INDEX

Note.—Entries other than proper names refer to Easter Island, unless otherwise stated. References to illustrations are given in text.

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[1]. The Pelican, or Golden Hinde, was 120 tons; the Elizabeth 80 tons, and three smaller ships were 50, 30, and 12 tons respectively. The crews all told were 160 men and boys.—Froude’s English Seamen, p. 112.

[2]. Lady Grogan informs me that one of the main reasons for the position of women in Argentina is that there is no Married Women’s Property Act, and that even an heiress is therefore in ordinary course entirely dependent on her husband.

[3]. We were subsequently interested to learn from a private diary kept on board The Challenger that they had also taken their boat over into this water; they had, however, neither explored it nor marked it on the map.

[4]. Cape Pillar is the name which has been given to Magellan’s “Cape Deseado” since the days of Sir John Narborough; it has two peaks, of which the western one is like a pillar. The point which on the chart is named Deseado lies two miles to the south-west and could not possibly have been seen by Magellan: see Early Spanish Voyages and the Straits of Magellan, edited by Sir C. Markham, Hakluyt Series II. vol. xxviii.

[5]. “The Indians had taught their dogs to drive the fish into a corner of some pond or lake, from whence they were easily taken out by the skill and address of these savages.”—Narrative of Hon. J. Byron, ed. 1768, p. 56.

[6]. “We were well clothed, and though sitting close to the fire were far from too warm; yet these naked savages (Fuegians), though further off, were observed, to our great surprise, to be streaming with perspiration.”—Voyage of H.M.S. “Beagle” (Darwin), ed. 1870, p. 220.

[7]. Philesia buxifolia and Luzuriaga erecta.

[8]. “Among the birds we generally shot was a bird much larger than a goose, which we called the Racehorse, from the velocity with which it moved upon the surface of the water in a sort of half-flying, half-running motion.”—The Narrative of the Hon. John Byron, ed. 1768, p. 50.

[9]. Some of the Chileans with British names are said to be descended from the officers and men under command of Lord Cochrane.

[10]. See Anson’s Voyage Round the World, quarto ed., 1748, p. 102.

[11]. Captain Benson and his crew made the voyage in the ship’s boat to Mangareva in sixteen days, and after two days there left in the same manner for Tahiti, accomplishing the further nine hundred miles in eleven days. Mr. Richards, the British Consul at the latter place, told us later of his astonishment, when, in answer to his question whence the crew had come, he received the amazing reply, “Easter Island.” For the whole account see Captain Benson’s Own Story (The James H. Barry Co., San Francisco).

[12]. “I will only add this one word about the curious way in which they get fresh water on some of the coral islands, such as Nangone, where there is none on the surface. Two go out together to sea, and dive down at some spot where they know there is a fresh-water spring, and they alternately stand on one another’s backs to keep down the one that is drinking at the bottom before the pure water mixes with the surrounding salt water.”—“Notes on the Maoris and Melanesians,” Bishop of Wellington: The Journal of the Ethnological Society, New Series, vol. i, session 1868–9.

[13]. “Kanaka” is a name originally given by Europeans to the inhabitants of the South Seas, and is one form of the Polynesian word meaning “man”.

[14]. The natives of Easter hold very firmly the primitive belief in dreams. If one of them dreamt, for example, that Mana was returning, it was retailed to us with all the assurance of a wireless message.

[15]. The milch-cows.

[16]. Considerably later Mana was again approached on the subject of the Australian gifts, and Mr. Gillam consented to bring them; it then transpired that they were no longer available, having “been given by the wife of the head of the Customs to the deserving poor of Valparaiso.”

[17]. Since writing the above, the following account has been found of dress at Tahiti in 1877: “All the women, without exception, have their dresses cut on the pattern of the old English sacques worn by our grandmothers.... It is a matter of deep congratulation that the dress in fashion in Europe at the period when Tahiti adopted foreign garments should have been one so suitable.”

“We may be thankful that Prince Alfred’s strong commendation of the graceful sacque has caused it to triumph over all other varieties of changeful and unbecoming fashion which for a while found favour here.”—Cruise in a French Man-of-war, Miss Gordon Cumming, pp. 299 and 284.

[18]. Mana made seven trips in all between Chile and Easter Island, traversing, in this part alone of her voyage, over 14,000 miles on her course.

[19]. For an illustrated description of the method of expanding the ear, see With a Prehistoric People, the Akikuyu of British East Africa, p. 32.

[20]. A full description of the statues is given in chap. xiv.

[21]. This excludes some fifteen which may have carried statues, but about which doubt exists.

[22]. The body was no doubt supported by staves, though they were dispensed with in the model, being unnecessary for the wooden figure.

[23]. The sole possible exception was probably due to some flaw in the stone.

