by Pietro Villari, 10 April 2023. All rights reserved.
In December 2000, the journalist Bruno Ragonese, editor in chief of the
magazine "Grifone", a bimonthly magazine of the Ente Fauna
Siciliana, after a few months of reflection, decided to publish an article of
mine entitled: "Eindpunt, Tokerau and the old woman" (1).
The reaction of the members was not unanimous, from scandalized to
enthusiastic, and sparked an intense debate between those in favor and against
accepting, among the scientific contributions that reached the magazine, even
those containing descriptions of phenomena at that time defined - tout court
- paranormal. Some of the
members argued that these stories were unrelated to the interests of our "naturalistic
research and conservation association". The criticism struck me not
only as a scholar, but also as manager of the Messina office of the E.F.S.
At that time, in Sicily, for an archaeologist specialized in prehistory,
coming from naturalistic rather than humanistic studies, professional life was
already made difficult as he was isolated with captious arguments, like an
invader of the field. Publishing one's testimony of involvement in an
unconventional experience during a scientific research - moreover carried out
on the "mysterious" Easter Island - was tantamount to
professional suicide. In practice, detractors were offered the possibility of
discrediting and therefore delegitimizing the author in a serious and permanent
way, and with it all his ongoing and future research activities carried out.
Even Bruno Ragonese had received his share of criticisms, aimed at
undermining the seriousness of the issues presented to the readers of the
magazine and the activities of the association. Yet, he had agreed to publish
the article because he too had come across experiences in the course of his
life which, with a typical Sicilian accent and slyness, he defined as
"extravagances", in one of which he recognized the same disturbing
dynamics present in my “pascuense” story .
For me and for that small but courageous editorial team anchored to
scientific issues, sharing those data with readers meant venturing into terra
incognita, going beyond the dogmas of the present, regardless of the
accusations of heresy. A scholar cannot and must not fail to defend his own
consistency and therefore also the exercise of the right to freedom of
expression, even more so if he ends up among the pioneers of an entire field of
study. Or, rather, in a gray area where the fundamental knowledge and the very
effectiveness of the scientific methodologies and technologies used are at
least questioned as "borderline".
This article therefore intends to be possibly usable in future studies of
abnormal experiences (better known as not ordinary experiences,
N.O.E.), bearing in mind that the most accurate descriptions of events and
their typological cataloging constitute an important basis for the future, when
research will have the means to arrive at full understanding.
Ragonese had understood the importance of independent journalism in
collecting and trying to objectively describe these events, due to his innate
ability to discover and support the dissemination of truth, even when he found
himself in divergent positions from those of the island's dominant power.
Almost a quarter of a century after the publication of the story, which
occurred in 1991, today research in the field of N.O.E. it now has a large
group of eminent members of the international scientific community.
As usual in this blog, the republication of the article is followed by two
chapters respectively dedicated to insights and updates.
From “Grifone”, 20 December 2000: “Eindpunt,
Tokerau and the old woman”.
October 1999. By train from Amsterdam to Eastern Europe. The conductor
announces the station where I will have to get off: eindpunt van mijn
reis. In the Dutch language the arrival at the goal is the end point. The
journey is over, there was a departure, I was able to stay in a decent place
and maintained relationships with other passengers. Some of them have long
since gone down, others will go on without me. The journey as an allegory of
life and death.
My scientific training allows no illusions: after death there is
nothingness. Eindpunt, an expression that should eliminate most of
my existential tension, if there wasn't a small gray area. I state that for work or for pleasure I have lived, on five continents, in
many intensely suggestive places. Sometimes something unusual happened, but I
always looked for and found a rational answer.
Perhaps, everything would be fine if I hadn't also stayed in Rapa Nui,
which the natives prefer to call Te-Pito-o-Te-Henua, literally the Navel of the
World, better known to Westerners as Isla de Pascua. A sort of basalt raft
anchored in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, thousands of kilometers from the
other Polynesian islands and the South American coasts.
I have no convincing possibilities to rationally explain what happened many
years ago now.
In full force of years, after a period of excavations in South America, I
had reached Easter Island with the Dutch pianist Djellah van Walt van Praag,
companion of many travels and adventures. Here an international archaeological
mission financed by the Ligabue Foundation (Venice) was about to start a
research campaign, in which I had been invited to participate as
zooarcheologist and director of an excavation sector (2).
