Rapa Nui Mythology - The Birdman Cult

The Birdman Cult

The Tangata manu or bird-man cult succeeded the island's Moai era when warfare erupted over dwindling natural resources and construction of statues stopped. The deity Make-make was the chief god of the birdman cult. The cult declined after the island population adopted Catholicism, though the birdman popularity and memory was not erased and it is still present in decoration of island's church.

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