Explanation and
p. 10 · Read in the full issue
Easter Island
Mysteries
Explanation and Argument
THE century-old “Mystery of Easter Island’’ continues to provide a sub ject for lectures and articles by scientists interested in the history of the human race; and, in the last issue of the “Journal of the Polynesian Society’’ (published at New Plymouth, NZ) there is a good deal of fascinating material about the as yet undeciphered scripts and the unexplained monuments of the lonely South Pacific island.
Some more or less scientific writer has been trying to trace a relationship between “The script of Mohenjo-Daro”, which apparently was a system of writ ing in ancient South-East Asia, and the famous scripts of Easter Island, which are on tablets and of which “seven are said to be in Tahiti, two at Santiago, two at Washington, two at St. Peters burg, one in the British Museum, and one at Berlin’’.
The editor of the “Journal’’, who apparently is an authority on this sub ject, flays the theory of the relationship between the two scripts, and makes out a very good case for his contention that there is no relationship whatever.
The editor of the “Journal’’ also reviews at length a book by Alfred Met raux, “Ethnology of Easter Island”. In this work there is assembled practically everything that is known about the mysterious statues.
According to Mr. Metraux—and his theories are cordially supported by the editor—there is nothing very mysterious about the statues after all. They think that the natives of Easter Island made a kind of hobby of carving these mon strous stone images, hauling them for considerable distances over hill and dale, and setting them up in a rough circle around the island, staring out to sea.
They explain the curious fact that 157 statues, in different stages of comple tion, are lying in the quarries by suggest ing that, as the work progressed, the native sculptors found faults in the soft rock on which they were working, and promptly abandoned the statues in hand.
The review of the book is a len<?thv article. Having read it, one is bound to confess that one is left to regard the stone images of Easter Island as still a mysterv. Why were they made? Why were they so .curiously placed? How were they transported? The learned author and editor do not really explain these things.