MYSTERIOUS FASTER ISLAND. (From Our Own Correspondent.)

Otago Witness, Issue 2674, 14 June 1905, Page 13

MYSTERIOUS FASTER ISLAND. (From Our Own Correspondent.)

WELLINGTON, June 8.

At the local Philosophical Society's meeting Mr A. Hamilton, director of the Colonial Museum, exhibited a partially decayed and defaced Easter- Island wooden tablet, on which the curious and unique hieroglyphs of the ancient people who inhabited that mysterious island were still visible. Mr 'Tregear made a_ few remarks on the subject. The aborigines, he said, were practically swept from the islands by the Portuguese and carried into slavery, and only a few doubtful fragments of the ancient lore had bee.i recovered from one or two old men deported to Tahiti. They were remarkable as the only Pacific islanders possessing a script, whether purely hieroglyphic or phonetic was unknown, and it had never been deciphered. According to the Natives, the_ sacred lore of the race, historic, genealogical, and mythical was inscribed on 49 tablets about the size of a foolscap page), and only a few of the initiated head chiefs and priests could read them. To the world at large the remnant of these archaic documents is now a cipher without a key- Mr Tregear also_ referred to the vandalism in connection with the wonderful ancient monuments on Easter Island, and said that tho same kind of thing seemed to be going on everywhere unless the sternest measures were taken to repress it. He instanced an irsoribed rook fape in the Chatham Islands covered with ancient Native drawings of remarkable bird forms. These had been to a large extent obliterated, and a great target painted over them. The marksmen apparently could think of no other spot for their practice than this interesting- piece of Native art.