EASTER ISLAND

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXIII, Issue 210, 18 August 1933, Page 9

EASTER ISLAND

MYSTERY OF PACIFIC TITANIC UNKNOWN GODS. * A LOST CULTURE. The steamer making the voyage from Wellington, New Zealand, when about half-way across the Pacific, passes nut tar from Easter island. It is situated in 27deg. 10 s. lat and 109 deg. 26 W. long , and the famous Pitcairn Island lies about I too miles to the west, there is some doubt about whether (Captain Davis discovered it in 1687, but the Dutch admiral Hoggeveen landed there in 1722, and gave it the name it still bears in commemoration of the fact that it was on Easter Day he stepped ashore, says a writer in the Melbourne “Age.” The native name is Kapanui. Deeply interesting accounts ot the island are given by Captain Cook, La Perouse, and the Dutch admiral. These reports afford very similar descriptions of the people, their dwellings and habits, Cook saying that the natives were as expert thieves as any they had met. They stele La Perouse’s hat, and he felt particularly aggrieved because he had made them presents of sheep, goats, pigs, and other valuable commodities. The estimates of population varied from 700 to 2000, but Mrs Scoresby Routledge, who, with her husband, visited the island m 1914, sa.ys that the only part of it which is inhabited contains only 250 natives, all that remains ot the population. Her volume, entitled “The Mystery of Eastex Island,” contains full and reliable information on every aspect of the place and the people, and her contribution to the “National Geographical Magazine” provides a vivid and unusually impressive piece of work. The place was also honoured with a visit from Pierre Loti in 1872, when a cadet on board the Flore. The native name for the place, Rapanui, suggested to him the French word Nuit, and its association with darkness and gloom IMPRESSIVE LAND. As the Flode drew nearer the island “beneath the cloud-laden sky its sombre rocks and ruddy craters came in sight.” Mrs Routledge and her company gazed “in almost awed silence at the long grey mass of laud, broken into three great curves, ami diversified by giant mole hills. The whole looked an alarmingly big land in which to find hidden caves.” It is somewhat triangular, purely volcanic, about thirtyfour miles in circumference, and has an area of forty-seven square miles. The highest part has a volcano over 1700 feet in height, and the summit consists of a cluster of small craters. The island contrasts sharply with the lotus-eating lands one meets in other parts of the Pacific. Its surfoce is bleak and grass-grown, its rocks are defiant, its ocean turbulent. Although not by any means beautiful, it has a certain attraction “in marvellous views of rolling country,” and its great silence. The hills are blue-grey splashed with gold, but the peaks lack softness. The natives are fair Polynesians, with some Melanesian characteristics. Dr. Keith says that they are a remarkably long-headed people, and in that respect more Melanesian than Polynesian. Why have their numbers dwindled to vanishing point? Labour was needed for the guano fields of Peru and the island was raided. Old men tell pathetic tales of the capture and removal of a thousand of the natives. Some were returned by the French Minister at Lima, but smallpox had broken out amongst these, and only fifteen survived, and unhappily spread the disease with fatal results. In 1888 the Chilean Government took possession of Easter Island, and under its care the population is increasing. Life is not dull amongst them, and their principal joys are feasting, singing, and dancing. . A CURIOUS APPEAL. The mystery of this barren island casts a weird spell over visitors. Fringing the coast are about 260 stone platforms or “ahu.” They consist of walls built parallel with the sea, and measure 15 feet in height, and up to 300 feet in length. Great stone images stood on these at about the centre of . the structure, and all of them faced inland. The masonry is well fitted and in rectangular or polygonal blocks. All the statues, estimated at about 500. have been thrown down, and many broken. Their size varies from three to seventy feet high. One which measured 66 feet was found in the quarry, but had never been moved. The quarry for the statues was at the north-east end of the island, and here they are found in large numbers, and at all stages of completion. The sculptors began and finished their carving before the back was cut clear from the rock. “In the best preserved specimens,” says Mrs Routledge, “the figures lie on their faces like a row of huge nine-pins; .some are intact, but many are broken, the cleavage having generally occurred v ben the falling image has come iu contact with the containing wall at the lower level. The heads have not infrequently turned a somersault while fall mg, and now lie face uppermost.” No native remembers a statue standing on an ahu. Legends largely magical explain the fall of the images, but it is probable that tribal warfare accounts tor part at least of the vandalism. Ropes were used or small stones were removed from under the bedplates. Others may have been delib erately dug out. When were the images hewn and erected? No mortal knows. Priests and others who may have known the secret were carried away to Peru, and their knowledge died with them. There are peculiar designs on the back of some stone statues and on small wooden figures, and there are writings engraved on wooden tablets, but none of them can be translated. Many of them are pictographs representing men, birds, fish, etc., and may have served as symbols to aid the memory. Probably the exact interpretation will never bo known. FIVE CENTURIES AGO. It is estimated that the Polynesian wave reached Easter Island about 1400 A.D., and the newcomers are thought by some authorities to have introduced the erection ot stone monuments. The volcanic ash provided a very good substitute 10l wood, and the manufacture of the images lasted till the eighteenth century. Admiral Hoggeveen mentions some ceremonies which he regarded as indicating the worship of the statues. The compressed volcanic ash was worked by chisels made of harder stone. No one nas yet discovered how images weighing firty tons were transported and set up. The native tradition <■ that the were dragged into position

with ropes, and round stones were placed underneath to serve as rollers. After being hauled up the incline, they were up-ended by taking away their bases. When the authorities at the British Museum were asked what work remained to be done, the answer was, "Easter Island." Thereupon Mr and Mrs Seoresby Routledge built a little vessel, called her "Mana,’’ which means “good luck,” and found their way to the Pacific through the Straits of Magellan. I noy came to Easter Islam], and left it impressed by its loneliness, its legends. statues and impenetrable mystery. Its very script is untranslatable. The volcano is dead, and brooding silence is over the island, file earvers ol the Titans are gone. What remains is the island itself, dumb as the images it made ami worshipped, and challenging confidence science to lift the veil, and tell us all we long to know. Great is the known, but greater tar the unknown