Chilean influencer, Mike Milfort’s videos about two Rapa Nui (Easter Island) moai sparked enthusiasm online that led to a viral campaign called ‘Return the moai’. His followers targeted the British Museum’s Instagram page with comments asking to return the statues.
The Moai
The British Museum houses two moai statues called Hoa Hakananai’a and Moai Hava. These statues were taken from the island of Rapa Nui by British surveyors in 1869. The island is located 2,300 miles off the coast of Chile and is home to over 900 moai statues. The statues are monolithic human figures craved by eastern polysieans between 1000 and 1500 CE. The statues are believed to be representations of the islanders’ ancestors.
Hoa Hakananai’a means ‘lost, hidden, or stolen friend’. The statue is carved from basalt and dates from about 1000–1200. The back of the statue features intricate petroglyphs associated with the tangata manu, or birdman religion.
Moai Hava means ‘dirty, repudiated, rejected or lost’. It dates to between 1100–1600 and is made of coarse basalt rock. Moai Hava has been carved to show arms, torso and head. At the bottom of the statue’s torso are carved hands and a loin cloth.
The campaign
The BBC reports that Chilean social media influencer Mike Milfort first posted videos about the moai now housed in the British Museum in January.
Chilean social media influencer, Mike Milfort routinely posts videos about stolen statues. In January he encouraged his social media followers to join him in calling for the return of the statues to the island of Rapa Nui. Milfort has a million followers on Instagram and 7.5 million TikTok followers. The followers made their message clear across social media including Instagram, YouTube and Facebook, reported the Guardian.
Milfort told the BBC, “My followers began spamming ‘Return the moai’ on Wikipedia, and then the comments section of the British Museum Instagram was full of people posting ‘Return the moai.”
The campaign also caught the attention of the President of Chile, Gabriel Boric. Boric expressed his wholehearted support for the cause in a radio interview.
However, Pedro Edmunds Paoa the Mayor of Rapa Nui, criticised Boric for politicising the cause and reiterated the holistic, spiritual and cultural importance of the statues to the people of Rapa Nui. Paoa further questioned the Milfort’s motives and concern for repatriation of the statues.
A very British reaction
The British museum switched off comments on one of its Instagram posts after Milfort’s followers spammed the comment section demanding the return of the statues. The post was a collaboration with a youth community, the Youth Collective.
One of the spokespersons for the museum said, “Comments were only deactivated on one social media post. We welcome debate, but this has to be balanced against the need for safeguarding considerations, especially where young people are concerned.”
The spokesperson also cited the British Museum Act 1963, which prevents the museum from removing objects from the collection.
The spokesperson added that the museum has good and open relations with colleagues in Rapa Nui, and welcomed members of the community for a visit in November 2018. This visit was a reciprocation to a formal written request from Rapa Nui. However, not much came of the visit and discussions.