About fifteen minutes past the appointed starting time, the lights in the room dimmed, which came as a relief, if only a temporary one, and Jasper Robinson jogged out from behind a curtain accompanied by music that sounded somewhat anthem-like. I idly wondered if I had wandered into a religious revival meeting by mistake. Robinson bounded up the steps and thence to the microphone, smiling and waving like an evangelist—or was it a candidate for president he most resembled? I couldn't decide. Moira started to giggle, Gordon Fairweather looked heavenward for support, and Rory, staring at his shoes, shook his head in amazement. I wanted to throw up.
The room may have been small, but the screen to one side of it was large, as was Jasper Robinson's head on it. Rock concert, I decided. Not a campaign stump, not a religious meeting. A rock concert. I was right, too, because just then a group of dancers dressed in traditional Rapa Nui attire came out to perform, accompanied by a group of musicians and two women who sang. Jasper swayed and clapped in time to the music. I looked around the room. Everyone, with the exception of Rory, Fairweather, and I, seemed to be lapping it up. Even Moira was smiling, but she may have just been laughing at the absurdity of it all.
Then as quickly as it had started, the warm-up act was finished, and the dancers, who had actually done an excellent job even if the context was a little odd, dispersed. I can remember thinking that when I felt better, I might like to see them perform again. On the large screen a photograph of a moai appeared, and across it the words Rapa Nui: The Mystery Solved appeared. "Good evening ladies and gentlemen, colleagues, and all those who love knowledge," Robinson said. There was applause. I guess nobody in the room was prepared to admit they hated knowledge. "I am here tonight to present for your consideration my latest work on the mystery of the moai of Rapa Nui." He paused and there was a smattering of applause again. "I'd like to begin, if I may, with a personal note."
A photo of an older man in a blue shirt and sun hat, smiling, appeared on the screen. "It was my privilege to spend some time with the late Thor Heyerdahl," Jasper said. "Heyerdahl has been an inspiration throughout my life. He was not an archaeologist, as some of you in this room like to point out, but he was driven by a fierce commitment to his work, and his death is a tremendous loss. Easter Island, I know, was very dear to his heart. He believed, as most of you know, that the moai of Easter Island were carved by people from the South American mainland, people with highly evolved skills at stonework and from a sophisticated culture that was responsible for the great cities of Peru and Bolivia.
"For fifty years, the experts, some of whom are in this room," Robinson said, with a touch of sarcasm in his tone when he said the word experts, "have been trying to prove that settlement of Rapa Nui from the east, from the mainland, is not possible. My question for all of us this evening is what if the experts are wrong?"
"Not again," Rory sighed.
A new slide appeared: There is extensive archaeological evidence for the early settlement of Rapa Nui by Polynesians. If South Americans settled on Rapa Nui, where is the evidence?—Rory Carlyle. Rory and Gordon exchanged glances, Rory's rather pained.
"Heyerdahl knew perfectly well that Polynesians had settled Rapa Nui, Dr. Carlyle," Robinson said. "But he believed very strongly that there had been two waves of settlement of the island, one from South America that brought the great stonemasons to Rapa Nui, the second from central Polynesia. What evidence did he produce that would support that? First this." A slide showing Felipe Tepano sitting on a rock surrounded by a number of children, all apparently listening intently, came up on the screen. Behind them were a couple of horses, and for a few seconds I was drawn back into my dream. In this particular fragment of memory, there was a horse in the showroom at McClintoch and Swain. In the dream I had thought this was highly unusual and not a good idea, but it didn't seem to bother Clive at all. Pity he wasn't so reasonable in real life. I had this overwhelming sense that there was something I had to do, or remember, and whatever it was, it hovered somewhere near my conscious mind, but it wouldn't reveal itself. I turned my attention back to Jasper Robinson.
"Rapa Nui oral tradition tells of two waves of settlement of the island. One, of course, is the story of Hotu Matu'a, the first king, or Ariki Mau. But there is a story of seven others who came ahead of Hotu Matu'a, and there are stories of pale, redheaded men on the island. It is even possible that Hotu Matu'a was pale-skinned. We know how valued pale skin has been over the centuries here; witness the practice of placing people in caves to whiten their skin. Those who do not accept Heyerdahl's theories are happy enough to believe the folk tales about the arrival of Hotu Matu'a, but ignore the stories that suggest the arrival of a different people. This is hardly good science.
"But is oral tradition, suspect at the best of times, the only discussion point this evening? It is not." A photo of a potato appeared on the screen.
"Not that potato business again," I heard Lewis Hood say in the row behind.
"Get to the point, man," Albert Morris said.
"Ipomoea batatas," Robinson said. "A type of sweet potato. This has been the spanner in the works, as we would say in England, the monkey wrench, where discussions of the original inhabitants of Rapa Nui are concerned. It sticks in the craw of our so-called experts, believe me."
"Since when was he English?" Fairweather muttered. He must have seen the look I sent his way because he leaned over and said, "Don't worry. I'll behave."
"Ipomoea batatas is, I'm certain we will all agree, indigenous to the Americas, not to Polynesia. Yet it has been on Easter Island for a very long time and may indeed predate the arrival of the ancestors of the people who now live here. It is easily transported by people, that we know. Recent work shows us that it was in Polynesia by about 700 AD. How did it get there? At this time, we simply do not know."
"Is that true?" Moira asked Rory.
"Sort of," he replied.
"I still don't get it," Yvonne said. "Even though Jasper already explained it to me."
"Shush," Edwina said. "Why are you here if you won't pay attention?"
"Heyerdahl believed it came direct to Easter Island from the source in South America," Jasper said. "Given that we don't know how it got here, is this any more improbable than saying Polynesians got to South America and took it back with them? I do not believe so. Those who support transfer from Polynesia point to the fact that they can find no evidence for the sweet potato on Rapa Nui before 1600 AD, but surely this is not entirely fair, given that ipomoea batatas does not preserve well in sediment. This one fact alone should force us to at least revisit the possibility that people like Thor Heyerdahl were right and that the first settlers on Rapa Nui were from South America. But no. The orthodox view now is that Heyerdahl was completely incorrect, and the search for the moai builders has moved on."
Up on the screen there appeared what looked like a reed of some kind—bulrushes, we'd call them at home. "The tortora reed," Robinson said. "Also indigenous to South America." The slide disappeared quickly to be replaced with another, this one showing two men astride a boat, paddling out to sea. "This slide shows us small boats made of this same tortora reed," Robinson continued. "The photograph was taken just off the coast of northern Peru, where boats of this type are common. The tortora reed is found in the crater lakes of Rapa Nui, and we have drawings of Rapa Nui people on craft like this. What would the self-proclaimed experts have to say about this?"