Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review Volumes 32 and 33.djvu/82



—I have read with much interest the article by Dr. Rivers upon "The Statues of Easter Island" in the December number of Folk-Lore, and welcome the expression of his views upon these striking and puzzling monolithic effigies. There are certain points in his paper which invite further discussion, and to these I wish briefly to refer. In the first place, Dr. Rivers, in comparing the Marquisan stone statue seen by F. W. Christian on Hiva-oa and figured by him, with the statues of Easter Island, is surely over-sanguine when he says, "This was about eight feet high and in the position of the arms and general character of the features definitely resembled the statues of Easter Island" (the italics are mine). The position of the arms certainly does suggest such resemblance, as, indeed, it does to renderings of the human form from many other regions. But it is difficult to trace any such correspondence in the facial features, the rendering of which is characteristically and peculiarly Marquisan and differs in nearly all its details from the facial type characteristic of the Easter Island monoliths. The Hiva-oa statue, moreover, has the legs represented, and this is not characteristic of those from Easter Island. Apart from its being monolithic and of large size (8 feet high), and having arms and hands which recall those of the Easter Island carvings, the close resemblance to the latter is by no means obvious; in fact, very divergent 'schools of art; are suggested by the comparison. A definite correspondence between the monolithic statues of the Marquisas Islands and of Easter Island would have been welcomed by me, since I am, and long have been, a firm believer in a Melanesian culture influence in the former group, as I pointed out in Folk-