The British Museum's Instagram posts were recently subjected to a flood of requests calling for the repatriation of an Easter Island statue called "Hoa Hakananai'a," or "Stolen Friend."
Sparked by a social media campaign launched by Chilean activists, the fervorous appeals have even reached the institution's pages on other platforms like YouTube and Facebook, with the first signs of the movement popping up as early as January.
In response, the museum has deactivated the comments of its Instagram posts, one of which is where it promoted a joint program with the Youth Collective organization. It has since reopened the comment section to some posts, although, it still limits the responses in the Youth Collective one.
A basalt Easter Island Head figure, known as Hoa Hakananai'a, translated as 'lost or stolen friend' is displayed at the British Museum on November 22, 2018 in London, England.
Campaigning for the Return of the 'Hoa Hakananai'a'
The museum has two moai statues in its collection, one of which is the "Hoa Hakannani'a." Both were seized by British surveyors from Rapa Nui, the local name for Easter Island, back in 1868.
Thus, because of this historical background, longstanding requests for the statues' return were initiated. Serving as an extension of these demands is the recent campaign, which can be traced back to a Santiago-based influencer named Mike Milfort.
Milfort, with his sizeable 7.5 million TikTok followers, has made several videos about the "Stolen Friend" moai statue, encouraging his viewers to raise their "voices" and join in making calls for the repatriation of the 8-foot-tall basalt artifact.
The movement has even generated a hashtag that reached the attention of the Chilean president, Gabriel Boric, who has expressed support for the initiative in an interview with a local radio station.
However, such support was met with criticism when Rapa Nui mayor Pedro Edmunds Paoa called out Boric for "politicizing" an issue and subject that is "holistically, spiritually, and culturally important" to them.
Poa also criticized the movement that Boric is championing, expressing concern that the influencer's methods may have degraded the moai's reputation and sacredness into a mere "internet meme."
He also questioned Boric's intentions, saying that self-gain may have been the primary factor rather than the genuine desire to make the situation better.
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