Eugène Eyraud was a lay friar of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary

Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary

The Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary and of the Perpetual Adoration of the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar is a Roman Catholic religious order of brothers, priests, and nuns...

 and the first Westerner to live on Easter Island

Easter Island

Easter Island is a Polynesian island in the southeastern Pacific Ocean, at the southeasternmost point of the Polynesian triangle. A special territory of Chile that was annexed in 1888, Easter Island is famous for its 887 extant monumental statues, called moai, created by the early Rapanui people...

.

Early life

Eyraud was born in Saint-Bonnet-en-Champsaur

Saint-Bonnet-en-Champsaur

Saint-Bonnet-en-Champsaur is a commune in the Hautes-Alpes department in southeastern France.-Geography:The commune is located at the mouth of the valley of the high Drac on the major route between Gap and Grenoble next to Écrins National Park...

, France, in 1820. He became a mechanic by profession. He went to Bolivia

Bolivia

Bolivia officially known as Plurinational State of Bolivia , is a landlocked country in central South America. It is the poorest country in South America...

, and acquired mining interests there.

Arrival on Easter Island

Eyraud entered the Holy Ghost Fathers

Holy Ghost Fathers

The Congregation of the Holy Spirit is a Roman Catholic congregation of priests, lay brothers, and since Vatican II, lay associates...

 as a novice. Influenced by his brother Jean, a missionary in China, he left Chile for Tahiti

Tahiti

Tahiti is the largest island in the Windward group of French Polynesia, located in the archipelago of the Society Islands in the southern Pacific Ocean. It is the economic, cultural and political centre of French Polynesia. The island was formed from volcanic activity and is high and mountainous...

 in 1862 and arrived at Hanga Roa

Hanga Roa

Hanga Roa is the main town, harbour and capital of the Chilean province of Easter Island. It is located in the southern part of the island's west coast, in the lowlands between the extinct volcanoes of Terevaka and Rano Kau....

 on 2 January 1864. He was harassed by the islanders, and only stayed nine months before being repatriated to Chile on 11 October 1864. A year and a half later, on 27 March 1866, he settled on the island as a full priest, accompanied by Hippolyte Roussel

Hippolyte Roussel

Hippolyte Roussel was a French priest and missionary to Polynesia, a member of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary.In 1854 he was sent to evangelize in the Tuamotus and Mangareva in the Gambier Islands...

 and three Mangareva

Mangareva

Mangareva is the central and most important island of the Gambier Islands in French Polynesia. It is surrounded by smaller islands: Taravai in the southwest, Aukena and Akamaru in the southeast, and islands in the north...

n converts.

Activities

Although fiercely opposed at first, Eyraud eventually came to be highly popular and influential among the islanders. In October 1866, Gaspar Zumbohm and Théodule Escolan joined Eyraud and Roussel in their mission, and set up schools at Hanga Roa and Vaihū.

On 22 December 1866 Eyraud wrote
He assisted that year in what would be the last ceremony of the Birdman

Tangata manu

The Tangata manu , was the winner of a traditional competition on Rapa Nui . The ritual was an annual competition to collect the first Sooty Tern egg of the season from the islet of Motu Nui, swim back to Rapa Nui and climb the sea cliff of Rano Kau to the clifftop village of Orongo.-Myth:In the...

 cult.

Eyraud brought tuberculosis to the island in 1867 which lead to the death of a quarter of the island's population and died of it on 23 August 1868, nine days after the last islanders had been baptized.

Rongorongo

During his first stay, Eyraud remarked that in each house there were wooden tablets covered with "hieroglyphs", now known as rongorongo

Rongorongo

Rongorongo is a system of glyphs discovered in the 19th century on Easter Island that appears to be writing or proto-writing. It cannot be read despite numerous attempts at decipherment. Although some calendrical and what might prove to be genealogical information has been identified, not even...

, but that the islanders no longer knew how to read them and paid them scant attention. He didn't think of informing Roussel or Zumbohm, and never wrote of them again. In wasn't until 1869, when Zumbohm presented a gift which, unknown to him included a tablet, to Bishop Jaussen

Florentin-Étienne Jaussen

Monsignor Florentin-Étienne Jaussen was the first bishop of Tahiti and the man who brought the rongorongo script of Easter Island to the world's attention. In the 1860s Bishop Jaussen was responsible for ending the slave raids on Easter Island.Jaussen was born in Rocles, France...

 in Tahiti, that rongorongo was noticed by the outside world.

Traditional beliefs

Eyraud wrote of the islanders and their carved wooden statues, known as mo‘ai kavakava

Moai kavakava

A mo‘ai kavakava is a small wooden figure of a standing, slightly stooped male with an emaciated body.These figures originate from Rapa Nui . The name mo‘ai kavakava is formed from mo‘ai for the monumental monolithic human figures found on Easter Island and the word kavakava meaning ribs...

External links

• Correspondance of Eugène Eyraud (currently offline)
• Easter Island Foundation sells an English translation of Eyraud's report, along with those of Hippolyte Roussel
  Hippolyte Roussel
  Hippolyte Roussel was a French priest and missionary to Polynesia, a member of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary.In 1854 he was sent to evangelize in the Tuamotus and Mangareva in the Gambier Islands...
  
  , Pierre Loti
  Pierre Loti
  Pierre Loti was a French novelist and naval officer.-Biography:Loti's education began in his birthplace, Rochefort, Charente-Maritime. At the age of seventeen he entered the naval school in Brest and studied at Le Borda. He gradually rose in his profession, attaining the rank of captain in 1906...
  
   and Alphonse Pinart
  Alphonse Pinart
  Alphonse Pinart was a French explorer, philologist, and ethnographer. He was an early champion of the theory that the Americas were first populated by migration across the Bering Strait. To support his research, he made extensive travel in the Pacific, from Alaska and the Aleutian Islands to...
  
  , under the title Early Visitors to Easter Island 1864-1877.