Riddle Of The

Pacific

Another Mon "Solves" Easter Island

A STATEMENT was broadcast by the press associations early in February, to the effect that an anthropologist named Heyerdahl claimed that he had solved the riddle of Easter Island. He in dicated that he definitely links the Poly nesians with the Haida Indians of Van couver Island (in Western Canada).

This will be received with scepticism by the majority of people who are inter ested in this subject—especially because Mr. Heyerdahl is not an anthropologist who is very well-known, and also because he is adopting the ruse (well-known in publicity) of “with-holding the details for three months”.

Mr. Heyerdahl evidently is going to support the theory that there is a clear cut connection between the Polynesian peoples—concerning whose origin there has been a good deal of speculation— and the Indian tribes of America.

All the evidence is against him. A great mass of facts, and the greater part of the anthropological argument, make it clear, almost beyond doubt, that the Polynesian people have their origin in southern Asia, where they were related to Caucasians. Negroids and Mongols—and that they came into the Pacific in a series of waves or migrations. Certain facts indicate that there was some later connection between the Polynesians of the far eastern islands (French Oceania probably) and South America, but it was only a slight connection —the introduc tion of one or two plants—and it de finitely did not affect the racial history of the Polynesians.

So far as Easter Island is concerned, the more one reads the books of the savants, the greater becomes the riddle.

For instance, in front of this writer, at this moment, there is not only the cut tings referring to Mr. Heyerdahl, but there are also the following;— An article in the mid-1939 issue of the Journal of the Polynesian Society, in which Senor J. Imbelloni. of the Argen tine Museum of National History, traces a close relationship between the ancient writings of the Indus and the mysterious script carved on the rocks of Easter Is land.

A series of newsaper cuttings of 1938, in which Professor C. Tauber, of Zurich, described as a distinguished author and anthropologist, stated that he had made a close study of the script on Easter Is land, and had been successful in reading the inscriptions on most of the tablets, and he was satisfied that the latter had a Melanesian origin. He said that within a few months he would officially announce the fact that he had solved the mystery of the Easter Island script—but nothing has been heard of him since.

In “L’Oceanie Francaise” (which is the monthly bulletin of the Committee of French Oceania, published in Paris) of January, 1938, page 10, there is an article in which Dr. Werner Wolf, a young Ger man scientist, declares that he also has read the Easter Island inscriptions, and he finds a singular resemblance between the latter and ancient Egyptian hiero glyphs.

So, among the lot of them, what is a poor journalist to do? The simplest plan is to leave Easter Island as a subject of speculation and mystery, and still giye it the heading, “The Riddle of the Pacific”.