[24]. The farthest outstanding figure to the left in fig. 46.

[25]. An island was reported in lat. 27° by an English buccaneer named Davis in 1687. It was, he said, five hundred miles from the coast of Chile, low and sandy, and some twelve leagues to the west of it was seen “a long tract of pretty high land.” The description in no way applies to Easter, with which it has sometimes been identified. The probability seems to be that Davis was out of his reckoning, as was by no means unusual in the case of the early mariners, and it has been suggested that the island he saw was Crescent Island, the high ground in the distance being the Gambier group. The latitude of Easter Island is 27° 8′ S., that of Crescent Island is 23° 20′ S.

[26]. Precisely the same habit obtains to-day among the Akikuyu in East Africa.

[27]. For Roggeveen’s description of the Island see Voyage of Gonzalez, Hakluyt Society, Series II., vol. xiii., pp. 3 to 26.

A statement of the evidence re Davis Island is given in the introduction to the same volume.

[28]. Voyage of Gonzalez, p. 27 seq.

[29]. A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World, by James Cook, 1st ed., 4to, 1777, pp. 276–96.

A Voyage Round the World, George Forster, 4to, 1777. Vol. i., pp. 551–602.

[30]. Voyage de La Pérouse autour du Monde, 4to edn., London, 1799. Vol. i., pp. 319–36.

[31]. MS. copy in the British Museum of a letter sent by one of the officers of the Spanish ship to a Canon or a Prebendary in Buenos Aires. MSS. 17607 (18). Our attention was drawn to this document by Dr. Corney.

[32]. See above, p. 171.

[33]. Voyage of Gonzalez, p. 126.

[34]. Voyage Round the World in the Ship “Neva,” Lisiansky, Lond. 1814, p. 58.

[35]. Voyage to the Pacific, H.M.S. “Blossom,” p. 41.

[36]. See Annales de la Propagation de la Foi, 1866, 1867, 1869.

[37]. Journal Ethnological Society, Vol. i. p. 373.

[38]. The above statement is made on the authority of Mr. John Brander of Tahiti. According to report of H.M.S. Sappho, which visited the island in 1882, Salmon was then an agent of the Maison Brander.

[39]. Smithsonian Report, 1889.

[40]. In the Odyssey Athene speaks of Odysseus as “in a sea-girt isle, where is the navel of the sea.” (Odyssey, Bk. I., l. 50, Butcher & Lang.)

[41]. Easter Island. The Rapa-nui Speech. W. Churchill, p. 3.

[42]. Voyage of Gonzalez, p. 90.

[43]. One of the Scitamineæ—further determination awaits the blooming of plants brought back to Kew.

[44]. Of these clan names, “Raa” means the sun and “Marama” the light. The signification of the others is not equally clear, and the natives could give no assistance; but Mr. Ray gives the following interesting information from other Polynesian sources. “Haumoana” means the sea-breeze; “Hitiuira” is probably “hiti-ra” or sunrise; and “Ureohei” another version of “ura-o-hehe,” or red of sundown. “Koro-orongo” is doubtless from “Koro-o-Rongo,” or the ring of Rongo (a well-known Polynesian deity), that is the rainbow. “Kotuu” appears to be a contraction of “Ko Otuu,” meaning “The Hill”; the name “Otuu” is used alternatively for the same district. “Hotu” is another form of the word for hill and “Iti” signifies small, it presumably refers to Rano Raraku.

[45]. Since writing the above the following has been seen: “The higher Polynesian races, such as the Tahitians, Hawaiians, Samoans, had one and all outgrown, and some of them had in part forgot, the practice (cannibalism) before Cook or Bougainville had shown a top-sail in their waters.”—In the South Seas, R. L. Stevenson, p. 94.

[46]. See below, pp. 266–68.

[47]. “These bodies, enveloped in mats, are placed on a heap of stones or on a kind of wooden structure, the head being turned towards the sea. Now, as all the population live round the island, dried skeletons are to be met all along this coast, and no one seems to take any notice of them.”—Letter from Brother Eyraud—Annals of the Propagation of the Faith, Jan. 1866.

[48]. When all those ahu which can be placed in categories as Image, Semi-Pyramid, Canoe, Wedge-shaped, or Pavement have been noted, there remain, out of the total of two hundred and sixty burial-places, some fourteen which are unique in design; and between sixty and seventy which cannot be classified, either because they are mere cairns or in too ruined a condition to be identified.

[49]. Our impressions on this head are confirmed by a remark of Brother Eyraud. “Though I have lived in the greatest of intimacy and familiarity with them, I have never been able to discover them in any act of actual religious worship.”—Annals of the Propagation of the Faith, Jan. 1866.