The research area was located in Puna Marengo, in the uninhabited part of
the island, twenty kilometers from the only small village. It could only be
reached on foot or better on horseback, the most effective means of transport.
The first week we resided in the town, amidst the discontent of the natives.
The Council of Elders was furiously against the excavation of that area,
being tapu, forbidden. Legends tell that the first inhabitants of
the island landed along the northern coast in ancient times. They had arrived
there aboard small boats coming from the north, from the very distant
Polynesian islands (3). Still according to the legends, dozens of kohau
rongo rongo lie hidden in those places, wooden tablets engraved with
the sacred prayers that reveal the origin of the world.
Recently, consulting the gravimetric charts, I learned that there is a
strong magnetic anomaly, causing a negative sea level difference of twenty-one
meters. I do not know how much this presence can influence the development and
behavior of living beings.
Thanks to the intervention of the Chilean authorities and to the green
color of certain miserable pieces of paper, the situation was finally
normalized and we began excavations after guaranteeing the natives that no
archaeological find would be removed from the island and that, if found, the
bones of their ancestors would not have been collected, but reinserted in their
tombs after being subjected to a rapid non-invasive scientific examination.
Someone was needed to settle in the excavation area, because we feared
disturbing actions by a small group of diehards, opposed to our
operations.
Together with my colleague Antonio Paolillo - author of years of
prehistoric research in the Bolivian jungle - we openly showed deep respect for
the reaction of those men, since in their place we would have acted in the same
way finding ourselves in that situation. This caused friction with other
members of the expedition. Together with Antonio we explained what our work
consisted of, what emerged from the analyses.
Overcoming the diffidence, we were made participants of uses and customs
that served to try to understand not only what came to light and give you the
original Polynesian name, but above all to compare the current Pascuense daily
life with that of the period prior to contacts with the world western.
Consider that until the 1950s, the island was reached by ship only once a
year. At the time of my research, social life had not yet been contaminated by
Kevin Kostner's film crew, who stayed for a long time for the filming of the
film Rapa Nui, and by the tourists who subsequently flocked there.
Among other things, we learned that in those places ancient cannibalistic
rites were still consumed, even if now rarely, which consisted in eating part
of the flesh of wise or brave deceased, in order to assume their strength and
establish a link with their new world. We were also invited to a seasonal
ceremony held in a nearby cave, consisting of smoking herbs and ingesting
certain fruits which, thanks also to the rhythm marked by heavy pebbles beaten
against each other, would have allowed us to enter a land without time.
We politely declined the invitation, but we promised ourselves to report it
to our anthropologist colleague Mario Polia, who in those years began those
particular studies on shamanism which he continues with unchanged commitment to
this day (4).
Being at that time, more than today, recklessly devoted to adventure and
stray life, together with my partner we decided to "live" that
isolated and mysterious land by camping for about a month in a small red tent,
on the edge overlooking the area of excavation, a few meters from a prehistoric
petroglyph depicting a “hombre-pájaro” (anthropomorphic symbol with a
bird's head) (5). The other components of the mission preferred to reside in
the village, or to travel about forty kilometers on horseback every day.
The director of the Anthropological Museum of the Island, the Chilean
Claudio Cristino, came to visit us on the first day. He feared something
serious might happen to us and he tried in vain to convince me to follow the
example of my companions. Finally he left, leaving us his long reconnaissance
machete (a few days later, during a feast, some young natives broke his arm).
At night we were joined by two women from the village, one of whom was a
middle-aged mestiza with Negroid characters, a self-referenced
witch by descent in the maternal line, greatly feared by the inhabitants of the
island. They reported that they had been sent by Cristino to protect us.
After a week, however, the two women left, leaving us Tokerau (a Pascuense
term of Polynesian derivation, in English “the Wind”), a very singular guard
dog to which the crone had effectively blatantly ordered to carry out our
commands.
It seemed to me that I was enjoying heaven on earth. From late afternoon to
morning and on weekends, I was alone with my beautiful companion in that
lonely, poignant place. We went fishing and collecting malacological specimens
along the reef. We went for long rides and walks, we enjoyed the beautiful
blanket of the prairie, the white beaches and the unforgettable fiery southern
sunsets.
