Key Info

- First settler and chief of Easter Island and ancestor to the Rapa Nui people

Brief Bio

Hotu Matuꞌa was the legendary first settler and ariki mau ("supreme chief" or "king") of Easter Island and ancestor of the Rapa Nui people. Hotu Matuꞌa and his two-canoe (or one double hulled canoe) colonising party were Polynesians from the now unknown land of Hiva (probably the Marquesas). They landed at Anakena beach and his people spread out across the island, sub-divided it between clans claiming descent from his sons, and lived for more than a thousand years in their isolated island home at the southeastern tip of the Polynesian Triangle.