Writing History via Comics – Rapa Nui and the Comic Series „Varua Rapa Nui” – an Indigenous Voice Transnationally Connecting South America and Polynesia

• In Event: Indigenous Migration

Abstract

In 2012, the first volume of the comic series “Varua Rapa Nui” was published in Chile by Rapanui Press. Two more followed in 2013 and 2016; a final volume is in preparation. They tell the story of Rapa Nui, and its inhabitants, with two mythological beings acting as narrators. Alongside the mythological creatures and the island itself, the ocean surrounding the island plays a major role in this comic series. It is portrayed in a highly ambivalent way: a source of food and safety, a boundary, a barrier, and yet a gateway to other people and places, but also a source of danger and uncertainty. The sea connects knowledge, is a space that can lead to new things, a home for those who grow up with ships, but also always an escape route and an unknown depth. As an attempt to tell the story of Rapa Nui, drawn and narrated by authors with ties to Rapa Nui and supported by researchers, the comic series tells the story of people on an island far away from the nearest islands in the Pacific, a space so limited in terms of land that its history can only be told as the history of the sea that surrounds it. The comic series is both an indigenous and a minority voice, writing history itself, which is precisely why it emphasizes certain aspects while also transnationally connecting South America with Polynesia—a field of tension in which Rapa Nui still finds itself today.

Author

• Mario Faust Scalisi, University of Bayreuth