"No Mystery,” Says French

Easter Island

"No Mystery,” Says French Scientist

1 1 1 HE colossal statues on Easter Island are not such problems as has been believed and the “mystery” of the Island has been grossly overplayed is the opinion of Dr. Alfred Metraux, French ethnologist, who recently joined the staff of the Bishop Museum in Honolulu.

The figures weigh only five or six tons and could easily have been moved from their local quarries and set in place on the seashore by hand labour, he declared.

Four hundred men could drag them with ropes of native weaving.

The inhabitants of Easter, sometimes conjectured to be the remnant of the population of a lost continent, are identi fied by Dr. Metraux as related to the Maoris of New Zealand and other Poly nesians. He calculates they came to Easter Island in about the 12th century.

Lack of timber and an abundance of soft rock, easily carved, modified their culture.

The Easter Island “script” on wooden tablets, which has been the subject of much speculation, is considered by Dr.

Metraux to be not a true written language, but rather a device to aid the memory in reciting sacred legends.

Monsieur Metraux visited Easter Island last year as a representative of the Paris Museum of Ethnology, with an expedition, aboard the Belgian training ship Mercator.

He joined the Bishop Museum because he believes it is the only place for a thorough study of the archaelogical and ethnologi cal history of the South Seas.