NewsTracker Answers for week of Sep. 28, 2020

Q: A group of of 25 residents from the Pacific Ocean’s remote Easter Island have been stranded 2.600 miles away on the island of Tahiti for the past six months after the covid-19 pandemic forced flights to be canceled. Which of these oceans is the Pacific?

Circle the area on this map


Q: Easter Island, or Rapa Nui, is the southeastern-most point of a roughly triangular region that extends southwest to New Zealand and north to Hawaii. The islands in this area were originally populated by which ethnic group?

A. Amerindians

B. Japanese

C. Polynesians

D. Tibetans


C. Natives of the Polynesian Triangle speak Polynesian languages and share related DNA. Polynesians used their canoes and ancient navigation skills of reading stars, currents, clouds and bird movements to reach the most remote corners of the Pacific. Tahiti lies roughly in the middle of the Polynesian Triangle.


Q: The Easter Islanders visiting Tahiti were trapped when regular flights to and from Tahiti, Easter Island and Santiago were canceled. Santiago is the capital of what nation that includes Easter Island?

A. Chile

B. Ecuador

C. Galapagos

D. Venezuela


A. Easter Island was annexed by Chile in 1888 and the islanders gained Chilean citizenship in 1966. Polynesians are believed to have arrived on Easter Island about 1200. Disease, slave-trading and emigration to other islands reduced the island’s native population from around 3,000 people when Europeans first arrived in 1722 to a low of 111 in 1877.


Q: Easter Island is famous for its nearly 1,000 statues of giant heads which were erected by the Polynesians. What are those monumental statues called?

A. Manu'a

B. Maori

C. Maui

D. Moai


D. The Moai statues were created by the early Rapa Nui people. The Maori are the Polynesian natives of New Zealand. Mauii is a Hawaiian island settled by Polynesians who also settled Manu'a, a group of Samoan islands.


Q: At a distance of nearly 2,200 miles, mainland Chile is a bit closer to Easter Island than Tahiti. But for Easter Islanders, Tahiti has long been a stopping-off point, a connection to the rest of the world. Tahiti is part of an “overseas country” of which European nation?

A. Britain

B. France

C. Germany

D. Netherlands


B. Tahiti is the most populous of the 67 inhabited islands in French Polynesia, a semi-autonomous region of the French Republic. Many of the Rap Nui people who fled the South American slavers raiding Easter Island ended up migrating to Tahiti.