Makemake (also written as Make-make; pronounced in

Rapa Nui 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 nearly ...

) in the

Rapa Nui mythology Rapa Nui mythology, also known as Pascuense mythology or Easter Island mythology, refers to the native myths, legends, and beliefs of the Rapa Nui people of Easter Island in the south eastern Pacific Ocean. Origin myth According to Rapa Nui myt ...

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 ...

, is the creator of

human Humans (''Homo sapiens'') are the most abundant and widespread species of primate, characterized by bipedalism and exceptional cognitive skills due to a large and complex brain. This has enabled the development of advanced tools, cultu ...

ity, the god of fertility and the chief god of the "

Tangata manu The ''Tangata manu'' ("bird-man," from "human beings" + "bird") was the winner of a traditional competition on Rapa Nui (Easter Island). The ritual was an annual competition to collect the first sooty tern () egg of the season from the islet of ...

" or ''bird-man'' sect (this sect succeeded the island's more famous

Moai Moai or moʻai ( ; es, moái; rap, moʻai, , statue) are monolithic human figures carved by the Rapa Nui people on Rapa Nui in eastern Polynesia between the years 1250 and 1500. Nearly half are still at Rano Raraku, the main moai quarry, ...

era). He appeared to be the local form, or name, of the old Polynesian god Tane. He had no wife. Makemake, as a face with large eyes or perhaps a skull with large eye sockets and a phallic nose, is a frequent subject of the

petroglyphs A petroglyph is an image created by removing part of a rock surface by incising, picking, carving, or abrading, as a form of rock art. Outside North America, scholars often use terms such as "carving", "engraving", or other descriptions ...

The Birdman sect

Métraux states that Easter Island's "greatest religious festival, the only one concerning which circumstantial details survive, was that of the bird-man, intimately linked with the cult of the god Makemake." Makemake drove the birds to nest on the islet of Motu Nui ('big islet'), the center of the ''tangata-manu'' (bird-man) sect. Four gods were associated with it: Makemake, Haua-tuꞌu-take-take ('Chief of the eggs', usually simply called 'Haua'), ''vîꞌe'' Hoa (Haua's wife) and ''vîꞌe'' Kenatea. Each of the four gods had a supernatural servant, whose "names were given" in the ceremonies. The ''ivi atua'' was the 'seer' who has the vision to select who swam to Motu Nui. A ''hopu'' was one of those who make the swim to the islet. Per Englert, the ''hopu manu'' were "those who served the ''tagata manu'' and, upon finding the first ''manutara'' egg, took it to Orongo n the mainland" The ''manu tara'', or sooty tern, was the bird that the ceremony centred on; it was the first ''manu tara'' egg that was the goal of the ceremony.

Companions

Makemake's principal companion was Haua. "The formula which accompanies an offering to Makemake always includes Haua who appears in the myth as the god's companion." Makemake's offspring were Tive, Rorai, Hova and "the noblewoman Arangi-kote-kote".

Media coverage

Makemake is featured in the 2000 BBC documentary ''

The Lost Gods of Easter Island The ''Lost Gods of Easter Island'' is a BBC documentary written and presented by David Attenborough. It explores the history of the civilization of remote Easter Island. It was first transmitted in 2000 and is part of the Attenborough in Paradi ...

'' hosted by

David Attenborough Sir David Frederick Attenborough (; born 8 May 1926) is an English broadcaster, biologist, natural historian and author. He is best known for writing and presenting, in conjunction with the BBC Natural History Unit, the nine natural histo ...

, where he embarks on a personal quest to uncover the history of a strange wooden figurine carving which turned up in an auction room in New York during the 1980s.

In astronomy

The

trans-Neptunian A trans-Neptunian object (TNO), also written transneptunian object, is any minor planet in the Solar System that orbits the Sun at a greater average distance than Neptune, which has a semi-major axis of 30.1 astronomical units (au). Typically, ...

dwarf planet A dwarf planet is a small planetary-mass object that is in direct orbit of the Sun, smaller than any of the eight classical planets but still a world in its own right. The prototypical dwarf planet is Pluto. The interest of dwarf planets to ...

Makemake Makemake (minor-planet designation 136472 Makemake) is a dwarf planet and – depending on how they are defined – the second-largest Kuiper belt object in the classical population, with a diameter approximately 60% that of Pluto. It h ...

is so named because both the planet and the island are connected to

Easter Easter,Traditional names for the feast in English are "Easter Day", as in the '' Book of Common Prayer''; "Easter Sunday", used by James Ussher''The Whole Works of the Most Rev. James Ussher, Volume 4'') and Samuel Pepys''The Diary of Samue ...

; the planet was discovered shortly after Easter 2005, and the first European contact with Easter Island was on Easter Sunday 1722. The dwarf planet's code name was "Easterbunny". Motu Nui

References

Alfred Métraux Alfred Métraux (5 November 1902 – 12 April 1963) was a Swiss and Argentine anthropologist, ethnologist and human rights leader. Early life Born in Lausanne, Switzerland, Métraux spent much of his childhood in Argentina where his father was ...

940 Year 940 ( CMXL) was a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. Events By place Europe * The tribe of the Polans begins the construction of the following fortified settlements (Gi ...

1971. ''Ethnology of Easter Island.'' Bernice P. Bishop Museum Bulletin 160.

Honolulu Honolulu (; ) is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Hawaii, which is in the Pacific Ocean. It is an unincorporated county seat of the consolidated City and County of Honolulu, situated along the southeast coast of the isla ...

: Bishop Museum Press. *

Katherine Routledge Katherine Maria Routledge (), née Pease (11 August 1866 – 13 December 1935), was an English archaeologist and anthropologist who, in 1914, initiated and carried out much of the first true survey of Easter Island. She was the second child o ...

The Mystery of Easter Island 1919 *

External link

{{Commonscatinline Creator gods Fertility gods Polynesian gods Mythological hybrids Rapa Nui gods Easter Island

Deity A deity or god is a supernatural being who is considered divine or sacred. The ''Oxford Dictionary of English'' defines deity as a god or goddess, or anything revered as divine. C. Scott Littleton defines a deity as "a being with powers greate ...

Harvest gods