FIG. 90.
AN OLD WOMAN OF EASTER ISLAND WITH DILATED EAR-LOBE.
Social Life.—Roggeveen’s description of the people as being of all shades of colour is still accurate. They themselves are very conscious of the variations, and when we were collecting genealogies, they were quite ready to give the colour of even remote relations: “Great-aunt Susan,” it would be unhesitatingly stated, was “white,” and “Great-aunt Jemima black.” The last real ariki, or chief, was said to be quite white. “White like me?” I innocently asked. “You!” they said, “you are red”; the colour in European cheeks, as opposed to the sallow white to which they are accustomed, is to the native our most distinguishing mark. It is obvious that we are dealing with a mixed race, but this only takes us part of the way, as the mixture may have taken place either before or after they reached the island.
They were divided into ten groups, or clans (“máta”), which were associated with different parts of the island, though the boundaries blend and overlap; members of one division settled not infrequently among those of another. Each person still knows his own clan.
In remembered times there were no group restrictions on marriage, which took place indiscriminately between members of the same or of different clans. The only prohibition had reference to consanguinity, and forbade all union nearer than the eighth degree or third cousins. These ten clans were again grouped, more especially in legend or speaking of the remote past, into two major divisions known as Kotuu (or Otuu), and Hotu Iti, which correspond roughly with the western and eastern parts of the island. These divisions were also known respectively as Mata-nui, or greater clans, and Mata-iti, or lesser clans. The lower portions of the island were the most densely populated parts, especially those on the coast, and the settlements on the higher ground appear to have been few (fig. 91).
In Kotuu, the Marama and Haumoana inhabited side by side the land running from sea to sea between the high central ground and the western volcano Rano Kao. They had a small neighbour, the Ngatimo, to the south, and jointly with the Miru spread over Rano Kao and formed settlements by the margin of the crater lake. The Miru lived on the high, narrow strip between the mountain in the apex and the cliff, and mixed up with them was a lesser people, the Hamea. To the east was another small clan, the Raa, which is spoken of in conjunction with the Miru and Hamea.
FIG. 91.
Note.—The dividing lines shown are not defined boundaries.
The principal Hotu Iti clans were the Tupahotu, the Koró-orongo, and the Hitiuira. The last were generally known as the “Ureohei”; they inhabited jointly the level piece of ground from the northern bay to the south coast, and had some dwellings on the eastern headland. Next to them on the south coast was a small group, the Ngaure.[[44]] The particular importance of the clans lies in the fact that, while they may be merely groups of one body, they may, on the other hand, represent different races or waves of immigrants. If there have been two peoples on Easter Island, these divisions are one place where we must at least look for traces for it.
Legend tells of continual wars between Hotu Iti and Kotuu. In recent times general fighting seems to have been constant, and took place even between members of one clan. A wooden sword, or paoa, was used, but the chief weapon was made from obsidian, and took from it the name of “mataa.” This volcanic glass is found on the slope of Rano Kao, but the principal quarries are on the neighbouring hill of Orito. Tradition says its use was first discovered by a boy who stepped on it and cut his foot. The obsidian was knapped till it had a cutting edge, and also a tongue, which latter was fitted into a handle or stick (fig. 92). The various shapes assumed were dignified by names, fourteen of which were given, such as “tail of a fish,” “backbone of a rat,” “leaf of a banana.” It was very usual to pick up these mataa, and hoards were occasionally found; in one instance fifty or sixty were discovered below a stone in a cave, and in another case the hammer-stone was found with them which had been used in the process of squeezing off the flakes. The weapon was used both as a spear and as a javelin. A site is pointed out near Anakena, where a man throwing down hill killed another at about thirty-five yards. The art of making these mataa is, of course, practically extinct, but one old man, commonly known as “Hé” (fig. 83), brought us some which he had manufactured himself for the Expedition, and which were fairly well wrought.
With the exception of the Miru, of which more will be said, there were no chiefs nor any form of government; any man who was expert in war became a leader. The warfare consisted largely of spasmodic and isolated raids; an aggrieved person gathered together his neighbours and descended on the offenders. It is related incidentally that one man, going along the south coast, “found war going on,” one set of men having blocked up another in a cave. Another story is told of six men, called Gwaruti-mata-keva, of the clan Tupahotu, who lived in a cave in a certain hillock on the south coast, known as Toa-toa. They went round in a boat to Hanga Piko, stole fish, and returned rapidly to their cave. A hundred men from Hanga Piko then came overland to punish the robbery, and made a fire of grass before the cave in which the men lay hidden. When the attackers assumed that the enemy were all dead from suffocation, they went into the cave; but those within had buried their faces in holes scraped in the earth, and when the men from Hanga Piko entered, they arose and slew the whole hundred. A more interesting fact came out incidentally in connection with this gang of Toa-toa, connecting them with the secret societies found elsewhere in the Pacific. They were, it was said, in the habit of going about after dark with their faces painted red, white, and black, and visiting houses, where they declared they were gods, and demanded food, which the inhabitants accordingly gave them. The fraud, however, finally came to light when one day a man, who was travelling with his servant, saw them washing paint off their faces, “so they knew that they had deceived the people, and the people gathered together and killed them.”