The Birdman competition was a dangerous ... Watch the Kevin Costner-produced movie Rapa Nui (Amazon Prime) to get a feel for this race's extreme difficulty and intensity. The individual who ...

In Hanga Roa's small museum, several were explored: UFO and New Age nonsense, the still undeciphered language of the Rapa Nui, the so-called birdman cult that replaced the moai at the end of the ...

Easter Island's statues are famous. Towering stone figures against the island's green landscape, they've inspired replica statues in Japan and emojis on smartphones around the world. As ...

"I hear the families speaking Rapa Nui among themselves," explained Maria ... Rather, they show the tangata manu, the Birdman of the eponymous 18th- and 19th-century cult that sprang up as ...

(Having befriended several Rapa Nui during my visit ... only with native religious traditions but with the "cult of the birdman." (In centuries past, each year a birdman competition was held ...

Why Trust Us? For decades, archeologists have debated whether the writing system of Rapa Nui (Easter Island), known as Rongorongo, was invented independently or influenced by Europeans.

but also for control of the island and the title of Birdman. If you can’t guess who wins, you’re reading the credits backward. “Rapa Nui” may have its many story line and acting faults ...

More than 800 years ago, Polynesians sailed thousands of kilometres across the Pacific Ocean to one of the most remote islands on Earth, Rapa Nui. Now, a study of ancient genomes from descendants ...