Carmen Cardinali Paoa Carmen Cardinali Paoa Carmen Cardinali Paoa (born 21 June 1944) is a Chilean professor. She served as the Governor of Easter Island (Rapa Nui) in the government of president Sebastián Piñera, between 2010 and 2014. A native of the island, Cardinali hasworked as a professor in Santiago and also in Easter Island's tourism industry. Cardinali's predecessor, former Governor Pedro Edmunds Paoa, resigned in early August 2010 following the occupation of six buildings by protesters who demanded the return of land to the descendents of the island's indigenous Polynesian inhabitants. Lawyer Jorge Miranda was appointed as interim Governor until a replacement
History of Easter Island analysis of Easter Island's current inhabitants indicates that the 36 people living on Rapa Nui who survived the devastating internecine wars, slave raids and epidemics of the 19th century and had any offspring, were Polynesian. Furthermore, examination of skeletons offers evidence of only Polynesian origins for Rapa Nui living on the island after 1680. According to legends recorded by the missionaries in the 1860s, the island originally had a very clear class system, with an "ariki", king, wielding absolute God-like power ever since Hotu Matua had arrived on the island. The most visible element in the culture was production of