Aku-Aku: The Secret of Easter Island

The expedition to Easter Island in 1955-56 on a Greenland trawler was really another opportunity for Heyerdahl to test his theory that the first wave of immigrants to Polynesia came via Peru and Easter Island on balsa rafts. The seaworthiness of the latter had already been proven on the Kon-Tiki expedition in 1952.On the Easter Island expedition Heyerdahl and his 22 companions discovered that the island had once been wooded before the first inhabitants deforested it. Furthermore, according to carbon dating, these earliest settlers had apparently arrived about 380 A.D. which was much earlier than previously assumed by other archaeologists. Interviews with some Easter Islanders suggested that the island's oral tradition contained stories of migration from places to the East. Of course the biggest mystery of Easter Island was the origin of the huge statues of long-eared men.AKU-AKU was a great adventure story and to me the most inspiring aspect of it was Heyerdahl himself. He has set the standard for sticking by his convictions against all odds from his original expedition to Polynesia with his young bride in 1937 to his death on April 18, 2002. Heyerdahl at the very least has injected much life into a stodgy academic discipline.The natives of Easter Island by the way are called Rapanui and today a total of about 2000 Rapanui still live on the island while many others have emigrated to mostly Chile , Tahiti and North America.

When you finish this book you will know how the great statues were made, transported, and erected. You will find that the natives of Easter Island still know how to do these and many other ancient things. But the real mystery of Easter Island is not the long eared statues, but the Aku Aku. The book is a humorous chronicle of the unexpected scientific discoveries made by the team. It reads like an adventure novel complete with the most interesting characters. You will love the Mayor who knows everything, his brothers and his pal Lazurus. You will learn how and why the natives bake chicken. You will cringe as Thor descends hundreds of feet down shear rock faces, in the dark, hovers above the crashing waves just below his feet, and enters unlit haunted caves and slithers in to the solution of the mystery of the strange stones of the Aku Aku. None of it is fiction.I have read this book many times and just introduced my eleven year old son to it. Now I find I must buy all the rest of Heyerdahl's adventures for him. Much more enlightening than Harry Potter.

Though criticised as commercial and overexposed, Thor Heyerdahl must be considered as one of the first scientists in wide spreading his archeological knowledge in an amusing and understandable way to common readers. And this book is a clear example of his effort. After his scientific expedition to Easter Island in 1957, Thor Heyerdahl wrote this fascinating book of discoveries, new theories and adventures. It was such a pleasure for me reading it that I can only recommend it.

Thor Heyerdahl was already at his young age certain that there have been more or less extensive contacts between ancient civilizations on both sides of Atlantic ocean and also over Pacific. This is much different view from the conventional one which claims that ancient nations were only sailing along the shores and did not dare to cross the oceans. His first interest was in giant faces (which later proved to be full bodies) on the Easter Island, which is almost isolated from every other land by at least 3,000 miles of Pacific ocean. Yet the tales of the local tell us that great white skinned bearded gods have sailed to their island form East and brought them civilization. In their respect and to their succesors they have built giant statues. So he has gathered some experts and adventurers with him, bought a boat and went to the Easter Island, where the crew stayed for about one year. He came familiarwith life, the rituals and the treasures of the natives, which are clearly divided into two different race types. The villagers have first raised one fallen statue in a very original and imaginative way and then constructed a brand new statue, transported it to the place and raised it up. Several scholars have doubted that this is the way how the statues were made and erected because there was no wood to transport them, the rocks are incredibly hard, there is not enough people etc. I don't know which scholar has claimed that they have tried to chip off the stones and they didn't succeed due to their hardness. I believe Heyerdahl more in this aspect because if you are told how to do something and if you are skilled, you'll manage to do it in a reasonable time, while someone with no knowledge or skill will work a small eternity to produce almost nothing. A blacksmith will make you a horseshoe in few minutes. Take one hammer, piece of iron, heat it and try to make your own horseshoe :)). Thor's book is an amazing report on people's achievements. If you are given knowledge about a thing and if you see a purpose to do it, then you will find resources, time and everything else. Gods have visited Easter Island. We may never know who they were, but we know how they came to the island. But that is subject of tke next book: Kon Tiki. Read that one too.