Tokerau showed himself to be a dog of notable qualities, he seemed to
intuit our orders even before we could pronounce them in full. In addition
to Pascuense, one of the Polynesian dialects, it also included
Spanish, the official language of the island. Sometimes he spent hours staring
at the excavation operations with an impenetrable gaze, immersed in who knows
what meditations. However, the more the excavation proceeded, the more restless
he became.
Suddenly those cursed nights began that we will never forget. Black moon,
the usual night rain and the wind that swept the prairie. We slept soundly.
Tokerau was as always on watch in front of the tent. I woke up with a start, at
the same time as my partner, both drenched in sweat. We had had the same dream:
we were at the top of Terevaka, the highest peak of the island and an invisible
force was pulling us down towards our tent. We agreed that it had to be the
collateral outcome of the frugal dinner, raw fish and a basket of very sweet
white figs (6), the latter notoriously having a hallucinogenic effect
(divinatory, according to the ancient Greeks) if consumed in the evening, in
abundance and on the stomach empty.
Without a doubt bad digestion. We drank some water and went back to sleep.
We both dreamed of an old woman holding a child by the hand, in the middle of a
sector of the excavation area, near an umu pae (outdoor
hearth). They walked towards us slowly, looking sad. Without speaking, the old
woman informed us that the child was the son of a young woman murdered in those
places with stones, the body had been placed inside the hare moa (large
lava stone chicken coop) before whose remains I had opened my excavation
sector.
We woke up again at the same time, now drenched in sweat and with an
abnormal heartbeat. Tokerau howled and growled horribly. He banged his muzzle
against the zip of the tent and it was obvious that he was calling me. I took
Cristino's long knife and feeling as my heart was beating in my throat I went
out in the middle of the pouring rain and the strong wind, in the most complete
darkness. The light from my lamp was absorbed by the darkness, ineffective. I
had to retrace my steps, kneeling under the cover of the canvas in front of the
tent. With my eyes closed I tried to catch suspicious noises.
Tokerau was at my side, his muscles tense and his head down, he was looking
in the direction of the excavation. He seemed ready to spring towards the umu
pae area at any moment. It took about an hour without anything
happening, in the end Tokerau calmed down, affectionately licked my face and
crouched down again in front of the entrance to the tent.
I returned to my bed and immediately fell asleep. I dreamed again. And it
was one of those dreams that others would call premonitory, which remain very
clear in the memory as they have something inexplicably different from the
others. Who knows where the soul wanders, or psyche, when you
sleep.
The following afternoon, the team in charge of excavating the sector where
the dream had taken place found the first burial, i.e. they brought to light
the skeleton of a very old woman, of small stature. By curious coincidence,
after that discovery, all the members of that team had to resort to the care of
the small village hospital, with serious dislocations or fractures as they were
suddenly thrown from their horses, one a day.
The worst fracture was that suffered by the Chilean archaeologist Josè
Miguel Ramirez, sent by the Fonk Foundation (years later he took over from
Claudio Cristino in the direction of the Easter Island anthropological museum).
Josè was a guy who had already spent most of his scientific career on
horseback, exploring the boundless southern Chilean territories.
A bad dislocation was also that of the director of the Pre-Columbian
Studies and Research Center, an architect who in the last twenty years had
explored, on mule back, many remote Central and South American areas (in the
Seventies on the Central Andes his long beard, strange clothing and the bizarre
solitary life became so popular that the natives confused the character with
the legendary Pistacho, a being with supernatural powers who fed on
human flesh!).
The news spread through the village, where people became convinced that
the akualu, or the tutelary spirit of Puna Marengo, was admonishing
the foreigners. Conversely, my partner and I were considered welcome guests, as
despite having lived there for some time nothing had yet happened to us.
We then decided to tell our dream during an evening banquet, offered by an
elderly fisherman, believed to be one of the descendants of the last ruler of
the island, the ariki-mau. His entire clan attended the
unforgettable lobster dinner. They listened to our story in silence, nodding
often, then the elders withdrew to talk to each other in Polynesian dialect.
Eventually they re-entered the convivial circle and confided in us that
everyone in the village had such experiences.
