ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that not only such a disjunction prohibitive to understanding the role and nature of rock-art in prehistoric Rapa Nui but also those petroglyphs actually provide an essential interpretative route into prehistoric Polynesian understandings of landscape as cosmology. The large number of petroglyphs on the island stands out in the broader context of Pacific rock-art in terms of their scale, quality, and diversity. Moreover, the cloak, tapa cloth, and tattoos bound and wrapped the body, adding to the genealogical, symbolic, and sacred protection of the wearer during essential but hazardous transactions between people and deities. The chapter discusses tattoo in order to provide an insight into how the Polynesian inhabitants of Rapa Nui necessarily created landscape as cosmology. It agrees Kaeppler and Gell tattoo in east Polynesia was a process of inscription on the skin that acted as an additional protective membrane.
