When Grant, Mungo and I arrived on Easter Island, I found myself trying to learn a new household, a new language and a bewildering number of names at once. Some people became friends; others entered for an afternoon, a rumour, or the Thursday plane. Here is my attempt to keep them all straight.
At Piriti our days revolve around Georgina, Carlo and their children, with Georgina’s family always coming through the door or calling us out of it. Beyond the house are the people who feed us, teach us, argue with us, and take Mungo into their arms. This page follows the published diary from 28 March to 9 May 1972. I have kept the names as they appear there, including uncertain spellings. Where two people may share a name, I have left them separate unless the diary makes the connection.
1972
With me, and on the journey here
Julia
That is me: Grant’s wife and Mungo’s mother, arriving with eight nappies, a notebook, imperfect Spanish and more curiosity than domestic skill. I meant to collect plants, child-rearing practices and string figures; the diary became a place to put my exasperations and affections as well.
Grant McCall
My husband, Mungo’s father and the anthropologist whose genealogies, parish records and census cards give us our reason for being on the island. He can explain a statue or sort a family tree while I am wondering what to cook for lunch. We are fond of one another, though our rows and his impatience also have their place in these pages.
Mungo
Our son, eight months old when we set out and one year old by the country expedition. He is my passport into kitchens, queues and conversations, though he also crawls into black dust, protests in church and requires the endless washing of nappies.
Mum
My mother in England, the person to whom I send letters and from whom I am so pleased to receive them. She and Frank send Mungo a birthday telegram, no small excitement on an island where a plane’s arrival is an event.
Frank
With Mum, he sends that unexpected birthday telegram for Mungo. I do not explain his relationship to us in these entries.
Julia’s former boyfriend
Unnamed. Before I met Grant I had hoped to marry this “very suitable” man; when that came to nothing I booked the Morocco journey on which Grant appeared.
Grant’s fellow driver-guide and first tent-mate
The second guide is unnamed, as is the pretty woman who initially shares Grant’s tent. They belong to my account of meeting him at Victoria Station, where I was quite convinced I wanted him and tried to be sensible about it.
Derek Freeman
He sees us off from Canberra and gives Mungo a rattle: a small, rather lovely send-off for such an uncertain expedition.
Bengt Danielson
The Kon-Tiki traveller whom we visit in Tahiti on the way out. He welcomes us in a beautiful open Polynesian house and talks with Grant; he and his wife later send us island luxuries, even a replacement hotplate.
Marie Therese Danielson
Bengt’s wife. She shows me the family albums while the men talk, and their kindness follows us across the sea. The albums include their grown daughter and adopted son, whom the diary does not name.
Pat
A correspondent whose address I briefly lose from my head and whose letter later reaches me. The diary does not establish whether this Pat is the archaeologist Pat McCoy below.
John
Someone for whom Grant makes a tape during a power cut. No further identification is given.
At Piriti, and among Georgina’s family
Georgina Riroroco Tuki
Our flamboyant landlady, who finds us stranded with luggage and a baby and offers part of her family’s house, Piriti. She teaches me the island’s shopping and social rounds, borrows my scent and clothes, throws a party for Chilean generals and secures a lift to Santiago. I am often cross with her and miss her all the same. The Easter Day entry calls the hostess F.; the later articles name Georgina, but do not explicitly explain the initial.
Carlos Mardones, usually Carlo
Georgina’s Chilean husband and our host, capable of butchering a sheep and making splendid bread. With Georgina away he cooks, watches children and grows increasingly tired of it; he also complains about my housekeeping. He later flies to Santiago to find her. His surname and the shorter form of his name occur in the diary.
Coca, or little Georgina
Georgina and Carlo’s daughter, named for her mother. She is about six, comes to the house at weekends, wakes the other children, and sometimes needs taking to her grandmother Luisa.
Little Carlo
The boy named for his father; one of the affectionate, slightly grubby children of the house. Because the journal also calls his father Carlo, the bare name in later entries is not always safe to assign to the boy.
Christian
The youngest of the three children first living at Piriti, still at the T-shirt-and-no-nappy stage. Later he tramples another child’s matchbox car, perhaps less benign than his first appearance.