We also learned that in that area, in the last century (7), the elders of
such a clan hid when they felt that death was imminent and wanted to escape
burial in the Catholic cemetery. They were led by relatives into the numerous
small caves of the place, the entrance was closed with stones and then
camouflaged. It was enough to sleep in those places or perform special rituals
to get in touch with their spirits.
I asked the director for the task of exploring the narrow internal tunnel
of the hare moa, which I entered and carried out the excavation together with
the anthropologist Valentina Visconti di Modrone (8). The only other human bone
remains of the entire excavation campaign came to light, pertaining to a child
and an adult individual, most likely a woman judging by the characteristics of
the few fragments of limbs, aged about twenty.
I stop at this point of the memories, because the rest could have a more
convincing rationale. I believe that the evocative environment has acted as a
catalyst for an extraordinary series of coincidences between the fantasy of
dreams and the reality of facts. However, I cannot understand how it has been
possible, for me and Djellah van Walt van Praag (9), to dream at the same time for
several nights of events which later, even after several years, occurred
independently of our will. Which mental mechanisms were established in us in
those days and which ones in Tokerau's mind?
2014. The old suitcase found in a cavity of an
English cottage.
The Djellah I knew disappeared in my arms in May 1992, in Amsterdam. In the
late summer of 1993 I saw a letter delivered to the Italian Institute of
Experimental Archeology in Genoa. She asked me to join her in an old delightful
stone and wood house, hidden in the mountains of the island of Gran Canaria. I
sensed that another of her personalities, the ones that dwell in each of us
repressed by the dominant, had taken over in her after a horrendous operation
performed in extremis, which had partially disemboweled her not only
physically.
She had not only been a formidable companion on adventures. We shared one
of those instinctive friendships that continue motu proprio, even
without seeing each other. So it was that, fearing she was in serious problems,
I took a plane and, once on the island, a taxi, with which I gave her a lift
having met her by chance along the way, at the bus stop near Playa de las
Burras. Her appearance saddened me deeply: she was a pile of bones, the shoulders
hunched, the movements and veiled gaze of an old woman. I pressed a button to
lower the window glass: “Want a ride? I'm going to El Caidero…”. She
managed a weak smile.
Put this way, the story will seem rationally unacceptable to most readers,
but for us it was not at all. We accepted those oddities without ruining the
present. After the experience lived in Rapa Nui, we avoided looking for
explanations.
Over the course of about a month, slowly, the will to live returned to her
and to resume working as a musician and singer. At that point I decided that it
was time for me to leave, as she was once again able to fend for herself. I
first returned to Sicily and, after a few weeks, I left for Liguria to conclude
and deliver a study carried out in that region, in order to collect a fair sum
of money. From here I went to Holland (10).
Twenty years passed. One day, I think it happened in late 2012, I received
an email from an acquaintance from the province of Viterbo, a lawyer who ran a
successful blog. A young reader with an Irish surname had written to him
regarding a comment of mine, published on the sidelines of an article on
alleged murders in contexts where symbols of esoteric interest had been
highlighted, or could be highlighted. In short, she asked him to pass me her
e-mail address, so that we could communicate directly, regarding news about a
globetrotting relative of her and the adventures that occurred many years ago
during our relationship.
I did a quick online check and discovered that she was a valid and
enterprising professional journalist (hereinafter referred to as Effe).
We decided to meet in London, where I often went at the time, under the
colonnade in front of the main entrance to the British Museum, the excellent
custodian of what remains of the past.
I was glad to meet Djellah's niece. She was a young woman of singular
beauty, whose eyes said everything about her remarkable human and professional
qualities. She had also brought along her very young daughter, who seemed to me
to have the same insight as her mother. Effe informed me that
she had in mind to write a book on the stray life of her aunt, and of the sad
circumstances of her death, which she told me happened years ago down in Kent,
due to the aggressive reappearance of a cancer.
During her research, she had come across the blog containing a quote from
me and had thus returned to the article published by the bimonthly
"Grifone", remaining quite struck by the description of her aunt's
experience on Easter Island. I gave her some details on the circumstances of
our first meeting in Peru, in Lima, the period we lived together in Santiago de
Chile, and on our other travels and residences, and finally the last period in
the Canary Islands.
