Lomaland Photo. and Engraving Dept.
ONE OF THE LESSER STATUES BROUGHT FROM EASTER ISLAND
THIS STATUE (NOW IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM) HAS BEEN
CALLED "HOA-HAKA-NANA-IA"
HOA-HAKA-NANA-IA: by P. A. Malpas
MUCH has been written and said about the famous Easter Island statues in mid-Pacific. So little is really known about them that until H. P. Blavatsky called attention to their immense antiquity they were not thought to be of any particular value. There were one or two speculations which she, as with so many other scattered data, gathered together, sifted, confirmed, or refuted, adding a few details to complete the bare outline of the picture.
The one in the illustration stands at the entrance outside the British Museum with a smaller, more shapeless companion. They were brought to England in Her Majesty's Ship Topaze, and presented in 1869 by Queen Victoria to the national collection in the Museum.
As they are said to be of hard trachyte and the ravages of time are great, therefore it is said they are very, very old. Presumably they were carved in the "Stone Age," wherever that mysteriously ancient (yet still existing!) epoch of science may be situated in the years of the world. It would be interesting to know by what "Stone Age" tools they were carved. Perhaps Aladdin's diamonds may have helped in the carving?
In any case they are evident "sun-worship" monuments. So would our clocks and sundials be if we could emulate our "Stone Age" brothers (what wonderful masons they were!) in making them last a million years or so.