Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 28, 1917.djvu/395

 /;/ regard to Easter Island. 361

given by George Griffiths in 1859 to the Ashmolean Museum, and now in the Pitt Rivers Museum. This was stated to be a portrait of Captain Cook. This example, as one would expect, has no beard and the ears are represented of the normal shape, in contrast with the greatly distended ears which usually prevail in these figures. It is always possible that this latter Melanesian attribute may have been grafted upon features suggested by a different people. There were " long-eared " people still living upon Easter Island at the time of its discovery by Roggeveen in 1722, and also when Captain Cook visited the island in 1774, though whether these were the remnant of a Melanesian stock or Polynesians who had adopted from Melanesians the practice of distending the car-lobe, is not clear. The native traditional history leads us to suppose that when the " short-eared " Polynesians arrived, they found the island already inhabited by a "long-eared" people (pre- sumably of Melanesian origin), who were almost or quite exterminated by the new-comers.

Another noteworthy feature of the wooden statuettes of Easter Island is the mouth. In most of the sculptures the lips are straight and thin ; in others, especially the emaciated ones, the mouth is almost dumb-bell shaped, recalling a type very prevalent in the conventional carvings of the Hawaiian Islands and New Zealand.

III. The monolithic statues. Perhaps the most striking feature in Easter Island culture is the very numerous huge monolithic effigies, hewn from the solid volcanic rock in the crater of Rano Roraku and erected often upon stone platforms or terraces, ahu, in various parts of the island. These have received special attention from Mr. and Mrs. Routledge, and will no doubt be fully described by them. Suffice it for me to draw attention to certain special points in regard to them, which have a bearing upon the suggestion which I wish to offer. In facial form they differ from any normal native type either Polynesian or Melanesian, nor