Easter Island

“ The ocean broke angrily against the stern basalt, or entered these huge pits and sprang out of them in welling masses of foam and spray. An iron-bound coast that defied the heart, or any sentiment but wonder and fear. Boulders as big as ships were half attached to the precipices or lay near-by to attest the continuous devouring of the land by the sea. Coming from Tahiti, with its beautiful reefs and beaches, and the clouds like wreaths of reva-reva, with cocoanut-palms and breadfruit-trees and bananas covering all the land, this Easter Island seemed terribly bare and forbidding. ”

“ The island lies in a lonely position, at the extreme west of the South Pacific series, and measures but thirteen miles in length and about seven in width. The hues of the land are sand and tawny; the sea is a faithful mirror of the turquoise sky; the dreamy heat of Polynesia endures throughout the year. Easter Island is lonely, lazy, unproductive, a little speck upon the broad breast of the Pacific. ”

“ The Captain of the Kildalton feared lest even the distance of the settlement from the Manager’s house might not suffice to prevent the plague being carried there by insects, and told a gruesome tale, within his knowledge, of two white men who had gone for a visit to a Pacific island, one of whom on their return to an American port had been immediately sent back to a leper colony. But how could one allow the last vestige of knowledge in Easter Island to die out without an effort? ”

“ Nothing can be more striking than the fact that Easter Island and North America both give the same testimony as to the origin of the savage life found in them, although in all circumstances and surroundings the two cases are so different. If no stone monuments had been constructed in Easter Island, or mounds, containing a few relics saved from fire, in the United States, we might never have suspected the existence of these ancient peoples. ”

“ So wrote, a century and a half ago, one of the earliest navigators to visit the Island of Easter in the South-east Pacific. Ever since that day passing ships have found it incomprehensible that a few hundred natives should have been able to make, move, and erect numbers of great stone monuments, some of which are over thirty feet in height; they have marvelled and passed on. As the world’s traffic has increased Easter Island has still stood outside its routes, quiet and remote, with its story undeciphered. What were these statues of which the present inhabitants know nothing? ”

“ It has even been conjectured that Easter Island is all that remains of a sunken continent. Fifty years ago the problem was increased by the discovery on this mysterious land of wooden tablets bearing an unknown script; they too have refused to yield their secret.
When, therefore, we decided to see the Pacific before we died, and asked the anthropological authorities at the British Museum what work there remained to be done, the answer was, “Easter Island.” ”

“ The next year a Jesuit mission from Tahiti reached the island and succeeded in the task of civilization. The natives, who number scarcely one hundred, are all Christians.
Easter Island is famous for its wonderful archaeological remains. Here are found immense platforms built of large cut stones fitted together without cement. They are generally built upon headlands, and on the slope towards the sea. The walls on the seaside are, in some of the platforms, nearly 30 ft. high and from 200 to 300 ft. long, by about 30 ft. wide. Some of the squared stones are as much as 6 ft. ”

“ Ethnologists have given some attention to the Easter Island puzzle, but so far it seems that there is little prospect that the supercilious gray faces will ever open their sealed and pursed lips to tell their past, or that documents hidden in the heavy masonry will ever unfold their pages to inquiring modern eyes. ”

“ To satisfy curiosity, I took a shell boat to Easter Island, where those strange saint-like statues with sealed lips now stand, pre-eminent sentinels, as they have stood since the day when the Mid-Pacific continent was a prominent feature on our globe. On this tiny mid-ocean world the natives know about as much concerning the origin of their clans as we do about pre-existence. They shelter from storm in stone houses, of which the walls are four or five feet thick.
Many of the inner walls still bear traces of an intelligent people. ”

“ The coconut trees are unfortunately dying. Each household has a share of the ground rising behind the village, and the hillside is traversed by shady avenues of palms and bananas, which afford at every turn glimpses of outstanding cliffs and the brilliant blue of the ocean. The standard of life compares very favourably with that of an English village, and is immeasurably superior to that achieved on Easter Island under similar circumstances. ”

“ Easter Island—the easternmost of the Polynesian islands, not much more than 2000 miles from the coast of South America—had been seen by the English pirate, Captain Davis, in 1685, but was only definitely known and named, after its discovery by the Dutch navigator, Roggeveen, [67] on Easter Sunday in 1722; and was considered by some geographers in Holland and France to be an outlying point of the great southern continent: which, if this were the case, would be almost as large as Asia, and would [183] occupy quite half the space actually covered by the Pacific Ocean. ”

“ When we have xiiimore definite knowledge as to the nature and date of these migrations which have come from the west by such stepping-stones as Pitcairn Island, or by the Marquesas and Paumotu groups, then we shall be able to deduce still further information about Easter Island. When more is ascertained of the stone works scattered throughout other islands, we shall speak with greater certainty as to whether a first or second wave of immigrants, or both combined, are responsible for its monoliths. We have a very fair idea now, when, and perhaps why, the cult of the statues ended ”

“ It was demonstrated by the chart that we were much nearer to Easter Island than to any other land, say some eight hundred miles distant by projection. But, on the other hand, the wind hung persistently from the northward and placed us to leeward of our port. It was too far to think of standing back to the South American coast, and we felt that we must keep a northwesterly course, and if the wind headed us off from Easter Island, that we could at least fetch some of the more westerly of the Society [29] Group. ”

“ A Western editor has said of Columbus that he deserves no praise for discovering America, as it is so large that he could not well have missed it; but Easter Island is so small, that the chances must have been thousands to one against its being reached by canoes sailing even from the nearest land; yet it is an ascertained fact that Easter Island was peopled by the Polynesians. Whatever drove canoes to Easter Island would have driven them from the island to Chili and Peru. The Polynesian Malays would sometimes be taken out to sea by sudden storms, by war, by hunger, by love of change. ”

