Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review Volumes 32 and 33.djvu/83

Rh Lore (December, 1917, p. 379), and have frequently urged on other occasions. It is the dissimilarity in the facial type of the Marquisan and Easter Island statues which strikes me as remarkable, in view of their possibly common origin. Dr. Rivers states (on the authority of Tautain) that "in the Marquesas a great stone is placed as a sign of mourning on the head of the image representing a dead man." We may gather, however, that Tautain was by no means sure of this, since he expressly prefaces his statement by saying "J'ai appris, mais d'un seul informateur ," showing that he did not regard the evidence as in any way conclusive.

Next, let me touch upon the "hat" versus "hair" theory of the 'crowns' of red vesicular tufa placed upon the heads of some of the Easter Island statues. I will not repeat the reasons which I gave for believing that, possibly, they might represent hair, lime-bleached after the Melanesian fashion. I stated those reasons fully in the paper above referred to. Dr. Rivers urges emphatically that these red 'crowns' were intended to represent symbolic hats, but the evidence which he adduces in support of this theory is not as yet sufficiently convincing to warrant the final adoption of his view.

The figures of symbolic 'hats' from the Banks Islands and Santa Maria (Hist. of Melanesian Society, i. p. 91, and Pl. iii. Fig. 1), to which he specially refers, bear no resemblance to the Easter Island 'crowns.' He adds, it is true, that "some of the hats are more or less cylindrical," but these he does not figure, so that comparison cannot be made with the special form of crowning stones from Easter Island; and the expression "more or less cylindrical" does not suggest any very close resemblance. If Dr. Rivers will publish figures of Melanesian symbolic hats which do exhibit the peculiar features of the Easter Island 'crowns,' he may carry conviction. I am no blind adherent to the suggestion which I put forward quite tentatively; all I am anxious for in this connection is the satisfactory diagnosis of the 'crowns,' based upon convincing evidence. Until such evidence is forthcoming, I must continue to recognize the possibility of their having been intended to represent hair (or possibly wigs, as suggested by Sir Everard