EASTER ISLAND

Hokitika Guardian, 2 April 1921, Page 4

EASTER ISLAND

Easter Island, that little speck of v nil lying lonely in the wastes ol the aciiie two thousand miles from the j rast of South America, presents a las- ; inating problem. 'lhe island is faro- ] us for its monoliths, imagines varying , l heights, but all of the same design ; ml the same expression, a trunk and , face with distended ear lobes and a ruel austere, sardonic east of featiues. yhat did these images represent? Vbat manner of man made them? A hence did he come, for clearly the Vw degenerate natives living on the stand within times of historical record vc,-e incapable of such, an achievement, various theories have been propounded, ncluding one that Easter Island is nil hat remains of a Pacific continent now mbniergcd. But all of them are unsatisfactory for the simple reason that those who had actually seen tlie monoliths were for the most part sailors without archaeological or anthropological training, while the savants who evolved the theories had to depend upon the inadequate material of hearsay evidence and .unskilled observations. In 1913 Air Score shy Routledgo determined to investigate the problem in a systematic manner. lie fitted out an expedition on which various learned societies bestowed their blessing, and accompanied bv bis wife and several scientists, spent a considerable ■ time on the island. Airs Scoresby Rmitledge has described the work of the expedition anil its results in -The Mystery of Faster Island.” a must interesting tmok which does not answer all the questions raised by the existence of these images, hut throws a great deal of new light on the subject. Faster Island is not an easy place to go to. Once in a while a steamer outof its coni sc- may stop for supplies, but the only “regular’’ means of communication is a Chilian schooner, which (.alls sometimes once a year, sometimes less often, for the wool grown on the island. So Mr Routledgo had a yacht specially designed and built for the voyage, and sailed it out through the Straits of Alagt Hail. Oil the way the party visited Juan Fernandez, Selkirks Island, and Mrs Routledgo reminds us in passing that as the original of Robinson Crusoe Alexander Selkirk was rather a Irauil. lie was not wrecked or even marooned, but be was put ashore at his o" n request, because be was on bad terms with t‘e . a;;tain, lie was left with a boat load of stores, and he kue" that lie would he taken off before long, as Juan Fernando; "as a regular haunt ol buccaneers, who used to careen their ships there. In due course the expedition reached Faster Island, and settled down to their investigations. 11l normal circumstances, apart trom their uurk, life would have been dull. The island is simply a sheep and cattle run, owned by a Chilian Company. The only Fntopean residents were the English manager and a Frenchman married to a native. The 300 natives, who are all that are left of a population formerly much larger, are an uninteresting, unattractive lot, demoralised, untrustworthy. incorrigible thieves. But, as it- happened, existence was quite eventful. First there was a rebellion. The natives began to slaughter and devour the stock, and it was difficult to say how the affair might have ended had not a Chilian training ship providentially arrived and carried off the ringleaders. Later on, one day 12 vessels suddenly appeared in the roadstead, five German men-of-war and the rest colliers. The party, of course, had not the slightest idea that war had broken out, or that this was von Spec’s squadron which had arranged to make Faster Island their rendezvous. The Germans said nothing about the war, and the manager welcomed the opportunity of selling them a great quantity oi meat. But the truth leaked out, and the remainder of the party’s sojourn on the island was clouded by suspense and anxiety about what was happening in the outside world. At the end of the year another German, the cruiser Prince Eitel Freidrieh, visited the Island with a prize and the crews ot vessels she had’ sunk. Some of the latter were put ashore. Thus remote as Faster Island was it was nest unaffected by the war. The scientific results achieved by the expedition may he shortly summarised, it uas found that the images all came from the one place, an obsidian quarry on the side of an extinct volcano. They were hewn in a single piece out of the solid rock with primitive stone tools, a number of which were discovered, and each one of them must have represented enormous labour. Some were erected as boundary stones, landmarks, and so forth; others had more definitely religious associations. These were the ones on the alius, stone structures, now in ruins, resembling a vast theatre, stage, of which the floor runs gradually upwards from the foot-lights. At the back of the stage, is a terrace, on which are set in line the giant figures facing the audience. In front of them, it is conceived, funeral rites were solemnised. Wherever the spectator stoo.l lie would see towering these huge shapes, the ever-wateliful guardians of the dead. They may have been gods ; they may have been representations of ancestors, although this does not necessarily exclude the idea of divinity. Their worship was connected with ft bird-cult!. It is impossible to estimate the age of these images, of which there are hundreds. There is no reason to suppose that they are very old, although their manufacture probably extended over a period of several centuries. The natives pay no attention to them, hut there is evidence that the cult and the manufacture existed until the beginning of the 18th century; tit any rate, the alius and the images were then in good repair. Many of the images in the. open are still standing, but those on the alius have, without exception, been overthrown—-by whom we do not know, hut certainly through deliberate vandalism. -j With regard to. Hie former inhabitants of Easter Island the following may he accepted as a working hypothesis: “There was an original negroid

lerornl which, brought with it the cns- in om of distending the ear, wooden lai igures, and also the bird-cult. A whiter wave succeeded, which mingled ha nth the first, and the next generation of id opted the fashion of the country in sti stretching the lobe of the ear, and carded on the bird-cult. At some time n the course of settlement war arose E ; ictween the earlier and the later (j, •omers, in which the former took re- gI fuge in the eastern headland, and were ei largely exterminated. But we cannot ip f say definitely whence they came; "'0 E cannot say whether the great stone c( works were initiated by the earlier or a the later arrivals; we cannot say what u is the meaning of the inscribed tablets S that have been found or the origin of f; the script. We do not know how the si groat images, many of them weighing n ,30 tons, were brought from the quarry e and set up miles away. “Presumably l t rollers were employed, but there appears never to have been much wood or material for cordage and it is dfliirult t > \ see bow sufficient men could bring strength to bear oil the block.” Moreover, the fragile obsidian features could | hardly have survived such a method of 1 transport. “Least of all do we kno" . the thoughts which passed through the minds of those old image-makers as , they worked at their craft, the scenes , enacted, as their humbler neighbours | toilsomely moved the great figures to their place, the weird ceremonies which doubtless marked their erection—such things are gone for ever.”