[50]. The outermost of the three hillocks on the eastern volcano on which the Spaniards set up the crosses in 1770. Half of it has been worn away by coastal erosion (fig. 78).

[51]. The same word aku-aku was used for the spirit both of the living and the dead, or else the Tahitian “varua”; they were said to be equivalent.

[52]. Evidence on this head was rather contradictory, but no Miru could be found, male or female, to whom the title was not given.

[53]. “L’Ile de Paques,” M. Tépano Jaussen, Bulletin Géographique, 1893, p. 241.

[54]. Revue Maritime et Colonial, vol. xxxv, p. 109.

[55]. Thirty is, however, a very favourite number: cf. the folk-tales.

[56]. Sometimes called koho-rongo-rongo.

[57]. Sophora Toromiro.

[58]. An accurate large-scale plan of the village was made by Lieutenant D. R. Ritchie, R.N., and every house was measured and described by the Expedition.

[59]. Recollection is naturally clearer of the removal of the statue now at Washington, and particularly of the excellent food given to the natives who assisted. The figure is reported to have been taken from Ahu Apépé, an inland terrace not far from Rano Raraku, and been dragged down to the ship as she lay in La Pérouse Bay.

[60]. Sooty Tern.

[61]. The men of the ascendant clan are also often spoken of as the Mata-töa, or warriors, the other clans being the Mata-kio, or servants.

[62]. This statue was removed to the mainland shortly before our arrival, and we were able to procure it in exchange for one of the yacht blankets. It is now at the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford (fig. 111).

[63]. The figures of the bird-man, also of the ao and Ko Mari, are all roughly carved on the back of the Orongo statue (fig. 106). They appear, like those on the Raraku image, to be later workmanship than the raised ring and girdle. Permission to inspect can be obtained in the hall of the British Museum; unfortunately the light in the portico is bad.

[64]. Nos. 1, 2, and 3, fig. 60, form part of this series. See also fig. 74.

[65]. We owe this suggestion to Captain T. A. Joyce.

[66]. Those unacquainted with the manner in which the drawing of a natural object can, through constant repetition, lose all resemblance to it and become purely conventional are referred to Evolution in Art, by Dr. A. C. Haddon.

[67]. The term “papa” is also applied to any flat, horizontal surface of fused igneous rock. The double use seems to be explained by connecting it with the facts that in Hawaii, Papa is the name of the female progenitor of the race (or at least of a line of chiefs), while in the Marquesas and Hervey Islands Papa is the earth personified, the Great Mother.—See A Brief History of the Hawaiian People, Alexander, p. 20.

[68]. Cf. p. 232.

[69]. The ditch is still shown; there is a marked depression running across the island dividing the eastern volcano from the mainland, but after much consideration we came to the conclusion that it was a natural phenomenon due to geological faulting. A mound of earth is, however, to be seen in places on its higher or eastern side, and it is possible that persons holding the mountain may have utilised it for defensive purposes by erecting a rampart in this manner.

[70]. “The tradition continues by a sudden jump into the following extraordinary condition of affairs. Many years after the death of Hotu-matua the island was about equally divided between his descendants and the long-eared race.”—Smithsonian Report, 1889, p. 528.

[71]. I.e. “Cave of the great descent.” It is in the cliff of the eastern volcano beyond Marotiri, and is one of those which can be seen from the sea, but to which the path has disappeared.

[72]. The centre hillock of the three on which Spaniards erected the crosses. The name means White Mountain, from the colour of the ash which composes it (see fig. 78).

[73]. Theosophists, indeed, contend that it has been revealed by occult means that Easter Island is the remaining portion of an old continent named “Lemuria,” which occupied the Pacific and Indian Oceans, and the writer has been informed by correspondents that she “may be interested to learn” that such is the case. Representations even of the world at this remote epoch have been, it is said, received by clairvoyance and are reproduced in theosophical literature: in the case of a later continent of Atlantis, which has also disappeared, it was permitted to see its proportions on a globe and by other means; but, unfortunately, in the case of Lemuria, “there was only a broken terra-cotta model and crumpled map, so that the difficulty of carrying back the remembrance of all the details, and consequently of reproducing exact copies, has been far greater” (The Lost Lemuria, Scott Elliot, p. 13). The world at the Lemurian epoch was, we are informed, inhabited by beings who were travelling for the fourth time through their round of the planets, and undergoing for the third time their necessary seven incarnations on the earth during this round. At the beginning of this third race of the fourth round, man first evolved into a sexual being, and at the end was highly civilised. The makers of the Easter Island statues were of gigantic size. To prove this last point, Madame Blavatsky quotes a statement to the effect that “there is no reason to believe that any of the statues have been built up bit by bit,” and proceeds to argue that they must consequently have been made by men of the same size as themselves. She states that “the images at Ronororaka—the only ones now found erect—are four in number”; and gives the following account of the head-dress of the statues, “a kind of flat cap with a back piece attached to it to cover the back portion of the head” (Secret Doctrine, vol. ii. p. 337). The readers of this book can judge of the correctness of these descriptions. Theosophists must forgive us, if, in the face of error as to what exists to-day, we decline to accept without further proof information as to what occurred “nearer four million than two million years ago.”

