440 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1944 
ments and works of art. His idea was that since I had books and 
photographs showing the designs and he had the manual skill we 
might form an ideal, not to say a profitable, partnership. I must 
confess that on several occasions the islanders’ skillful imitations 
completely deceived me, and I thus acquired a beautiful collection 
of ancient stone hooks that I only gradually realized were modern 
copies. 
This continued practice of the traditional arts has a certain his- 
torical bearing. It suggests that there has never been a complete 
breach in Easter Island civilization and that the present natives, 
however mixed in blood they may be, are, nevertheless, the successors 
in direct line of the unknown men who carved the old wooden images 
that are nowadays prized specimens in our museums. 
Unfortunately, this is not the only old custom which has survived. 
From the time when the Dutch discovered the island to the present, 
its people have had the reputation of being the cleverest thieves in 
the South Seas, and quite rightly. This complaint is repeated in all 
the accounts of the early navigators, and many of the dramatic inci- 
dents on the beach of Hangaroa have arisen from the natives’ brazen 
contempt for the sanctity of private property. Only the sensitive 
and elegant French explorer La Pérouse adopted the policy of laugh- 
ing at such pilfering, and paid no further attention to it. He and 
his men were amused by the attitude of the native women who helped 
their mates pick pockets by distracting the attention of innocent 
victims through entreaties and “ludicrous gestures.” 
The natives of our day are just as thievish as their forefathers, and 
this wayward disposition is the cause of endless troubles for the Eng- 
lish company which has leased the island from the Chilean Govern- 
ment for sheep raising. To prevent constant stealing of the sheep 
the company put barbed wire across the island in an attempt to 
force the people to remain within the bounds of their village. But 
such drastic measures were of little avail, and in the year I spent there 
3,000 sheep disappeared. Though the culprits are known to the whole 
community, family loyalty protects them and makes investigation 
useless, 
Otherwise the natives are law-abiding and peaceful; there are very 
few records of murder or bloody violence among them. The only 
criminal we heard of was one of our guides, who, ironically enough, 
proved to be about the only honest man on the island. 
The people live as they did in the past, on the produce of their 
fields. Taros, sweetpotatoes, yams, bananas, and sugarcane grow 
abundantly on the fertile volcanic soil. The only wants they can- 
not supply themselves are for manufactured goods such as soap. And 
they like especially to get foreign clothing. In this matter, the men 
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