Victor Sylvester, called Sicto or Sictor
An older boy who lives with Grandma Luisa and arrives at Piriti with Coca after Carlo leaves for Santiago. Georgina does not acknowledge him to us as her son, although he knows who his mother is. He is quite separate from Soledad’s baby Victor.
Fifi
Another grandchild taken in by Mama Luisa. She is at Piriti when I am house hunting and wants me to walk her back to her grandmother’s as darkness falls.
Luisa Tuki, or Mama Luisa
Georgina’s mother, Juan’s wife and grandmother to a great many children. I first mistake her for a woman of ninety; looking back, I correct myself and remember how many children she had borne and how important she became to me. I take Coca to her and later Mungo seeks her out to settle one of our domestic rows. She is not Luisa Ika of Tahai.
Juan Riroroco
Luisa’s husband and Georgina’s father, at whose house Coca and many other children may be found. The diary gives him little stage time of his own.
Maria, whom Soledad calls Suzy or Suzie
Georgina’s sister, pregnant when I meet her, already a mother, and a friend I grow to love. She works at the hotel, offers wine and darkly observes that we might sleep better while Georgina is away. Her names are worth retaining together: there are many other Marias.
Graciela, Maria/Suzy’s daughter
Her mother’s fairish eldest girl, later seen helping with the wash while Carlo makes a cutting remark about Maria. Do not silently join her to Graciela Huki, who appears in another family.
Milarosa, Milagrosa or Mirarosa
A sister of Georgina’s, named with several spellings. She brings us tinned sweet potatoes, sometimes minds Mungo and becomes part of the argument that sends Soledad away. The diary mentions tension between her and Georgina.
Victoria
One of Georgina’s sisters, named in my later notes but given no scene of her own here.
Alviras
Another sister of Georgina’s whose waterfront house we call at; someone there is carving a spirit figure. Her name is recorded only briefly and may be heard imperfectly.
Luis
Georgina’s brother and Rosa’s husband, living next door. He carves a small souvenir moai, has a finger painfully infected by a fish spine, and on one wet day declares himself ill and takes to bed with aspirin.
Rosa
Luis’s wife, our quiet neighbour with a baby and a meagre house. She comes over with bananas, eats tiny meals, washes and cooks, and sometimes leaves me minding the children; my irritation with her is one of those reactions I cannot quite justify to myself.
Rosa and Luis’s baby
Unnamed, at times left in a locked bedroom while asleep. I offer medicine during a feverish spell, regret the presumption at once, and later learn the child is all right.
Veronica
Georgina’s sister-in-law, young, lively and often on the move. She bounds up to kiss Mungo, tells me difficult things about a child she lost, and joins our cinema conversations. Looking back, I wonder how life turned out for her.
Soledad, called Sole and at one point Florencia
A young woman who comes in and out of Piriti, dances beautifully, guides me on walks and has a baby, Victor. She first says she is Georgina’s daughter; when I later check Grant’s genealogy, I doubt that claim. She sometimes leaves Victor with others and arouses Carlo’s anger, but I see her tired, precarious life too. Later a different Florencia appears beside her, which makes the two names hard to untangle.
Victor, Soledad’s baby
Three months old at our first meeting. He cries when I pick him up, cries through the night when his mother is away, and is later said to have sores after another child drops him. He is not Victor Sylvester.
Florencia from down the road
Named beside Soledad in the May birthday entry and playing guitar with her when Soledad returns. Earlier the diary also uses Florencia for Soledad; these later appearances may refer to a different girl, and the text does not settle it.
Pacomio
The old banana man, arriving with enormous branches rather than a polite shop-sized bunch. I later identify him as the father of the teenage boy brought back from Santiago for burial. He slips cigarettes to friends at the funeral, as Grant observes.
Friends, teachers and hosts
Elena
A neighbour who teaches me two cat’s cradles almost as soon as we arrive, and whose shell costumes I later see at the dance. An excellent beginning for my string-figure mission.
Sergio Rapu
The schoolteacher with fine English whom Grant meets early and often. He receives our books and is spoken of as Rufina’s possible husband; in a later note I add that he became governor.
