Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 28, 1917.djvu/373

 Rh the bird celebrations, in addition to a particular dress and hat, the men carried the “ao” and the women wore the “remiro,” a breast ornament only used by a woman whose husband was of the Mato-toa. The wooden images, “moai toromiro,” were hung around the neck. A function connected with the young birds took place in October or November, but will be more conveniently spoken of later.

In July the Ao left Mataveri and wound their way up to the top of the mountain by a track still just traceable and known as “the road of the Ao.” Rano Kao is some thirteen hundred feet in height and has a crater about a mile in width; the landward side is a grassy slope, but the three sides which are surrounded by sea have been gradually eroded till they form a steep and precipitous cliff of about one thousand feet. So far has this erosion proceeded that the sea has nearly worn its way into the crater itself, which is at the present time only separated from it by a wall of rock along which it would be feasible but not easy to walk. In this process of attrition some harder portions of rock have been left and form three little islands lying off the coast. Standing on the western extremity of the mountain with the narrow ridge immediately on the left, the crater behind and the cliff in front, these islets are seen far below, always girdled with breaking surf from the swell of the Pacific, which here extends in an unbroken sweep to the Antarctic. To-day no sound is heard save the cries of the sea birds as they circle round these their habitations.

The company of the Ao proceeded by the western side of the crater along its ever-narrowing summit till this spot on the cliff was reached, which is known as Orongo. Here houses were again awaiting them, but unlike those at Mata-veri they were constructed of stone laminae, lined and roofed with slabs and covered with earth; such structures were obviously more suitable for so windy a spot than those made of reeds. The entrance, which is always toward