ANTHROPOLOGY
THE MYSTERY OF EASTER ISLAND: THE STORY OF AN EXPEDITION. By Mrs. Scoresby Routledge. Sifton, Praed, & Co. 31s. 6d. net.
Any map of the Pacific will show a minute dot standing by itself far to the eastward of any other island south of the line, yet some 2000 miles away from the American coast. This is Easter Island, long famous as a land of archæological wonders. Apart from these it is an unattractive place, consisting of a triangular patch of volcanic rock, grass-covered, bare of trees, waterless but for the rain that collects in the craters of its extinct volcanoes, and, of course, wind-swept and harbourless. At present it serves as a cattle-ranch managed in the interests of a Chilian company, the natives, no more than 250 in all, being huddled into a single village on the west coast in order to keep them out of mischief. Formerly, however, there were enough of them to form ten clans, who kept things merry with their local feuds. The navigators of the eighteenth century, Roggeveen, who discovered the island, Gonzalez, Cook, and La Pérouse, estimate their number at anything from 700 up to 2000 souls.
How, then, in such a solitary spot, inhabited by a handful of savages, does it happen that hundreds of giant statues of stone are to be found, not to speak of smaller statues of wood, curious rock-carvings, and finally a script? A few passers-by had pleasantly trifled with the problem, but a serious attempt to solve it had not been made until Mr. and Mrs. Scoresby Routledge gallantly resolved to take the matter in hand. The task before them was no light one; for in order to study Easter Island one must first get there. So a yacht, the Mana, was built for the purpose. The Polynesian word means "luck," and luck certainly attended the little vessel on its long run of 100,000 miles. Quite apart from the account given of Easter Island itself, the log of the voyage provides the matter for a fascinating book, proving as it does that there are many odd corners of the much-betravelled earth which still await exploration. This becomes apparent as soon as Magellan Strait is traversed, and the ship hazardously works her way north through the intricate uncharted channels that run up the western coast of Patagonia. It was hereabouts, by the way, that the Dresden, after the Falkland fight, played hide-and-seek with our gunboats for several months. Helped by many striking illustrations, we are enabled to picture to ourselves the deep gorges overlooked by snowy peaks, and the gaunt half-naked Indians that these waters precariously support. Afterwards Selkirk's Island, Juan Fernandez, was visited, and when the Easter Island investigations were complete, the expedition went on to Pitcairn, the home of the descendants of the Bounty mutineers, an incidental consequence being that King George in due course received at Buckingham Palace two loyal representatives of this, the smallest of British Colonies. But space would fail if we dwelt further on the nautical side of the adventure, complicated as it was by the fact that during the greater part of the three years and four months during which it lasted there were German foes above and below water to be circumvented. Even Easter Island, it must be added, proved no haven of refuge, for first von Spee's squadron and subsequently the armed cruiser Prinz Eitel Friedrich paid a call there, though luckily Mana was away on both occasions.
Passing to the archæology, we must begin by gratefully recording the fact that at length an adequate description is available of the monuments as they exist to-day. Thanks to the maps, plans, and pictures, every detail is brought home to the reader; while he cannot complain that Mrs. Routledge's commentary, precise though it be, is ever dull. She is indeed to be congratulated on having composed a popular account that is likewise as far as it goes scientifically sound; though it is to be hoped that the whole collection of evidence, of which but a digest is presented here, will hereafter be published. The expedition was evidently at great pains to survey, catalogue, measure, photograph, and, so far as was necessary, actually disinter, the entire mass of remains, despite their great number and the considerable extent of country over which they are distributed. And fortunately the stonework is still there to be studied, since it cannot be easily removed or destroyed, as has mostly been the fate of the woodwork, namely, the carved human figures, twenty to thirty inches high, with their characteristic goatee beards and prominent ribs, and the tablets on which the script was carved. Yet, if not altogether demolished, the statues are in large part dethroned. Those at least that decorated the burial platforms of Cyclopean architecture that border the coast are all overthrown; how and why we can but guess. On the other hand, there is a certain volcanic hill with many huge figures still standing, both within the crater and along its outer skirts. It was here that all the images were quarried; and many exist in a half-finished condition, while some, including the largest of all, sixty-six feet in length, were perhaps never meant to be completely detached from the parent rock. Excavation at these quarries revealed the whole process of manufacture, and proved that with stone tools it was possible to hew the soft rock into shape, though the precise manner of the transportation and erection of the unwieldy monsters, while plainly creditable to human muscle, remains by no means easy to discern.
Who were the makers? What did they mean to represent? At this point we pass from description to explanation, from the ascertained to the purely conjectural. Certain it is that the present natives have no use for the statues, and are not only ignorant but likewise incurious about their origin. Even by Cook's time, namely, in 1774, though still standing, they were apparently ceasing to be respected; whereas Roggeveen, in 1722, rightly or wrongly, saw in them objects of an existing worship. Thus we seem to get at least a downward limit for the epoch during which they were part of the living culture, and this view is borne out by the relatively unweathered condition of some statues. It would look, then, as if the direct and not very remote ancestors of the present islanders were the image-makers, and not some mysterious extinct race, such as has often been postulated. Further, the pendant ear-lobes of the statues recall a practice hardly yet obsolete among the population of to-day.
The best argument of all, however, amongst those making for a connection with the indigenous culture is derived from the study of a remarkable bird-cult which it is a chief triumph of the expedition to have rescued from oblivion. Not only can it be thus shown to the point of demonstration that the rock-carvings occurring in a deserted village of stone houses on the south-western headland of the island represent the annual "bird-man" who got the first egg of a sacred bird, and so became himself highly sacred; but it can also be made a probable corollary that the statues of the image-mountain are memorials of bird-men, since it was close by that the bird-man must abide in strict seclusion for the five months in which his sacredness was at its height. Indeed, many are the clues which are afforded by a close examination of this curious custom. Thus it seems certain that the present cult which centres round the Sooty Tern is derived from the worship of the Frigate Bird as practised in far-off Melanesia. The Frigate Bird, too, seems to have suggested various symbols belonging to the script. The inference is that there is a Melanesian stratum in the population; though, as a Polynesian immigration must also be assumed in order to account for the language, responsibility for the culture as a whole must somehow be divided between the two parties. All these difficult questions, we fear, cannot be thrashed out within the limits of a brief review. Yet perhaps enough has been said to induce every student of the wider history of man not to miss a golden opportunity of learning that anthropology and romance are sisters.