Alfonso, written Alphonso Rapu in one note
Sergio’s brother. In a later note I say he led an island uprising in 1964; I do not meet him in these pages.
Padre Melchior, also Melchior
The kindly old priest with beard, few teeth and a dusty wooden house where he tells me I may nap. He lets Grant work with church records. Graciela Huki is called his sister; he later leaves for Santiago.
Father Sebastian
The priest from whom Maria Tepano says she learnt some English before asking me to teach her more.
Kiko
A gentle, diffident man despite his importance in island music and church singing. He teaches young people Rapanui culture, befriends me and sometimes lets me bake bread in his wood-fired oven. He remembers American peanut butter; Grant and I later bring him some from Santiago.
Maria Tepano, whose real name Julia later gives as Maria Teau Fati
My English pupil and a generous teacher of Pascuence in return. Her lessons grow into stories of older island life, and she trusts me with an account of the illness that damaged her once remarkable memory. She keeps a very chic tourist house.
Maria Ihe
The sensible woman at the government store who shows me the bill-and-list system when I badly need someone to make it plain. Her surname is “as far as I could hear.”
Maria Hito
Meets me near the harbour, explains when fish may be available and invites me home for a drink. There I meet Anna.
Maria Pakerati
A tall, dark hospital worker with whom I make friends through Mungo. She appears again in the birthday expedition wearing a straw hat.
Maria Leon Hei, also written Maria Leon Hey
Invites us to lunch and later helps put me right about whether the market is open. I forget the middle part of her name when asking the way and walk into a different Maria’s house instead. The lunch is smart and rather formal; Grant’s request for her genealogy makes her wary.
Maria Hei
The name I ask for in error while seeking Maria Leon Hei. It leads us to the kind woman who had helped me at the ECA, apparently another Maria; the journal does not give enough to identify her securely.
Maria Paoa
Invites us to drop in on Sunday. I record the invitation but not a developed portrait.
Giorgio Tepano
The husband of a Tuki woman I meet on the way to church. She asks whether Grant will change dollars, and tells me her father has invited us to lunch. Giorgio himself does not appear in that little exchange.
Giorgio’s wife
A Tuki woman whose own name I fail to catch. She stops me on the way to church to ask about changing dollars, and passes on her father’s lunch invitation.
Maria Ika
Her family hosts Mungo’s first birthday expedition. Luisa Ika is also present there, and the diary does not explain their exact relationship.
Luisa Ika Pakerati, also Luisa Pakerati
Mana Ika’s wife at Tahai, with a vast family, a tourist house and carvings. I spend a day talking with her, sit beside her at mass and later take her insistence that Carlo’s allegedly antique statue is modern with some pleasure. She is a different Luisa from Georgina’s mother.
Mana Ika Nohoe
Luisa Ika’s husband, who drives us out to Tahai and later takes a great company into the country for Mungo’s birthday. He talks of carvings and a secret cave, and contributes to the household debate about how much milk a baby needs.
Alberto, one of Mana and Luisa Ika’s sons
Sent to New York to be brought up, the diary says, but home again after six months; the family album preserves pictures of him by a television. Distinct from the other Albertos below.
Olga
A daughter in the Tahai household, about fourteen by my reckoning. I play cat’s cradle with her, though she knows only the Korean version, and later walk with her on our country outing.
Gabriel
The handsome son on the birthday expedition who likes Mungo and takes us bouncing off in the truck to fetch water.
Patricia
The Chilean girl who has been with the birthday-expedition family for three months and already seems part of it.
Graciela Huki
She gives us tomatoes and, on the expedition, crushes a tablet for a poorly Mungo. Later I call her Melchior’s sister and she points us toward a possible house owned by her father-in-law. I cannot say she is Maria/Suzy’s daughter of the same first name.
Valeria Paoa
Our hostess at a rather stiff family lunch, sister to Rufina and mother of a three-year-old boy. Her mother and other children make shell necklaces in the more lively kitchen.
Valeria’s mother
Unnamed, surprisingly young looking to me, busy threading shell necklaces and caring for a small grandson called Alberto.
Anerica Riroroco
A little girl punching holes in shells for necklaces in Valeria’s kitchen.
Alberto, five-year-old grandson in Valeria’s household
Looked after by Valeria’s mother. Small and withdrawn when I see him, but skilful with a matchbox car and ready to defend it from Christian. This is not Mana Ika’s son or Alberto Edmunds Paoa.
Rufina
Valeria’s sister and the elected Miss Easter Island. The photographs do not make her look happy to me; others say she returned after years on the continent and that her family found her changed. Valeria says love for Sergio Rapu kept her from a trip to Australia.
Margarita Atamu
The small, bustling woman who guides us to Valeria’s and later becomes something like a mother substitute to me. She feeds us sopaipillas, gives brisk instructions about washing and once has the dust scrubbed from my legs before mass. I love her because I feel safe with her.
Petero
Margarita’s husband. They have no children of their own, foster Roberto and later become friends with whom we go riding into the country.
Jim, renamed Roberto
The half-American little boy fostered by Margarita and Petero, about Mungo’s age. I am told a complicated story of his parents’ separation; what is certain on the page is Margarita’s affection and that he becomes Mungo’s playmate.
Roberto’s mother and American father
Unnamed in the diary. Their interrupted plan to marry, his departure with the troops and her journey to Santiago are told to me second-hand; I cannot certify the gossip as their own account.
Jose Fati
The beret-wearing older man at the co-op, whom I later remember as a very good informant of Grant’s.
Maria Atan
An older lady I speak to after mass; her husband is the round-faced old man with a little English and a hat brightened by a pink scarf. The diary does not explicitly say she is the elderly Atan lady who accompanies Mana Ika on the Tahai visit.
Alberto Edmunds Paoa
A man from the hotel whose elegant family house we visit for tea, cake and a much-needed wash for Mungo. He is away working that afternoon, so his mother and sister receive us.
Alberto Edmunds Paoa’s mother and sister
Unnamed hostesses. His mother, reddish-haired and pale, says she has French blood, plays with Mungo and finds him a top to wear.
Carlos Bruner
Someone we call on in the hope of cigars for Grant; he is out, and the diary adds nothing more. Not our host Carlos Mardones.
Carmen Duke
A policeman’s wife I meet at the ECA. She says she learnt Pascuence in a year, an achievement I cannot help admiring while I still struggle to make myself understood.
The waterworks man
Offers us a ride and the use of a government house, if we will tend the generator behind it and, with it, the island’s water supply. We decide that is a little too much responsibility to take on.
The matrona
The hospital matron who sees Mungo, issues his little health book and becomes someone I can visit when I feel low. She plays guitar while telling me island gossip; I realize I do not know her nearly as well as I thought.
N.
An initial in the Easter feast entry for a woman with two half-American children, a boy and a girl, who works at the hospital. The articles do not give enough to match her securely to a later named hospital worker.
P.
An initial for the man whose family gives the Easter earth-oven feast and then invites us to his town house. Grant is offered brandy there. His first name is not supplied in that article.
H.
The initial I give the Easter Day hostess’s husband. Later I name Carlos as our host at Piriti, but do not explain this initial.
J.
An occasionally aggressive child in my Easter Day account. I cannot safely match the initial to one of the children I name later.
Nora
A friend at the airport and later at the funeral, where she takes me to comfort a newly widowed woman. She and the boys make a special detour to drive us home.
Raul
A mourner we meet walking home alone from the teenage boy’s funeral. No further relationship is stated.
Other people I meet, hear about, or try to understand
Adriana
Next door, painstakingly making a shell-and-feather costume when Georgina takes me visiting. I note the five kinds of shells and the ingenious thread made from unravelled flyscreen.
Pedro
The eight-month-old son of the red-haired dressmaker and hotel chambermaid. She also has a daughter of about six, unnamed.
The red-haired dressmaker
An unnamed island woman who speaks English from her years working for the Americans. She cuts Georgina’s dress while we wait, with a tape measure and enviable confidence.
Maria’s sister-in-law
Present when Georgina and I visit Maria/Suzy; the diary does not give her a name or enough to place her in the larger family.
