Makemake

Makemake is the creator deity of Rapa Nui (Easter Island) tradition, associated with the sea, migratory birds and human fertility. He is the most frequently carved figure in Rapa Nui rock art, shown as a bird-headed anthropomorphic face, and was the focus of the tangata manu (birdman) competition held annually at the ceremonial village of Orongo on the island's southwestern cliffs. Representatives of competing clans, or their appointed athletes, climbed down the cliff and swam to the offshore islet of Motu Nui to retrieve the season's first sooty tern egg; the sponsoring chief of the winning athlete was proclaimed tangata manu, gaining ritual authority and privileges for the following year. Documented as practiced into the 1860s before Christian missionary influence brought it to an end, the competition and Makemake's central place in it are attested through rock art, oral tradition and the eyewitness accounts European visitors recorded in the nineteenth century.