[74]. Revue Maritime et Coloniale, vol. xxxv. (1872), p. 108, note. It is unfortunate that M. de Lapelin does not give us more details as to when and from whom the account was received.

[75]. Royal Geographical Journal, May 1917. It has been pointed out that Dr. Hamy, examining skulls from Easter Island some thirty years ago, and W. Volz (Arch. f. Anth. xxiii. 1895, p. 97 ff.) attained the same result. Mr. Pycraft also came independently to the same conclusion.

[76]. Folk Lore, June 1918, p. 161.

[77]. Man, 1918, No. 91, pl. M. Also in Anthropological Essays, presented to E. B. Tylor, 1907, pl. iii. fig. 2, and p. 327.

[78]. H. Balfour, Man, Oct. 1918, No. 80. Folk Lore, Dec. 1917, pp. 356–60.

[79]. H. Balfour, Folk Lore, Dec. 1917. For full particulars of this and the following points readers are referred to the paper itself.

[80]. Hawaiki, S. Percy Smith, p. 294.

[81]. See below, pp. 313–4.

[82]. If it were not that the strife between the Long and Short Ears is always placed in very remote ages, we might be tempted to see in it a struggle between the adherents of the older and newer fashion. In the Hawaiian Islands such a combat took place before the advent of Christianity, see p. 322.

[83]. Quest and Occupation of Tahiti, Hakluyt Society, vol. ii. p. 270.

[84]. They had, of course, no connection with Adams the mutineer.

[85]. Another daughter was the wife of Mr. Brander, the connection of whose firm with Easter Island has already been seen.

[86]. My budget contained, with over twenty letters from my Mother, the news that she had died suddenly the preceding April; and that the old home no longer existed. The tidings were no surprise. I had had the strongest conviction, dating from about one month after her death, that she was no longer here. The realisation came at first with a sense of shock, which was noted in my journal and written to friends in England; afterwards it continued with a quiet persistence which amounted to practical certainty.

[87]. Journal of Sir Joseph Banks, p. 102.

[88]. Polynesian Researches, vol. iv. p. 167.

[89]. Thrum. Hawaiian Annual, 1908.

[90]. We had intended to reproduce this note in facsimile, but subsequent events have led us to think that to do so might cause danger to its writer.

[91]. Casa = Sp. house.

[92]. Cf. Ency. Brit. Edn. 1911, Vol. xxiii., p. 930, Article Ray.

[93]. Cock-bill. To put the yards “a-cock-bill” is to top them up by one lift to an angle with the deck. A symbol of mourning.—The Sailor’s Word-Book (Admiral Smyth, 1867).

[94]. See Man, vol. xvii. 1917, No. 88.

With a Prehistoric People

(The Akikúyu of British East Africa)

BEING SOME ACCOUNT OF THE METHOD OF LIFE AND MODE OF THOUGHT FOUND EXISTENT AMONGST A NATION ON ITS FIRST CONTACT WITH EUROPEAN CIVILIZATION

BY

W. SCORESBY ROUTLEDGE, M.A. (Oxon)

and KATHERINE ROUTLEDGE (born Pease)

Som. Coll. (Oxon); M.A. (Trin. Coll., Dublin)

With 136 Plates and a Map

Medium 8vo. 21s. net. London. Ed. Arnold.

“Mr. and Mrs. Routledge have enjoyed a most interesting experience, which they have embodied in a volume that should take high rank in anthropological literature.”—Spectator.

“Sympathetic study of the native way of thinking, careful discrimination in the acceptance of evidence, and a full, clear, and precise record of the observations made.”—Athenæum.

“Her (Mrs. Routledge’s) reports are probably the most minute, intimate, and accurate which have hitherto appeared about the position of a female savage in any country....”—Bookman.

“One of the choicest contributions to the study of primitive peoples that have appeared in recent times.”—Journal of the Royal Geographical Society.

“... Enough has been said to show the importance of this careful study of an unspoiled people. It is a book that will be valued by the anthropologist, and at the same time delight a wider public.”—Dr. A. C. Haddon, F.R.S., in the Morning Post.

“The interest of the account itself is enough to attract mere outsiders to anthropology.”—Nation.

“Likely to take a permanent place as a standard work.”—Sir H. H. Johnston in Nature.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

  1. Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in spelling.
  2. Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed.