space exploration and the Polynesians!

--- In spacesettlers, omar vega wrote:

> Good point Xenophile,

Thank you.

> You know. I live in South America but you surprised
> me. Could you tell me more about those Titicaca
> islands? The Dutch case is very well known.

Well, I did a little nosing around, so that I'd have something more
than memories of old National Geographic and one Google search (which
is how I got the name "Aymara"). My nosing about reveals that the
islands were actually built by the Uros, but that the Uros have since
blended with the Aymara. The Uros (and now the Uros/Aymara) build
boats of reeds, and some of them went the next step and built whole
floating islands of them. I understand that they have houses,
chickens, goats, and reed boats docked alongside. While they eat
chicken and goat, their main food source is fish from Lake Titicaca.
This is like bringing some stuff from Earth, but mostly using the
environment of Space.

This site offers tours:
http://www.andeantravelweb.com/peru/destinations/puno/islands.html

This site describes a trip to the floating islands (with some
wonderful pictures):
http://www.andrys.com/peru8.html

And one more for good measure:
http://www.putnamservice.com/jere/travel/peru/uros.htm

> In polynesia, I believe the case of Easter Island is
> paradigmatic. There, in a small island the size
> perhaps of Island One (my lessons from the book),
> people tried to survive against of odds in complete
> isolation. They developed a new culture and created an
> original system of writing, but. That's big but. They
> made such a ecological crisis that they got almost
> extinct. A good lesson for Earth!!! A warning signal
> for space settlements, I guess.
>
> Regards,
>
> Omar Vega

This is a good point. And the sad thing is, it didn't have to be
that way. They could have used the trees (back when they had trees)
to build boats and go a'voyaging, as their ancestors had done. All
the effort put into building those magnificent statues would've been
sufficient to carry them to Tahiti or the Cook Islands. The world
would've lost out on the statues, but Easter Island would've remained
a wooded paradise (just as space settlement will be good for the
environment of Earth).