The younger Pakarati
Brings a sheep home for Carlo to butcher; no first name is given.
Joel
A young man I meet on the visiting-and-gossiping round, wearing a band around his head. I learn little else about him.
Tuli
The Frenchman with a pigtail who says he lives here for free. I cannot fit him into the island’s family tree.
“Juan something”
A strikingly good-looking young man whose surname I fail to catch. There are other Juans in these pages; I do not know which, if any, he may be.
Maria and Georgina’s many other relatives
Some greet me with kisses at the airport before I can work out who belongs to whom. I name a few individually above, but cannot identify them all.
Miraflora
Someone I meet at the airport; even in the diary I follow her name with a question mark. The published entry supplies no surer identification.
Ivan
A neighbour who receives the head of Carlo’s spiny fish and pays, it seems, in pisco. Later he brings news that baby Victor is better. The diary gives only his first name.
The Edmunds Rapahango family
Our companions on an outing to Anakena. The diary gives the family name but does not name the individuals in the party.
Veriveri Tuki
Our host for lunch after the horse ride to Rano Kau. We arrive an hour late, filthy and with Mungo smelling dreadful; I think he is a little offended.
Juan Ivan
Provides the horses on which Grant and I trot out to the volcano. No link is made to neighbour Ivan.
Romero
A shopkeeper from the continent with goods brought in on the plane, sometimes comics or ice cream. A grim story from him later receives a correction through police gossip.
Sergio’s English teacher
Unnamed in the diary; her English strikes me as rather poor.
Orlando, written Orland Paoa once
Runs tourist enterprises and would like Grant to lecture to his visitors or join an outing. Grant holds back, knowing favouring one enterprise could cause trouble with others.
The elderly Atan lady
Rides with Mana Ika to collect us for Tahai. The diary does not supply her given name in that account.
Pat McCoy
The archaeologist married to an Easter Island woman, though he is away from the island during these entries. Anna is his sister-in-law. He is not demonstrably the Pat to whom I write.
Anna
Pat McCoy’s sister-in-law, encountered at Maria Hito’s stylish house and later serving lunch at Maria Leon Hei’s. She shows me a letter saying Pat hopes to come in June or July.
Juan Tuki
A three-month-old baby I meet during a visit to a household where we are handed pisco and lemon under the name of water.
Carmen Tuki
A twelve-year-old who insists on carrying my shopping and repeats the Spanish I cannot understand ever more slowly, holding my hand.
Alicia
A little girl supposed to be cleaning, later making music with a scraped cow horn by an unfinished house. When I produce cat’s-cradle string she runs off with it and eventually returns it laughing.
Alicia’s companion
Another little girl at the unfinished house. I forget her name, and neither child knows the string figures I seek beyond the Korean cat’s cradle.
Norida … Pakerati
The child whose long name I catch only at beginning and end. She has four sisters and a brother, walks me part of the way home after mass and teaches me the words for moon and stars.
Marcella
A pleasant young girl with whom I manage a little Spanish while walking home.
The girl next door and her boyfriend
She returns from mass beautifully dressed in silver and white; he gives me a lift, and they recur at the airport. The articles do not name either securely.
The Chilean generals and their party
Fifteen or so airforce visitors at Georgina’s loud, cognac-and-Pepsi party. Two are generals, none named. Their plane gives Georgina the Santiago lift she seeks.
The Chilean student engineer
Unnamed party guest who looks rather scornfully at Georgina’s emotional farewell.
The disappearing geologist
A Chilean university geologist said to have vanished in 1968. Grant hears a theory about the American base, which remains just a theory in the diary.
The Scottish air hostess
Meets me near the church, frustrated by a Spanish-language bargain over a carving but still taken with the island.
Paddy
One of Georgina’s Irish visitors, a distant connection who takes us out for lobster. Carlo expects the pair to be paying tourists, while I later suspect Georgina offered them reciprocal hospitality. The misunderstanding helps sour the household mood.
The other Irish visitor
Paddy’s companion at Piriti. I say one of the pair works for UNESCO in Montevideo, but I do not make clear which one.