I wished her success with the biography and it all ended there, or rather I
hoped so, as I thought it sad that a beautiful woman illuminated by remarkable
qualities wasted time in her promising life investigating, immersed in the mold
of other people's memories, the complex existence lived from one of her
relatives.
That said, the social utility of that mythologizing must be admitted. For
readers looking for fictionalized biographies full of female adventures,
Djellah's biography would have been an irresistible attraction, an easy and
pleasant opportunity to escape into the imagination of their "other"
experience. They would have tried the thaumaturgical experience of being taken
by the hand, by the hologram of that extraordinary eccentric and
"single" woman, and, ça va sans dire?, led to
fascination, to fantasize adventurous, sexually emancipated and globetrotter in
those exciting times now away from rampant machismo.
However, I was sure that Effe's intellectual honesty would find
a way to make the readers think. As always, there was also the other side of
the coin, here constituted by the evidence that Djellah's daily realities,
those exhausting struggles to defend her freedoms, had also been studded with
damningly negative experiences. A set of realities therefore much more complex
than the one imagined comfortably in an armchair, made with the help of a book
in hand, to be opened and closed, or leafed through by skipping unwelcome pages
when you want.
In April 2014, after two years of silence, a new email from Effe reached
me in which she informed me of a bizarre find that took place a few weeks ago
in a Surrey cottage.
The narrative of the story fit well with Djellah's list of eccentric
exploits, being the place where she had stayed before moving to Kent where she,
her niece alleged, had died.
I did not verify the news of her death, as I preferred to leave open the
possibility that at that time she was still alive, hidden under a new name in
some remote part of the world. On the other hand, the idea that the entire
narration of her death could even have been constructed to make her disappear
was not at all far-fetched, due to the existence of dangers from her past. She
had worked at the service of Western government institutions, and as often
happens in that job, she also had relationships with competitor agencies.
It perhaps was a dark side of her, but I doubt it hides an abyss.
I didn't know what to think about her fears, but that rumors were brutally
confirmed in the spring of 1992, at the beginning of a job I carried out in
Rome in some offices of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta.
Returning to the last few months prior to her disappearance, I report below
the information received from Effe in writing. There had been
a leak in one of the bathroom pipes in the cottage. During the restoration
works, in the cavity behind a wall was unexpectedly found an old suitcase
belonged to Djellah's father, and donated to her in the late 1980s, at the time
of her departure for the long period lived in South America (11).
In the suitcase were found some novels, old women's clothes, and other
objects kept as a reminder of the time spent in Peru and Chile, including a
large Andean poncho that we often used over the course of several trips to
protect ourselves from the cold. There were also letters received from friends
and family during this period, a business card from my office in Sicily, and a
small group of photos taken on Easter Island. Effe asked me if
I wished to have them.
Perhaps to stay on the subject of eccentricity, I received them only two
years later in an unexpected envelope, containing the photos and my old
business card, accompanied by a handwritten letter from Effe apologizing
for the delay. I didn't think it necessary to find out more, and that was all.
Thinking back to what happened on Easter Island, I find it useful to
clarify that today the mediumistic phenomenology has been scientifically
ascertained with laboratory tests (12). Although the causes and the type of
"energies" involved have not yet been discovered. We will therefore
have to wait for future studies which will probably involve both quantum
theories and, inevitably, the application of artificial intelligence in this
field of study.
Footnotes
1) Villari P., 20 December 2000, Eindpunt, Tokerau and the old lady, in
“Grifone”, bimonthly magazine of the Ente Fauna Siciliana, year 9, no. 6
(folder 48), pp.6-7.
For further information on the important journalistic activity carried out
in Sicily by Bruno Ragonese, I refer to the article: Villari P., 27 September
2020, Ghosts of trials never born: 1) "Archaeological sales: the bronze
warrior" Published in Italian language on The Reporter's Corner: https://www.thereporterscorner.com/2020/09/fantasmi-di-processi-mai-nati-1-saldi.html
2) However, once I arrived in the Chilean capital, I agreed to be involved
in the activities of the Ligabue Foundation, but directly appointed by the
management of the Museo Nacional de Historia Natural (Santiago, Chile) to carry
out zoological research (and therefore also archeozoological) sponsored by the
Museum and paid for by the Director, Luis F. Capurro, as clarified in the
certificate issued to me: “desarrollará en Isla de Pascua
investigaciones zoológicas las patrocinadas por el Museo a mi cargo, con el
compromiso de que el material estudiado pasará a integrar las colecciones
de la Sección Zoología de esta istitución”. The certificate was delivered
to me on 11 October 1991, with all the honors and good wishes of the occasion,
the following day I left by plane for the Island, together with the members of
the Italo-Chilean Hanga-o-Teo Mission (see also note 11 ).
