EASTER ISLAND—METRAUX 441 
do well’ for themselves by barter with the white sailors who visit the 
island, but the women cannot be so provided for. They complain 
bitterly of the difficulty they have in satisfying their coquettish taste. 
For an anthropologist, the material on Easter Island is rather 
scant. The old culture has nearly gone. No Westerner ever saw it 
while it was still functioning. The data on the past, which can be 
gathered, are limited to statements or tales which a few people have 
heard from fathers or grandfathers. Nevertheless, I was surprised 
to find a relatively rich folklore, which helped me to understand many 
aspects of the ancient civilization. Both legends and anecdotes stress 
cannibalism, which seems to have haunted the imagination of the 
Easter Islanders before the arrival of Christianity. 
Those who expect to find in these traditions any evidence for the 
existence of a civilization previous to that of the Polynesians will be 
sadly disappointed. There is not a single feature of the Easter Island 
lore that does not point toward Polynesian origin. The language 
itself is pure Polynesian, and no words now in use hint of a legacy 
from any other linguistic stock. 
These are the main facts to bear in mind as we turn to the problem 
posed by the mysterious gigantic statues and the inscribed tablets. 
But before we go into it, we must first consider what is to be said of 
the theory that the island is a peak of a sunken continent, since upon 
this assumption the classic interpretation of its mysteries has for a 
long time rested. There is no scientific evidence that Easter Island 
“is the wreckage of such a sunken continent—Lemuria or Atlantis. 
It is plainly a typical volcanic island of recent origin, formed by a 
series of eruptions originating on the floor of the ocean. Soundings 
have revealed a depth of 1,770 fathoms 20 miles from its coast. 
Moreover, when the island was settled by Polynesian migrants it does 
not seem to have been much more extensive than it is now. Its coasts 
are subjected to continual erosion from the waves, and it is true that 
during the last decades a few of the monuments which once stood on 
the top of a high cliff have been precipitated into the sea. But since 
the ancient sanctuaries were erected along the shore, if the erosion 
had been very great, all of them would have been washed away by 
now. There has also been a question about a great road which, it is 
said, ran to the shore of the island and continued under water, sug- 
gesting that the shore was once much farther out. The famous French 
writer, Pierre Loti, was, if I am not mistaken, the first to mention this 
“triumphal avenue,” which he thought would lead to the heart of the 
mystery. On a simple statement of this traveling poet visions of 
submerged glory have been based, and many good minds have allowed 
their imaginations to follow the submarine road down to enchanted 
palaces. The truth is that no such road exists. What Loti took for 
