Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 28, 1917.djvu/414

 380 Some Ethnological Suggestions

Society on 20th November, 1916. He said,^ " There is just one other point which adds to the problems of the island. A few years ago, when Lord Crawford made his voyage, he brought back a lot of skulls which were deposited in the Natural History Museum, whither I went to measure them. I then wrote a paper which I never published ; it remained both literally and metaphorically a skeleton in my anthropological cupboard, because I could not get away from the conclusion that in their measurements and general appearance these skulls were far more Melanesian than Polynesian. And I do not think I should have been bold enough to say this now if it had not been that quite recently Mr. Pycraft has been going over the material and studying the matter, and he, without knowing anything of my results, which I had carefully hidden, came to the same conclusion." I believe that Dr. Keith has quite recently arrived at a similar opinion after examining the physical characters of the osteological remains of Easter Islanders.

Dr. Hamy, some thirty years ago, suggested a Papuan affinity for skulls found in Easter Island, which were said to differ in no essential feature from those obtained in New Guinea.

The theory of a strong Melanesian element in Easter Island is, therefore, supported by native traditional history, by the arts, industries and cults of the natives, and, lastly, by the physical characters of the islanders.

It is greatly to be hoped that under the fresh impulse afforded by the results of the Routledge expedition, the whole time-honoured problem of Easter Island may be reopened for discussion, and it is with much pleasure that I contribute these notes, sketchy and imperfect though they be. Not only is the problem one of the highest ethnological interest, but its attempted solution with the aid of material and information so zealously collected by


 * Geographical Jojirnal, xlix. p. 342.