In practice, I had received carte blanche on any
zoological or zooarchaeological research and studies wanted to carry out on the
island, and I could possibly have used it in subsequent years as well, as no
time limit was specified in the document.
To better understand part of Djellah's tragic personal story, I must
clarify here how my presence on the island had passed directly under the
post-dictatorial Chilean government, after having attended a dinner at the home
of Don Luis Capurro - which he immediately held in mention the Genoese origins.
Other personalities took part in the pleasant evening, including a young
officer and two elderly gentlemen already belonging to the top management of
the Chilean aviation and navy. Although she was not invited to the dinner, the
event - I learned from Djellah's father several months later, in a village near
Antwerpen, Belgium where he lived with his new wife - had been organized by
friends who also had strong ties in that new Chilean government. I didn't like that
at all, but it was too late now.
Two days after dinner, I was summoned to the National Museum of Natural
History where, surrounded by his very active collaborators, I received from the
hands of Don Luis himself that certificate which, even today, would constitute
the dream of every archaeologist or zoologist on the planet and which instead I
decided not to use it in the following years. Maybe it was a mistake, but it's
unpleasant to be manipulated without your knowledge even if it's for a good
purpose. I even refrained from mentioning it to Thor Heyerdahl (see also note
5) when, about two years later, we met in the Canary Islands briefing him about
the offspring of my bioarchaeological excavation and sampling, one of the
firsts on Easter Island. As a member of several clubs in the South Pacific
area, he certainly should contextualize the facts and therefore clarify certain
dynamics of the political, economic and military spheres. In general, a piece
of advice to young colleagues, these questions are to be avoided in certain
areas of geopolitical interest, as one's name could be added to the blacklist
of busybodies or unwary idiots and be treated accordingly.
As expected, this supervening power of boundless scientific freedom of
action on that island alarmed the architect in charge of the expedition
sponsored by the Ligabue Foundation, as the certificate placed me in a
condition of total independence. The problems were resolved momentarily, both
agreeing on the importance of separating our areas of intervention in Puna
Marengo and my right-duty to direct, sample and publish - on behalf of the
Chilean Museum of Natural History - the excavation of a structure of zooarcheological
interest located a few meters from the remains of the prehistoric hut excavated
by his group.
Years later, the team that had worked under the aegis of the Ligabue
Foundation published a volume dedicated to their research on Easter Island,
where the architect took his opportunity by refraining from mentioning my name,
the excavations and the results of the searches carried out at the same time a
few meters away from those of him. However, he was unable to prevent the
testimony of the documentary made on Easter Island by a RAI1 crew during the
excavations, which was broadcast in prime time on the Italian national
television network. Some shots also show me digging at the hare moa while busy
at work. Djellah allowed to be filmed only from behind, in the recovery
operations of archaeological finds from the sieving of the excavated soil.
In 1996 I had the opportunity to meet Prof. Omar Ricardo Ortiz-Troncoso,
late Chilean colleague at that time professor of South American Archeology at
the Albert Egges van Giffen Instituut voor Prae en Protohistorie of
the University of Amsterdam. We decided to meet again in the Institute, and
later in his house located in Kerkstraat, where I showed the certificate issued
to me by Luis Capurro. After reading it with emotion for the memory of his dear
colleague, he asked me to write an article on the stratigraphic and
archeozoological data from the excavation area I explored on Easter Island in
1991. The article was published in full, in Italian from the Ultramarina
Foundation magazine of which Omar was editor:
Villari P., 1997, Excavation essay in the area of a "hare moa"
located in Puna Marengo (Isla de Pascua, Chile), Ultramarine Occasional
Papers, Number 3 (November 1997), pp. 1-12.
