Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 28, 1917.djvu/412

 T^yS Some Ethnological Snggestio7is

style in art, certain types of implements, and the well-established cult of the frigate-bird, which was probably connected with rites aiming at increasing the iish-supply.

(3) That at a later time, a wave of Polynesian immigrants arrived and eventually conquered, partly exterminated and partly absorbed the " long-eared " Melauesians, though they retained, and continued to perpetuate in their art, many of the features of Melanesian culture.

(4) That in the new environment a new bird-cult, aiming at promoting another important source of food-supply (t'is. birds and bird's eggs), was initiated and gradually supplanted the older cult. This new cult may have been started and developed either by the Melanesians, who no longer found the frigate-bird a dominant feature in their new surroundings, and who may thus have been led to adopt the sooty tern, which was locally very prominent and abundant and afforded a valuable supply of food — or, possibly, it may have been initiated by the Polynesian invaders. Anyway, the cult of the Sooty tern, while practi- cally ousting the cult of the Frigate-bird, did not entirely obliterate the latter, of which very many traces persisted in the art of the island, in the motifs expressed in sculpture, engraving and painting, and particularly in the ideographic script. It is possible, even, in view of the great importance of the iish-supply, that the frigate-bird may have been long retained in high esteem, and that its cult persisted concurrently with that of the tern.

(5) That, in seeking in the Melanesian area for possible clues to the origin of certain non-Polynesian. elements in the culture of Easter Island, the group of islands which has special claim to consideration and further investigation, is that of the Solomon Islands. Amongst other things, it seems likely that the symbolism of many of the ideographic signs employed in the Easter Island script, may be explained by a study on the spot of the closely similar designs still