EASTER ISLAND.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21112, 20 February 1932, Page 1 (Supplement)

EASTER ISLAND.

ITS GREAT ENIGMA.

BY T. L. BTRKS.

Beyond the rocky, unsheltered coast, against which the restless Pacific surges break endlessly, the land, rough and irregular in outline, stretches across to tho farther shore almost completely devoid of vegetation. Easter Island, aptly described as tho most mysterious island in the world, is a lonely volcanic speck lying some one thousand four hundred miles to tho east of Pitcairn Island, and two thousand miles from the South American coast. By no means a typical South Sea isle, it possesses neither palm trees nor coral reef; it cannot boast even a running stream, though there is a lake, weed-choked and dreary of aspect, in the crater of one of its extinct volcanoes. What is there, then, about this remote and desolate spot that has provoked the keenest scientific discussion for a century or more ? The island s claim to distinction lies not in its natural charms, but in the possession of unique and remarkable works of man, which at one time must have been such as to rank among the wonders of the world. When on Easter Day, 1722, Admiral Rogeveen discovered the island, he found, fringing the shore, numbers of stone platforms, many of which, built in the form of terraces, were surmounted by great stone statues facing inland, and often only a few yards from the water's edge. The largest of statues was some thirty-two feet in height, but their size varied greatly, as did also tho number to be found on each platform—or " ahu" as the natives called them. At the time of Rogeveen's visit the majority of the figures on the ahu were standing and intact, but to-day every one lies on the ground, many of them shattered by their fall. The platforms have also shared in the general destruction, most of which probably took place during tribal warfare, though no doubt the action of the weather accounted for a good deal. The same fate, however, was escaped by a number of statues erected on the slopes of a mountain known as Rario Earaku, these having been placed upright with their bases in the ground, thus withstanding to a greater degree the attacks of both man and the elements. Platform Tombs. On many of the platform statues, the heads of which were shaped speciallv for the purpose, there were originally placed huge cylindrical " hats" of red volcanic tuff. It now seems certain that the platforms themselves were built primarily to serve as tombs, and it is possible that the images were intended to represent the persons buried below them. Almost all the statues were brought from quarries on the mountain Rano Earaku, where, above the lake in the crater, may still be seen over one hundred and fifty of the monoliths in all stages of completion. The rock from which they were fashioned, reddish-brown in colour and apparently sedimentary, is fairly soft, though in it there occur at intervals nodules of much harder rock. These" hard fragments supplied the old-time sculptors with material for the majority of their tools, many hundreds of which are still to be found scattered about the island. Though the largest statuo in the quarry is sixty-six feet in length, the problem of its removal from the immediate vicinity would not present insuperable difficulties, since a fairly steep slope lies before it. But, when it was once away from the quarry, what then ? Supposing that it was intended for an ahu at the farther end of tho island, the workmen would have been faced with the task of transporting that huge fifty-ton block a distance of ten miles or moro across hills and valleys, over a road which was probably unpaved, and was certainly only slightly graded. It is true that, as far as its size is concerned, this statue is an exceptional case; but consider one of thirty, or even of twenty, tons that was actually erected on a platform. Arduous Journeys. To get it there, supposing that rollers were employed, was no mean feat, for to leave the centre unsupported even for an instant, while the ends rested on the rollers, would probably cause the image to break across under its own weight, and all the work would have been for nothing. Any slight miscalculation during the descent of a hill might have resulted in the ponderous mass getting out of control, and plunging over a bank or charging down the road to mangle and slay half the labour gang in one deathdealing sweep. Even when the journey had been successfully completed the erection of the statues had still to bo accomplished, and this, considering they were invariably in ono piece, had to be mounted on pedestals, and often crowned with " hats" weighing as much as ten tons, must alone have involved an enormous amount of labour. Everything considered, the ambitious planning and skilful execution of that titanic scheme proclaim it ono of the greatest triumphs of engineering the world lias ever known. The age of the monuments has, like the rest of their history, never been definitely settled, but it must certainly be measured in centuries at least. It is not unlikely that they were there when Balboa, from his mountain-top on the Isthmus of Panama, gazed out across the Pacific, never before seen by European, and even when, at a still earlier date, the first Maoris reached Now Zealand. Work Unfinished. One of tho strangest features of the whole Easter Island mystery is supplied by those hundred and fifty-odd uncompleted statues ir< the quarries of liano Raraku. From this and other indications it, soems certain that tho abandonment of tho whole project was a sudden and unexpected eventuality, but what catastropho caused this will probably never be known. Famine or pestilence may have played a part, or a horde of savage invaders may have descended on that isolated speck of land, and, by the extermination of tho sculptors, brought the work to an abrupt conclusion. Those treeless, windswept slopes, where now tho silence is broken only by the ceasolcss monotone of the surf on the rocks below, may liavo resounded with tho yells of men engaged in a desperate struggle for life, and those recumbent half-finished statues may havo run red with the blood of their makers. Or it may have been that a vast army of slaves, working under tho lash to build a monument to their masters' greatness, arose at tho last and avenged their bitter wrongs by an orgy of ruthless slaughter. Who knows what grim scenes of sacrifice or cannibalism those images may not havo witnessed; at what prico of toil and sweat and agony were they hewn and dragged those weary miles and set up at the appointed place ? Who were tho men who fashioned them, and what brought their mighty plan to naught and swept them into oblivion ? Only those statues, under whoso stony stare tho whole drama was played out, can provide tho answer, and with them the secret is safe. There on that lonely isle, huge and grotesque, they have kept their solitaryvigil through the passing ages, well-nigh imperishable in themselves, but monuments of a vanished race and an ideal that is lost for ever.