[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.