Pre-Polynesian Inhabitants

A Very Early Immigration From South America Could Explain Easter Island

By A. C. Rowland.

r E mystery of Easter Island may one day be cleared away, if it can be proven that the Polynesians were not the first settlers on the islands of the South Pacific Ocean of the bout* Pacinc ucean Research now being carried on in the Islands is bringing out evidence of pre- Polynesian inhabitants. Whence they came is still undetermined.

Nevertheless, in Central and Eastern Polynesia, are evidences of South American influences which give colour to the theory of emigration into the islands from that quarter.

T . rQ •_ mipctinn that the ances- There is no quest o , Pol v tors of the people we have na y Eas\ an indfa ai ?slands. But in the islands of East and South-East Polynesia there are elements which bear marks of other origins wniioT*, rhnrphill— a deen student of Polynesian dialects, whose two volumes, “Polynesian Wanderings” and “Easter Island”, have been published by the Carnegie Foundation—asserts that in the dialects of Tahiti, of the Tuamotu and Gambier archipelagoes, and of Easter Island, about 30 per cent, of the vocabularies is composed of words of strange ancestry, that bear no relation to words of similar meaning in Polynesian dialects outside this area. c n Frpnch savant

wMhT studying the’ primitive languages

the west coast of South America. remarked on the similarity of many of the words of kindred significance.

The first wave of Polynesian imml- ..ration into the Central and South Eastern archipelagoes adopted a form of sun-worship, by adding to the Pan-

theon of the primeval gods of the Po (or Night World) a god of beauty and of the World of Light—:n a rnely, the Sun God Tane-Ahu-Ura (Tane of the Mantle of Crimson Feathers), who became the chief deity Qf popular worship in the central and South-Eastern islands.

It is a matter of general knowledge that the religion of the inhabitants of the west coast of South America was sun worship.

Now, if the primitive inhabitants of the islands came from South America, inter-marriage between men of the m vadmg race and the aboriginal women would eventually pass on the chief ele ments G f ma ternal religious belief to the descendants of such unions, History and legend inform us that the ancient designation of Easter Island was Te Pito—i.e., the navel of the island world. This is very extraordinary, see ing that Easter Island is the most east erly of the galaxy of South Pacific islands.

But, if Easter Island had been for the South American immigrants what the island of Ra’iatea, in the Society Group, became in later times for the Polynesians—the place of first settle ment, the island motherland whence colonies went forth to establish them selves on other islands—then the term Pito, or centre of the Commonwealth, would be aptly applied no matter what its geographical situation, And, as Ra’iatea became the centre of polity and of religion and of wisdom for the Polynesian race, so Easter Island may have been for that vanished people whose identity modern research is now endeavouring to discover.