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Rapa Nui Foodways

Rapa Nui

Ethnolinguistic

โš  POLYNESIAN, NOT ANDEAN, AND NOT SIMPLY CHILEAN. Rapa Nui lies 3,500 km west of the Chilean coast and its people, language and food are POLYNESIAN. The traditional foodway: UMU PAE, the earth oven on stones, giving UMU TAHU; sweet potato (kumara), taro, yam, banana, sugarcane and the manavai stone garden enclosures that shelter crops from wind and salt; fishing and tuna above all; and POโ€™E, the mashed banana or pumpkin pudding baked in the umu. โš  HISTORY NOT TO BE SOFTENED: nineteenth-century Peruvian slave raids and introduced disease reduced the population to little over a hundred people, and the island was leased as a sheep ranch for decades, with Rapa Nui confined to Hanga Roa.

Atlas โ€” where and when

Communities and languages

  • Rapa Nui community documented

Languages: Rapanui, Spanish

What is recorded

  • Rapa Nui lies approximately 3,500 km from continental Chile and its people, language and foodways are Polynesian. Rapa Nui foodways are recorded as a distinct ethnolinguistic system connected to Chile by a political relationship dating from 1888, not as Chilean or Andean food. documented
  • Peruvian slave raids in the 1860s and introduced disease reduced the Rapa Nui population to little more than a hundred people, and the island was subsequently leased for sheep ranching with the Rapa Nui confined to Hanga Roa for decades. This history is recorded rather than omitted. documented
  • Peruvian slave raids and introduced disease reduce the Rapa Nui population to little more than a hundred people. documented
  • Chile annexes Rapa Nui; the island is subsequently leased for sheep ranching with the Rapa Nui confined to Hanga Roa. documented

Related foodways

This foodway relates to

  • related to Chilean Cuisine documented

    โš  Rapa Nui is Polynesian and administered by Chile; the relationship is political and recent, and its foodways are not Chilean in origin.

Recipes

No recipes are filed under this cuisine yet.