Rapa Nui

Rapa Nui lies over three thousand kilometres from the South American coast: the eastern corner of the Polynesian triangle, settled by voyagers who crossed open ocean centuries before Europeans could. Chile's 2017 census counted 9,399 people who identify as Rapa Nui, most living on the island itself.

The moai, the great ancestor figures carved at the quarry of Rano Raraku and raised on stone ahu around the coast, are among the most recognised objects humans have ever made. They were not made by a vanished race or by anyone's aliens: they are Rapa Nui ancestors, made by Rapa Nui hands, and the island's history of ecological strain, slave raids and annexation is a history its people survived.

Annexed by Chile in 1888 and long run as a leased sheep ranch, the island saw its people confined to one town within living memory. Today Rapa Nui co-administer the national park that covers their ancestors' works, the language is taught in the island's schools, and the community controls migration to the island under a 2018 law.

This is an introduction, the first layer. A full collection, like the Mapuche collection that opened this atlas, follows as research and review are completed for each people.