R.P. Supérieur général (1864), in Annales de la Propagation de la Foi, 1866. ↩︎
- The real authenticity of some is debated as they could be copies made by tourists in the late 19th century. ↩︎
- K. Routledge, The Mystery of Easter Island: The story of an expedition, London and Aylesbury, Hazell, Watson and Viney, 1919. ↩︎
