EuTLAND. — History of the Pacific. 39 



of which the bodies of the figures and the pedestals on which 

 they rested had been fashioned. In these quarries several 

 finished and unfinished crowns and figures were discovered. 

 One of these figures measured 20ft. from the nape of the neck 

 to the top of the head, which was flattened for the reception 

 of a crown. From the appearance of the eye-sockets, it has 

 been conjectured that black obsidian eyeballs were originally 

 inserted. Another peculiarity of the figures is the dispropor- 

 tionate size of the ears. 



Eegarding the erection of these statues, the Eev. W. Wyatt 

 Gill gives the following particulars, obtained from the present 

 inhabitants of the island: "Long, long ago there lived in 

 Eapa-nui a famous artisan named Tukoio ; he was also a 

 magician. His sole delight w^as to carve in stone. His tools 

 were merely sharp stone adzes, like those now in existence, 

 only larger and stronger. When any of these statues were 

 completed Tukoio would order them to travel to the sites 

 where they now are. They at once obeyed ; but on their 

 way some of them, having had the misfortune to stumble and 

 fall, were never able to rise again. The office assigned to 

 these gods was to guard the island against the intrusion of 

 strangers and the violence of the ocean. To this day they 

 are known collectively as ' the Stones of Tukoio ' {Moai-na- 

 Tukoio). Each statue has also a separate name. Tukoio 

 was deified after his death on account of his wondrous skill 

 and might."* 



It is evident that the works above enumerated could not 

 have been executed without metal tools, or without some 

 description of implement the island was unable to furnish. f 

 To whom, then, must these remains be ascribed ? In their 

 persons, their language, their arts, and the cultivated plants 

 they possessed, the modern inhabitants of Easter Island re- 

 sembled exactly other nations of eastern Polynesia and New 

 Zealand. One of their customs, the artificial extension of the 

 ears until they touched their shoulders, seems to identify them 

 with the builders of the monuments, who must have been, 

 however, by far their superiors in art. Besides this curious 

 custom, Eoggewein and other early explorers observed amongst 

 them grotesque but well-executed wooden images, having ob- 

 sidian eyeballs and disproportionately large ears. 



A disposition has recently been evinced by persons in- 

 terested in the history of Polynesia to separate the ancient 

 monuments into two groups, assigning those of Easter Island 

 to a New- World people, while giving those of Micronesia and 

 the adjacent groups an Asiatic origin. But in the remains 



* " Jottings in the Pacific." W. Wyatt Gill, 

 t "Tropical Nature." A.R.Wallace. 