The following year I was asked to write a second article, this time on my
excavations of archeozoological interest that I had conducted in the late
summer of 1991 in the Great Pyramid of Cauhachi (Nazca, Peru) which was
published by Ultramarina Newsletter. It was translated into Spanish
by Prof. Troncoso, enthusiastic, as it was one of the first excavations carried
out in South America, with properly archeozoological techniques and
methodologies.
Here I would like to briefly recall the figure of Omar R. Ortiz-Troncoso
(1939-2021), an extraordinary gentleman with a vast culture and passion for
archaeological research in the field. He was one of the pioneers of studies on
prehistoric settlements, which he himself adventurously discovered between the
beginning of the 1960s and the first half of the 1970s, in the coastal area of
Patagonia along the Strait of Magellan. Between the ages of twenty and
thirty-five he supported himself by working as a teacher in a high school
(Pedagogy and Geography) in Punta Arenas. After having obtained a research
doctorate in France, at the Sorbone1-Paris University, on the subject of his
finds, he was called to teach at the University of Amsterdam at the beginning
of the 1980s. Here he immediately organized a brilliant period of excavations,
studies and prehistoric research along the coastal strip of Colombia, and later
on sites of the colonial age in Venezuela.
In conjunction with the drafting of this article, I re-read some letters of
our correspondence, which took place in the last years of the last century,
where his qualities emerge as a scientist of international standing with a
crystalline personality, associated with humility, acceptance and instinctive
inclination to good.
3) Currently, it is considered likely that the first inhabitants came from
the Marquesas Islands.
4) at the time of writing, October 2000.
5) Since the middle of the last century, the presence of this symbol on
Easter Island has raised fundamental questions on the origin and maintenance of
occasional contacts with other populations of the Pacific Ocean. The recent
(2020) morphological analyzes of the cranial characters and DNA carried out on
some human finds dating back to an age prior to the arrival of the first
European travellers, has demonstrated plausible a first population of the
island by populations coming from the coasts of present-day Colombia.
The origin of the presence of the hombre-pajaro
symbol on Easter Island, faraway in the south-eastern Pacific Ocean, intrigued
me a lot as I had already noticed the affinities during my participation in
excavations and research carried out in Peru from 1989 to 1991. In 1993, during
the surveys carried out in the El Caidero area of Gran Canaria (Canary
Islands), informed in advance by a telephone call from a friend of ours, prof.
Santo Tinè, I had the opportunity to discuss it with the Norwegian anthropologist
and ethnographer Thor Heyerdahl (who at that time occasionally resided in the
Island of Tenerife with his new wife). It was a positive meeting, consolidated
by the discovery that we both came from a solid foundation of naturalistic
university studies, particularly zoological and geographical, and from the
experience on Easter Island.
Heyerdahl was firmly convinced of the presence of truth in the ancient
legend that had been handed down from the Incas to European chroniclers in the
early fifteenth century. According to this, a group of tall, white-skinned men
who survived a violent invasion, led by their leader Viracocha, had been forced
to flee their peaceful settlement in Peru, directing their boats towards the
West (the place where the Sun God plunges into the ocean to begin the daily
nocturnal journey into the dark realm of the dead, to then rise again in the
East among the very high peaks of the Andes).
The recent archaeological finds in the Gambler Islands (Mangareva site) and
in the Pitcairn Islands (Pitcairn and Henderson sites), show a strong
similarity in the production of the lithic industry and in the megalithic
achievements present in Easter Island. They seem to bear witness to the ease of
movement of the Polynesian populations over great distances, to the point of
making us guess a real exploration in search of new habitable Southern Pacific
islands, possibly around the year 1000 AD. In this regard, it is worth
mentioning the experimental journey carried out in 1999 with traditional
Polynesian boats, which made it possible to ascertain that only seventeen and a
half days were needed to move from the Island of Mangareva to Easter Island.
6) the old tree grew on the right edge of the tent, born within a gaping
fracture of the rock.
7) the story took place in October 1991, so by "the last century"
I mean the nineteenth here.
8) To avoid unwelcome reactions, we decided not to inform the other members
of the expedition of our experience, with the obvious exception of the
Responsible Director and Antonio "Toñito" Paolillo, who was my
initial liaison at the Council of Elders of the Island.
