Easter and Easter Island

Not too long ago Little One and I had a date to see the film "Hop." I can't say I recommend it, but that is neither here nor there. In one of the early scenes of the film, a camera flies towards land from the seaward. As the rocky shoreline comes into view, so too do the large stone monoliths of Easter Island. The location appears on the screen, and an animated rabbit ("EB") is sunning himself on one of the silent statues.

Little One leaned over and asked me, "Is Easter Island a real place?" I answered in the affirmative, and was proceeding to explain that the island is not command central for the holiday nor is the island overrun with rabbits, but before I could get my verbose explanation onto my tongue she had lost interest and was engrossed in the movie.

What little I know of the island comes from Leonard Nimoy shows from the 70's, the occasional kids book, and perhaps some library volume on vanished peoples of the earth. Jared Diamond had been the most recent to offer me an explanation of the island and its inhabitants, via sketches in "Guns, Germs and Steel" and more thoroughly in "Collapse."

As the Christian holiday approaches, I am thinking of candy, and bunnies, and warm Polynesian islands....