“ We may add, the simplicity of their languages, that of Easter Island being a dialect, which, in many respects, resembles that of New Zealand, especially in the harshness of pronunciation and the use of gutturals, and yet, in other instances, partakes of that of Otaheite. The monarchical government likewise strengthens the affinity between the Easter Islanders and the tropical tribes, its prerogatives being only varied according to the different degrees of fertility of the islands, and the opulence or luxury of the people. ”

“ This form of heiau has no resemblance either to the marae of Tahiti or the ahu of Easter Island; and the art of building never seems to have approached the excellence reached in the latter. Mr. Gordon, the British Consul, gave us much pleasure by taking us in his motor, accompanied by Dr. Brigham, to see the remains of one of these 324temples on the eastern side of the island. ”

“ Such is the produce of Easter Island, or Davis’s Land, which is situated in the latitude of 27° 5ʹ 30ʺ S., longitude 109° 46ʹ 20ʺ W. It is about ten or twelve leagues in circuit, hath a hilly and stony surface, and an iron-bound shore. The hills are of such an height as to be seen fifteen or sixteen leagues. Off the south end, are two rocky islots lying near the shore. The north and east points of the island rise directly from the sea to a considerable height; between them, on the south-east side, the shore forms an open bay, in which I believe the Dutch anchored. ”

“ Princess Takau kindly acted as interpreter when we went to look up the Easter Islanders who came here to work on the Brander plantation and who still form a little colony. One of our main objects in visiting Tahiti had been to inspect the tablets and Easter Island collection of Bishop Jaussen who died in 1892. ”

“ At one time I bethought me of making a trip to Easter Island, in my submarine boat, and see if I could not induce the natives, if any, to make me their chief, and if so, to return and, with their aid, build a large vessel, and carry off my treasure to their island, or carry back enough of them to mine to aid me in navigating me to some neutral port, having first fully armed her and taught them seamanship. ”

“ It has already been seen that various links connect the people now living on Easter Island with the great images. Tradition is not altogether extinct; in a few cases the names of the men are actually remembered who made the individual statues, and also those of their clans which are still in existence. But the two strongest bonds are the wooden figures and the bird cult. The wooden figures were being made in recent times, and they have a design on the back resembling that on the stone images, while they also possess the same long ears. ”

“ If I am right in my general position that the statues of Easter Island are only hypertrophied examples of the images of the people who introduced the art of stone-working into the Pacific, we are provided with a fully sufficient motive for the presence of crowns or hats on the statues of Easter Island. ”

“ How shall we account for this nation's having spread itself, in so many detached islands, so widely disjoined from each other, in every quarter of the Pacific Ocean! We find it, from New Zealand, in the south, as far as the Sandwich Islands to the north! And, in another direction, from Easter Island to the Hebrides! that is, over an extent of sixty degrees of latitude, or twelve hundred leagues, north and south! and eighty-three degrees of longitude, or sixteen hundred and sixty leagues east and west! How much farther, in either direction, its colonies reach is not known ”

“ The famished men soon consumed everything eatable they could come at on the island. They hunted high and low, but it was not until the 22nd that they found a spring of water. The island was almost desolate. Nothing was to be gained by remaining there, so the majority concluded to sail for Easter Island, some nine hundred miles southward. Three men decided to stay on the island. They all spent a melancholy Christmas there, repairing their boats and filling their water-breakers, and on the 27th the others took their departure. ”

“ He is English, and was, to all intent, at the time of our arrival, the only white man on the island; a French carpenter, who lived at Hanga Roa with a native wife, being always included in the village community. His house is at Mataveri (fig. 25) , a spot about two miles to the south of the village, surrounded by modern plantations which are almost the only trees on the island; immediately behind it rises the swelling mass of the volcano Rano Kao. The first meal on Easter Island, taken here with Mr. Edmunds, remains a lasting memory. ”

“ Henry Balfour has placed us, and all who are interested in the subject, under the greatest obligation for his work on our results which has thrown a flood of light on the culture of Easter Island, and has, in perhaps greater degree than anything else, made the Expedition seem “worth while.” Dr. Rivers, of Cambridge, kindly undertook the position of Correspondent in connection with the committee of the British Association, and has put at our disposal his great knowledge of the Pacific. ”

“ In dealing with this portion of the book I must be content to point out the remarkable similarity between the social organisation of Easter Island and that of another outlier of Polynesian culture, the far distant Tikopia. In each case we have the people of a tiny island living in two districts more or less hostile to one another, and the people of each district divided into smaller groups who live in settlements round the coast. ”

“ The inhabitants are, in general, a slender race. In colour, features, and language, they bear such an affinity to the people of the more western isles, that there can be no doubt of their having been descended from one common original. It is indeed extraordinary, that the same nation should have spread themselves to so wide an extent, as to take in almost a fourth part of the circumference of the globe. With regard to the disposition of the natives of Easter Island, it is friendly and hospitable; but they are as much addicted to stealing, as any of their neighbours. ”

“ Such are found upon the Caroline islands, on sacred Tonga, on Pitcairn, and on Easter island, the last mentioned have excited particular attention, and have given rise to various foolish theories about a previous race of high culture, and about relationship to the civilized American nations of Peru and Central America. It is enough to say that nothing on Easter island is peculiar to its culture. There are stone platforms with rude stone images on them thirty or forty feet high; there are the foundations of stone houses; there are remains of a primitive ideographic writing. ”