9) What happened to us in Puna Marengo greatly influenced Djellah's
religious beliefs. When she was diagnosed with the aggressive and rapid return
of the tumor, she wanted to travel from the Florida resort where she resided to
Brazil to consult a healer. He was able to do nothing but confirm the rapid and
implacable approach of her death, advising her to accept it as the end of an
experience in this material world.
10) which became my port, or rather the seat of the hearth to which I have
always returned from my travels in the last thirty years.
When in April 2002 prof. Santo Tinè phoned me from Genoa to inform of Thor
Heyerdahl's death, he also specified the terrible cause - a brain tumor - and
that he had preferred to starve to death rather than treatment. I felt profound
sadness for his disappearance, with Tinè we shared horror for what Heyerdahl
had to face due to the aversion perpetuated by a multitude of powerful
academics, sometimes with fierce malice. And all this for his innovative
theories and adventurous scientific expeditions that aroused so much interest
in international public opinion. Prof. Santo Tinè died eight years later,
following the long aftermath of a severely disabling ischemia.
11) From what I had learned in Rome in 1992, in the 1980s Djellah had lived
in various European countries with a Chilean political refugee, a member of the
opposition movement to the government of the Military Junta headed by General
Augusto Pinochet. I was also made aware of the fact that the General's son
owned properties in Easter Island, rich in rare mineral deposits and, even more
interesting for understanding the scope of work carried out with skill by Djellah:
in 1991 in the Island there was someone or something that posed a danger to the
new government.
Djellah had attended all the main meetings of the adherents of the exiled
group, traveling with his companion in England, France and West Germany,
establishing relationships of personal friendship with the adepts and becoming
aware of many secrets, due to the fact that he had entertained intimate with
several of them. All run smooth until news came up regarding a couple of
artists, who were former informants of the Stasi, with whom her Chilean partner
had maintained relations in East Germany (DDR). Their home had been subjected
to a brutal raid by the police of the new German federation. Perhaps this was
the reason for Djellah transfer to Chile after the fall of the Berlin Wall,
after having left his companion in a blatant way - she claimed - in conjunction
with suspicions advanced by some elements of the Chilean refugee group, that
the latter was doing double game for hostile intelligence services.
In this regard, I take the opportunity to remind that during our stay in
Santiago at the beginning of October 1991, one evening we went to visit two
middle-aged Chilean sisters, who lived in a small apartment located in the
artists' quarter, the Baquedano. Djellah had lived with them as soon as she
arrived in Chile from Europe. Their family had been seriously affected by the
phenomenon of the disappearance of many relatives (desaparecidos) as
they were linked to a left-wing party that had been in power until the military
coup.
Together with them we went to a large square nearby, where among thousands
of people we attended the performance of the Illapu, a group of
musicians linked to the Resistance. It was thrilling to witness the silence of
the weeping audience when the song Historia de Manuel was
intoned, followed at the end by a roar of applause, liberating shouts, and
choruses of slogans dating back to the times of the Cuban revolution. During
the demonstration, an elderly woman approached Djellah who hugged her in tears,
she was introduced to me as the Pasionaria of the Chilean
resistance. Then the woman was taken away by some kind of protective service
that surrounded her.
The next morning, residing in a room shared with Djellah at the Hotel
Londres, I was awakened by a loud knock on the door. I opened drenched in sweat
and exhausted by the alcohol I had swallowed during the evening in various live
music venues in Baquedano. He was the director of the Italian-Chilean
archaeological mission, and behind him was Johnny de Isla Quadrado, a young
Peruvian colleague whom I respected also professionally. At the same time as
offering me a cigarette, the architect asked what I was doing the previous
evening in that square, surrounded by a bunch of "dangerous political
fanatics". I replied that I had gone to listen to some music for free
and he replied giving me a grin. After that he invited me to get dressed: I had
been summoned, alone, to the Institute for Easter Island (or similar
denomination), to have delivered some military geographical maps useful for my
excavations. Well, I stop my memories here.
12) In Italy, for example, the experiments conducted by researchers of the
Department of General Psychology of the University of Padua, following
scientific protocols of accredited international use, should be mentioned.
Here, after having passed the exams conducted by the specialists, it is
possible to request the issue of a recognition of "certified medium"
valid for all legal purposes.
