In Memoriam
DON RAMIRO ESTEVEZ 1928-1996</p

de Oliveira, Joao Vicente Ganzarolli

English

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measures such as the confinement to the Hangaroa area and thesuppression of the Rapa Nui language during the 1960s. On theother hand, it is undeniable. that the Chilean presence on theisland, at least in the present moment, represents a positive fac-tor in many aspects.Don Ramiro was aware of all these circumstances. Hedisliked violence of any kind. His weapons were words and hisvery life was built on the moral foundations of sincerity andgoodness. He protested against increasing consumerism, al-ienation, and the spread of typical occidental vices, such as al-coholism, drugs and promiscuity. In his pastorate plan, whosewritten version I have now in front of my eyes, he expresses thewill of giving Rapa Nui people a sense offaith based on theirown cultural background. .Vol. 14 (4) December 2000Joiio Vicente Ganzarol/i de OliveiraEmail: jganzarol/i@usa.netDon Ramiro at HangaroaAirport (photo by Carlos Sierra).Don Ramiro gavespecial attention to youngpeople. In his project forsetting a pastorate in RapaNui, he dedicated an entiretopic to what he calls hismain concern. He wantedRapa Nui youths to begiven specific training inthe fields of art, handcraft,agriculture, fishing andother activities suitable tothe place. Rapa Nui doesnot offer enough opportu-nities for working nor,obviously, provide goodeconomic conditions forits inhabitants. Tourism -is the chief industry now, a fact thatbrings advantages and disadvantages, as Don Ramiro alwayssaid. It is true that it provides jobs. Nonetheless, tourism jeop-ardizes cultural identity, bringing the risk that the island and itspeople may become a mere curiosity for tourists - as it is al-ready happening in many parts of Latin America, such as thePeruvian island of Taquile and the Chilean city of San Pedrode Atacama.Living on the island led Don Ramiro to perceive that theislanders are more attached to Eastern patterns of thinking thanto Western ones, since, for them, feelings and intuition havemore value than rational reflection. The pastorate plan, accord-ing to him, had to be adapted to their own reality, respectingtheir way of thinking and being.It was hard for Don Ramiro to live on the island; loneli-ness was oppressive and anguishing, he said. But he providedcontinuity to the work began by Brother Eugene Eyraud, thefirst European missionary of Rapa Nui. Don Ramiro no longerhas to cope with loneliness nor with any kind of human suffer-ing and pain. There is no place for this in eternity.• I express my gratitude to Miss Tamara Quirico for im-portant suggestions.131In MemoriamDON RAMIRO ESTEVEZ 1928-1996·CHILE WAS THE CRADLE-and the grave of Don RamiroEstevez, the late priest of Rapa Nui, who was born May 7th,1928 and died December, 23rd, 1996. Despite having met himjust a few times during my stay in Hangaroa in 1995, I remem-ber him very well: a wise and simple man with whom I spokein his house, attached to the island's church. We were sur-rounded by wooden saints whose neo-gothic style blended withthe features reminiscent of the moai that gave a worldly reputa-tion to Rapa Nui.Such a noble man is difficult to forget. Don Ramiro wasthe kind of person you meet and, after five minutes of talking,have the impression of being in contact for a very long time.Remembering is a function of memory. Thanks to it, we canrecall the experiences we had and the people we met in thepast. The content of this article, as the title says, comes basi-cally from the memory I have of our meeting. Part of it, how-ever, rises also from some readings and an interview I had withMrs. Carmifia Estevez, Don Ramiro's sister, to whom I am in-debted.Ramiro Estevez Tasc6n was ordained a Catholic priest on20 September 1958. Many years later, in February 1993, hewas designed priest of the iglesia of Santa Cruz, in Hangaroa.Before becoming a priest, Don Ramiro studied architecture andpainting, thus art and culture were a part of his life, as well ashis religious affairs. According to his sister, Don Ramiro wasessentially a contemplative man, devoted to meditating andpraying. About five years before his death, he founded a houseof prayer in the Chilean city of Puc6n.A dynamic man, Don Ramiro had the intention of settinga pastoral in the island, which did not come true due to his ill-ness and death. Conscious of the cultural and anthropologicalidiosyncrasies of Rapa Nui, Don Ramiro defended the preser-vation of the art and of the natural physiognomy of the island.He knew that the more than one thousand nautical miles thatseparate Rapa Nui from Pitcairn (the nearest inhabited place)represent an enormous distance - a barrier of water that keptthe aboriginal cultural isolated from other men during severalcenturies. Even nowadays, 278 years since Rapa Nui was dis-covered by the Dutch - and consequently entered the mappa-mundi of Western culture as Easter Island - and 112 yearssince Chile annexed it to its maritime territory, the island ismarked by its extreme anonymity in relation to the world, asDon Ramiro himself used to stress when talking about Rapanuiculture.Rapa Nui for the aboriginal inhabitants, Isla de Pascua forChilean people: this is not a simple duplicity of names; rather itreflects a cultural conflict that is still far from a satisfactorysolution. Being a Chilean Island awards Rapa Nui certain ad-vantages, such as financial facilities for the native students whowant to study in Chile; nevertheless Chilean political hegem-ony tends to be regarded as foreign domination, damaging thecultural identity of the islanders. It is true that Chilean controlwas sometimes arbitrary and perhaps oppressive, dictatingRapa Nui Journal1Ganzarolli de Oliveira: DON RAMIRO ESTEVEZ 1928-1996Published by Kahualike, 2000

DON RAMIRO ESTEVEZ 1928-1996

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DON RAMIRO ESTEVEZ 1928-1996

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