[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.