Long ago – long, long ago – I had this idea to make a comic out of the statues on Easter Island. Obviously this would be a very cerebral comic as the main characters were made of stone and planted in the ground. They were sort of the Original Talking Heads.
One storyline concerned feet. Few realize that the statures have complete bodies and were planted so the couldn’t move around on their own. One (and this is true) was never finished and he wonders aloud why they don’t have feet, assuming they were all like him. And he feels somewhat damaged, especially with some of the others laughing at him, until one of the elders reminds them all that even with feet they are no better than their brother without them.
Yeah, crazy stuff. Perhaps one day I can hook up with a comic artist and carry out this odd venture.
Anyway, in doing extensive research I found a prayer for bringing rain to the island Te Pito O Te Henua, which is what the current occupants call the island. I’ve always liked this simple prayer to the god Hiro and, in fact, was the text (in a slightly different translation) for the one copy of the comic I ever produced.
‘E te ‘ua, matavari roa ‘a Hiro e
Ka hoa mai koe ki raro
Ka rei mai koe ki raro
‘E te ‘ua, matavari roa ‘a Hiro e—–
Oh rain, long tears of Hiro
Fall you down
Beat you down
Oh rain, long tears of HiroMetreux translation, 1940
from the bookRongorongo: The Easter Island Script : History, Traditions, TextsBy Steven R. FischerPublished by Oxford University Press, 1997
