Moai

[poliphilo]

The Moai of Easter Island are huge statues, with elongated faces, jutting chins, heavy brows and ski jump noses. They look a bit like Richard Nixon and a bit like the Frankenstein monster.

There is nothing like them anywhere else in the world. These days we know something of the culture that produced them, but back in the 1950s no-one had a clue. I decided they were supernatural. Perhaps they came alive and stomped around their island when the sun went down.

They were just about the scariest thing I knew. As scary as ghosts. As scary as the very tall half-woman half-rabbit person I once saw in a dream.

I was afraid of them turning up in my bedroom. But that was bearable. I had a strategy all worked out. Obviously they could only appear on the left hand side of the bed. If I lay on my right I wouldn't see them.

Perhaps they were already there, looming up behind me. But that was bearable because it was seeing them that would do the damage. I didn't try to imagine what would happen after. Seeing them would be enough. One glimpse of those craggy, eyeless faces and I would dissolve in terror and cease to exist.

Comments

[besideserato.livejournal.com]

You know, the statues were not eyeless. The eyes were only put onto them during rituals to help them communicate with their gods and ancestors and bring forth mana to their people. They say part of the reason that the culture fell apart was that they used so many palms and other resources for the construction of the Moai that they destroyed their ecosystem. By the time Cook got to Easter Island in 1774 (some fifty years after the first Europeans were there) the place was desolate.

It's strange to consider these amazing cultures. Easter Islanders, the Olmec, the Inca... such amazing works. Where in the world did they go?

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

It seems like the Easter Islanders pretty well destroyed themselves.

Yes I know about the eyes. Or I do now. I think the photos I saw as a kid were all of eyeless Moai.

[besideserato.livejournal.com]

They can be pretty scary.

Of course when I was little, I was afraid that a cow would come into my room.

Not a bull, mind you, because I had a red sheet for that.
I was scared of cows.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Um, yes.....

Well I guess cows are pretty large.....

[besideserato.livejournal.com]

Not that I ever had any experiences at all with the animal. I don't know. They just freaked me out. Not snakes, not scorpions: cows. Freaky.

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

I have always thought blank eyes were eerie.

What are they thinking? No clue.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

There's a story by M.R. James where the spook has eye sockets full of spiders' webs.