Rapa Nui has a rich religious tradition that begins with the mythical story of the island’s settlement. The community of Ariki Hotu Matu’a was forced to depart from its native isle of Hiva due to a rise in the sea level, a volcanic eruption or other cataclysm that may be a metaphor for serious internal dispute. The high priest Hau Maka dreamt of a virgin territory suitable for human settlement. The king ordered an expedition in search of this land, and when it reached Rapa Nui, the seven members of the mission recognized the island as the one in the priest’s dreams. Upon receiving the news verifying the priest’s information, Hotu Matu’a set out on the voyage, taking his people in two canoes. The Ariki’s first tasks after reaching Rapa Nui were to organize and distribute the land for settlement and for farming. The king maintained unity in the land and his reign was peaceful, but upon his death land disputes erupted and escalated until they became a full scale revolution that transformed every aspect of Rapa Nui society including its religious traditions and burial practices. While religious practices in the initial period centered around the ancestors, represented by the moai, in the second period the cult of Manutara or bird-man emerged, and with it the main ceremony of Tangata Manu. This strictly religious ritual of the classical period had now become a political spectacle, a contest in which leaders or their representatives competed to find the first sacred egg of Manutara from a nearby islet and bring it intact to the ceremony. The winner was endowed with the title of Matatoa and reigned for one year. The winning group also appears to have enjoyed special privileges, such as looting the settlements of the other groups.
In regard to burial rites, in the classical period the bodies of the deceased were interred in the ahu-moai, but these were destroyed between 1740 and 1840 during a period of internal strife. After the violence erupted, the people began to bury their dead in ‘ahu without moai’ or in tombs built beneath the ruins of the ahu-moai, underneath fallen statues, or under deep piles of stones in the form of long asymmetrical pyramids.