EAST  OF THE NAVEL AND AFTERBIRTH
Subtitle: Reflections And Song Poetry From Rapa Nui (Easter Island)
Edition: Limited
Publisher: C.E.P. Publications
Published: 1975
Place of publication: Montreal, Quebec
Language: eng
Format: Hardbound
Number of pages: 94
Copyright date: 1975
Subjects: TRAVEL JOURNAL IN SOUTH PACIFIC; LIFE IN EASTER ISLAND IN 1975; TRANSLATION OF SONG POETRY OF EASTER ISLAND INTO ENGLISH
Genres: CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY; SOUTH PACIFIC ISLANDER POETRY
Other titles: Te Pito O Te Henua (The Navel Of The Earth)
Work titles: TRANSLATION of EASTER ISLAND SONG POETRY
First sentence: An oceanographic chart will tell you that Easter Island (Isla de Pascua), also known as RAPA NUI, is situated in the South Pacific some two thousand miles west of Chile, and one thousand one hundred miles east of Pitcairn, the nearest inhabited island. Learned anthropological texts will examine for you ethnological mysteries, and such scholars as Mrs Scoresby Routledge (1915), and Alfred Metraux, have constructed reasonable hypotheses of the folk tradition and polynesian origin in analytical evaluations of the history of the past of these happy islanders. Yet though interest in the island  has always been high, from the day of its discovery by Dutch Admiral Jacob Roggaveen on Easter Sunday 1722 until the present, reasonable knowledge of the island's prehistory, of its volcanic origin, and of the architectural features and distribution of its underground caverns is elementary.
Description: Reflections of the author while engaged in a study for the World Health Organisation - Pan American Health Organisation (WHO/PAHO) - of Leprosy among Easter Islanders, in 1975. At that time the island was virtually isolated. One plane a month, en route to Australia, stopped at the island. In interim periods between time spent on his medical work, the author, with the Island's  Chilean doctor,  (Ramon Campbell M.D.), transliterated 42 SONG POEMS into English. These are presented in this text. The text is also illustrated with petroglyph tracings carved on  volcanic  rocks of the Volcano Rano Kau. SONG POEM Number 34 is presented here:  Ka - hao, ka hao, rainbow/  o'er the golden water Ure will jump/  Oho - vei towards the beyond, Oho-vei/  great may be my father,/ with big bald head, who eats men/  in order that I, Ure the young, be saved.
Notes: Chronology of Easter Island from 1722 until possession by the Chilean Government in 1888. 42 Black and White illustrations with legends including aspects of the Volcano Rano Kau;  the Moiae;  the "factory" where the giant stone men were carved at Rano Raraku;  Dr Ramon Campbell the Island's doctor;  and numerous studies of petroglyphs - BIRD MAN - from the site at Orongo. Glossary of common terms translated into English. Transliteration of Pascuense Song Poetry into the English language.
Table of contents: title: INTRODUCTION; title: ILLUSTRATIONS FROM RAPA NUI; title: REFLECTIONS FROM RAP NUI; title: SONG POETRY (TRANSLITERATIONS 1 through 47); title: CHRONOLOGY OF EASTER ISLAND; title: GLOSSARY; title: LEGENDS TO ILLUSTRATIONS; title: LABORATORY OF THE SPIRIT; title: ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS