EASTER ISLAND RIDDLE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 80, Issue 86, 12 April 1938, Page 8

EASTER ISLAND RIDDLE

DR. C. TAUBER’S CLAIM [ Per Press Association.] AUCKLAND, April 11. A claim that he has solved the riddle of Easter Island and can read the script on the wooden tablet found there was made by Dr. Carl Tauber, retired professor of anthorpology at the University of Zurich, Switzerland, who is a passenger by the Reliance. These tablets, stated by an encyclopaedia to be unique in Polynesia, were first noted in 1864 ana are now scattered in museums throughout the world.

Professor Tauber states that he made the discovery while pursuing anthropological research among the Chippewa Indians in North America. He found a clue to the interpretation of one of the tablets, and from that stage went ahead with his research, the result of which will be released in a paper to be read before the Society de Oceaniste in Paris a few months hence. His discovery is only six months old. He claims that the background of the island’s history is Melanesian, as it shows a much older culture than the Polynesian. The tablets tell the legendary history of the greatest seafarers of the Melanesian race. In his opinion the Melanesians had come from Melanesia to New Zealand, and had gone thence to Tahiti and possibly to Marquesas. Only the keenest seafarers had got as far as Easter Island and the tablets told of their rovings.