EASTER ISLAND

Evening Star, Issue 19519, 29 March 1927, Page 8

EASTER ISLAND

A PACIFIC MYSTERY “ J think it is a commentary on tho futility of the passion for fame.” In these words, dealing with the monoliths on Easter Island, Professor J. Macmillan Brown concluded a lecture on 1 The Mysteries of tho Pacific,’ which ho delivered before the Canterbury Justices’ Association at Christchurch (reports tho ‘Press’). “The Polynesians never made pottery,” said the lecturer, “but tho Melanesians have made pottery from time immemorial. Pottery is essentially a woman’s art. This proves that the Polynesians settled in the Pacific before pottery was invented, and as pottery belongs to the new Stone Ago (12,000 to 15,0U0. years ago). they cannot havo settled since that time. Professor Brown spent live months on Easter Island some four years ago, and during that time he discovered a great deaf of interesting, information about this wonderful island. His opinion is that it was the centre of an archipelago, and was the vast necropolis or burial ground of tho aristocracy of tho people. Tho Polynesian name for Easter Island means “tinnavel of tho world,” and there is a legend that bears out tho theory than at one time this archipelago, was submerged suddenly by a volcanic disturbance. An inexplicable feature of tho island was that there are found there hieroglyphic carvings' that are found on no "other Polynesian islands. That ancient people could have had no perfect script, said the speaker, or they would havo inscribed the tombs on Pastor Island with the names of tho men who lav buried beneath and tho dates. These were but some of the mysteries of the Pacific and its peoples.