Carlo’s former girlfriend and “godmother”
Both unnamed visitors during his irritable stretch without Georgina. The first jokes with him at the hotel; the second calls at the house. I can only guess what they think of me.
The visiting Chilean sociologist and her husband
Unnamed, and hardly favourites of mine during their long conversation with Grant. Mungo’s contribution is to soil the floor in front of them.
The teenage boy brought home for burial
About sixteen, killed in a car crash on the continent. He is unnamed, but his return changes the airport’s bright social ritual into a funeral procession and draws the community to church and cemetery.
The boy’s mother, father and brother
His mother is carried from the church in grief; his father is the banana man Pacomio; his brother is the judge’s secretary. I record their roles but only later supply the father’s name.
The young widow at the cemetery
Her husband died two months before. Nora and I put our arms around her; she plays with Mungo, and I hope to meet her again. A later entry says she has five children and is mother to the plaited girl who knows Alicia.
Tula
A friend of the matrona at her party. Later I hear hostile, contradictory stories about him: an allegation about sexuality and drugs, and his own account of bothering women tourists. I have no way of deciding what is true.
Craig
Another of the matrona’s friends at her party. He has no separate scene in these entries.
The woman with a newborn in a blue shawl
Three days after the birth she says she has plenty of milk and, with two boys and a girl, enough children. Her encounter helps me see how family size is changing.
The mother of two boys at Anakena
Another woman who says two children are what she can educate. I remember the remark when thinking about large families of earlier generations.
The woman who gives Mungo apples and me kisses
Unnamed and called “mad” in the diary with affection. One of the small island encounters that makes me feel a sense of belonging, however provisional.
The New Zealand visitor at Maria Tepano’s
Pleasant enough, but her wish to discuss the island’s needs in front of the Tepanos leaves me uneasy and distracts from our language lesson.
The Chilean wife at Valeria’s
Unnamed woman who takes over making holes in shells from Anerica. The text does not give her family position.
The head of FACH
A smart, bespectacled visitor at Alberto Edmunds Paoa’s house who gives us a lift home. The diary does not name him.
The girl from Papiano’s house
Carrying a bottle of oil, she walks with me along the shortcut after the storm; I manage to lose my way once we part.
Maria Luisa Pakerati Tuki
A woman who invites me to visit “the place” the next morning. The next entry describes our day at Luisa Ika’s in Tahai, so this may be a fuller form of her name, but the journal never spells out the equivalence.
People in stories, books and later notes
Bill Mulloy
One of the Americans with whom Sergio Rapu spent his childhood years. In a later note I credit Bill with important archaeological restorations on the island.
Emily Mulloy
Named with Bill in my account of how Sergio Rapu came to speak English so well.
Percy Edmunds
In my later historical note, the old sheep-ranch manager whose two large families left descendants still influential on the island. He belongs to the background of the people we meet, not to a personal encounter in 1972.
Salvador Allende
The Chilean president whose election the journal gives as the reason the American base closed, leaving behind its generator and other odd domestic relics.
Pinochet
Named in my later note on Sergio Rapu’s eventual governorship, after the diary’s present.
Sir Harry Luke
A historical writer or traveller I invoke while speculating about Easter Island’s future; I do not meet him on the island.
Malcolm Fraser
In a later note I remember an artist’s unkind comparison of the Australian politician to a moai, prompted by the statues’ stony, unreadable faces. He has no part in the island household.
Anne Frank
In the prologue, the diarist whose pages I remember when I say my own notebook became a friend and confidante. I spell her name “Ann Frank” there.
Helen Garner
The diarist I think of when deciding whether to use initials for people in my published notebooks.
Helen Reid
Her observation about women’s modesty comes back to me when Maria Tepano speaks so easily about breasts.
George Eliot
I return to Middlemarch every ten years or so; its steady moral voice puts me right when I am inclined to mope.
Dr Spock
I take his baby-care book to Nora, though I find her busy teaching Spanish instead.
John Wayne
The actor in a film Soledad has seen. She tells me its plot, and I cannot make out a word of it.
This page will grow as the published diary moves on. So far it ends on 9 May 1972.