A ''reimiro'' is a crescent-shaped pectoral ornament once worn by the people of

Easter Island Easter Island ( rap, Rapa Nui; es, Isla de Pascua) is an island and special territory of Chile in the southeastern Pacific Ocean, at the southeasternmost point of the Polynesian Triangle in Oceania. The island is most famous for its nearl ...

. The name comes from the

Rapanui The Rapa Nui (Rapa Nui: , Spanish: ) are the Polynesians, Polynesian peoples Indigenous peoples of Oceania, indigenous to Easter Island. The easternmost Polynesian culture, the descendants of the original people of Easter Island make up about 60% ...

stern The stern is the back or aft-most part of a ship or boat, technically defined as the area built up over the sternpost, extending upwards from the counter rail to the taffrail. The stern lies opposite the bow, the foremost part of a ship. Or ...

' or '

prow The bow () is the forward part of the hull of a ship or boat, the point that is usually most forward when the vessel is underway. The aft end of the boat is the stern. Prow may be used as a synonym for bow or it may mean the forward-most part ...

') and ('boat'). Thus the crescent represents a

Polynesian canoe Polynesian navigation or Polynesian wayfinding was used for thousands of years to enable long voyages across thousands of kilometers of the open Pacific Ocean. Polynesians made contact with nearly every island within the vast Polynesian Tri ...

. Each side of the ''reimiro'' ended in a human face. The outer, display side had two small pierced bumps through which a cord was strung for hanging it. The inner side contained a cavity that was filled with chalk made from powdered seashells. A ''reimiro'' provides the image of the Flag of Rapa Nui (Easter Island). It also appears to feature in the

rongorongo Rongorongo (Rapa Nui: ) is a system of glyphs discovered in the 19th century on Rapa Nui (Easter Island) that appears to be writing or proto-writing. Numerous attempts at decipherment have been made, with none being successful. Although some c ...

script of Easter Island (as glyph 07: ), and one ''reimiro'' is preserved with a long rongorongo text. Although the human faces on the ''reimiro'' are unique to Easter Island, the pectoral itself is part of a wider tradition. In the

Solomon Islands Solomon Islands is an island country consisting of six major islands and over 900 smaller islands in Oceania, to the east of Papua New Guinea and north-west of Vanuatu. It has a land area of , and a population of approx. 700,000. Its capit ...

, for example, women wear shell pectorals which resemble ''reimiro.''

Gallery

Image:Flag of Rapa Nui, Chile.svg, A ''reimiro'' is the emblem of the Flag of Rapa Nui. Image:Reimiro without faces.jpg, A large (61 cm) ''reimiro'' with very stylized faces. It may be that pectorals of this size were worn by men. Image:Rongorongo L rei miro 2.jpg, A ''reimiro'' inscribed with rongorongo glyphs. Image:Woman with rei-miro.jpg, A Solomon Islands woman wearing a shell pectoral resembling a ''reimiro.''

References

* Stéphen-Charles Chauvet. 1935. ''L'île de Pâques et ses mystères'' ("Easter Island and its Mysteries"). Paris: Éditions Tel. (An online English version is availabl
www.chauvet-translation.com here
)

External links

Splendid Isolation: Art of Easter Island
an exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art (fully available online as PDF), which contains material on Reimiro

{{Easter Island

Footnotes

Fashion accessories Easter Island