Ebook The Mystery of Easter Island The Story of an Expedition eBook Katherine Pease Routledge
Download As PDF : The Mystery of Easter Island The Story of an Expedition eBook Katherine Pease Routledge
Easter Island is one of the most remote locations on earth.
Located over two thousand miles off the coast of Chile, the Rapa Nui people live isolated from the rest of the world.
The inhabitants, who had settled on the island at some point between 300 and 1200 A.D., had developed their own unique culture, language, mythology, art and sculpture.
Europeans had first stumbled upon the island and its inhabitants in 1722, yet even by the early twentieth century little was known or understood about Rapa Nui.
Katherine Routledge, a British archaeologist and anthropologist, decided to organize an expedition to the island and record the fascinating way of life and beliefs of the Rapa Nui.
With support from the British Association for the Advancement of Science, the British Museum and the Royal Geographical Society, and a crew borrowed from the Royal Navy, Routledge and her husband set out on their ship, the Mana, on 25th March 1913.
Routledge in her book, The Mystery of Easter Island, documents all the aspects of this lengthy expedition, including the year-long journey travelling across the Atlantic, visiting Madeira, Grand Canary, the Cape Verde Islands, Brazil, Argentina, sailing through the Strait of Magellan, and finally Chile before landing on Easter Island in March 1914.
While on the island Routledge records in brilliant detail how the inhabitants lived, their oral history and legends that had been passed down through generations, their religious beliefs and cults prior to the emergence of Christianity on Easter Island, as well as the famous the prehistoric remains on the island including the huge numbers of Moai statues.
The final section of the book covers the return section of the voyage, visiting Pitcairn Island, Tahiti, the Hawaiian islands, San Francisco, going through the Panama canal, Jamaica and various other Caribbean islands before finally finishing the journey in Southampton.
Katherine Routledge published her survey of Easter Island 1919 as The Mystery of Easter Island, which became a popular travel book in the early twentieth century. She suffered from schizophrenia for most of her life and was eventually institutionalized in 1929 and she passed away there in 1935.
Ebook The Mystery of Easter Island The Story of an Expedition eBook Katherine Pease Routledge
"It was easier to navigate through than I expected"
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The Mystery of Easter Island The Story of an Expedition eBook Katherine Pease Routledge Reviews :
The Mystery of Easter Island The Story of an Expedition eBook Katherine Pease Routledge Reviews
- Katherine Pease Routledge writes with clarity, a little humor, and kindness. Something someone wrote in a review made me want to do a little research on her life and it was sad to learn that she was later institutionalized for mental illness. She was married at the age of 40 in 1906 and wrote this book about the voyage to and from Easter Island in her early 50's. It's hard to believe that she later suffered from extreme mental illness.
This book begins with the preparations for the trip. I assumed that there was a grant that paid all the expenses, but later learned that she was from a very wealthy family and paid for the building of their 90 foot yacht and, I assume, most of the travel costs which must have been considerable at the time.
The preparations for the trip were extremely interesting to me as were the details of their voyage to Easter Island. And, of course, the research, discoveries and descriptions of the figures was fascinating. I have to admit I zoned out at the attempts at interviewing the elderly Easter Island inhabitants of the island to try to get more information as to where they originally came from and old customs and what the ancient writing actually said. Her guesses as to what the unreliable interviews meant bothered me as too unscientific.
I originally read this book on my . It was full of typos and missing so much punctuation that I had to read many phrases and sentences again. I also felt the pictures were small and unclear, but that could have just been the fault of my Fire. I ended up ordering the book so that I could see the pictures more clearly. I am pretty sure the paper book would seem much more coherent also. I just received the book today and while paging through it didn't see all the typos and punctuation errors. This book is available at this time in a paperback version for less than the hardcover edition.
In addition to the paper book I ordered the Katherine Routledge biography. I am anxious to learn more about her life.
If you have any interest in Easter Island and the amazing statues I would definitely get this book. I hope to go there one day. - This reviewer first heard of this non-fiction travel book when I recently read the novel "Easter Island" by Jennifer Vanderbes (please enjoy my reader review of that novel too). That author made reference to the using Routledge's true story in her own novel. The main characters are based on Routledge and her 1914 Easter Island adventure expedition. This is a perfect example of the truth being stranger than the fiction.
The book is written in a very folksy light manner that was typical of many 1919 publications. Katherine Routledge and her husband "decided to see the Pacific before we died, and asked the anthropological authorities at the Britsh Museum what work there remained to be done, the answer was, `Easter Island.'" So in 1910 this wealthy couple decides to mount an exhibition to Easter Island. The first step is to build a 90-foot custom designed yacht in which to make the journey that they named "Mana." The Royal Navy "lent the Expedition a Lieutenant on full pay for navigation and survey." By this time the reader has a pretty good idea that Katherine Routledge wasn't a typical British citizen who wanted to go on a little ocean adventure. She seems more like a character out of Jules Verne science fiction novel. This may have been a scientific journey, but the expedition traveled in typical British Empire comfort.
Katherine Maria Pease Routledge was the second child of a very wealthy Quaker Family who decided to become an archaeologist. Her travel adventure is wonderfully related in this nearly 400-page reprint of the original 1919 book. The book is greatly enhanced by the addition of numerous drawings and photographs from the voyage. Routledge and her husband had previously published a book on the Kikuyu people of East Africa called "With a Prehistoric People."
Routledge, because of the time she arrived and researched the island was able to interview many people and study many traditions (such as tattooing) and works of art that had disappeared by the time later scientists arrived to study the island, its culture and the mysterious stone monuments the "Moai."
So typical of the glory years of the British Empire, lots of odd things happened even after the expedition ended. "The Royal Cruising Club Challenge Cup...was in 1917, awarded to `Mana" on her return...for a remarkable cruise of the Pacific." The two Pitcairners who joined the return voyage to England, who spoke "the pure Elizabethan English of the Bible and Prayer Book" were introduced to King George and Queen Mary and later provided passage back to the smallest colony of the British Empire.
"Only in England" could be applied to this story. It's a fascinating, fun read. It really does resemble a Jules Verne novel, only it really happened and was dutifully reported and the reader can look at the photos and admire the detailed drawings as well as read the written account. - Interesting book if you are curious about the journey to Easter Island and what life was like there in the early 1900's for Katherine Routledge and company.
- This book may have been scanned and processed from the original as there are some typos. The pictures too are scanned poorly. If you can look past the technological limitations , you will love this book not only for its exploration of Easter Island but also for its account of sailing around the world during Ww1
- Probably the first book anyone should read if interested in real facts about Easter Island history and folklore. Only reason I gave it 4-stars was because the photos (and there are many) are all black and white. i was hoping for color photography and the black and white photos make the book seem outdated, which it is not. Recommend anyway as the facts far outweigh the lack of color.
- It was easier to navigate through than I expected
- I visited Rapa Nui in 2015 and it's amazing to read her story and see the photos taken from this expedition.
- I am intrigued by the travel journals of the early 1900's, especially women. Women like Katherine were very hardy souls, working and living in a man's world. They traveled under conditions that today we wouldn't dream of paying to go on a trip like that. In addition, it's a great look into the culture of some of the ports of South America and of Easter Island prior to a lot of contact with white people.
