400 



NATURE 



[Sept. 17, 1874 



Lower down on the back of the statue there are two 

 herronias — symboHc animals, with albatross-lilce beaks, 

 which are turned, not ungracefully, towards the bird. Im- 

 mediately above the waist-belt of the statue — its only 

 dress — there is a circle. 



The explanation of these hieroglyphics is at once sug- 

 gested by the story of the arrival of the chiefs. The two 

 rapas, or steering paddles, were dedicated to the gods, 

 and symbolise the vessels of the two chiefs. They were 

 doubtless carved on the statue to commemorate their safe 

 arrival. The two herronias may represent the chie's 

 themselves. The circle is the accepted emblem of life. 



The same symboHsm, though of a more realistic kind, 

 may be recognised in the curious wooden images which 

 are peculiar to Easter Island. They are mostly anatomi- 

 cal ; that is, figures in which the ribs, vertebne, and other 

 bones are distinctly shown, as they would appear in a 

 person suffering from extreme emaciation. They were 

 styled by La Pcrousse " squelettes." Nearly all of them 

 have strongly marked Semitic featm-es, a tuft on the chin, 

 and highly symbolic carvings on the scalp ; e.g:, her- 

 ronias, double-headed birds, and a solar deity with rays 

 round the head. The legs of these little images are uni- 

 formly short, and the ear-lobes enlarged. There is also 

 very generally, if not always, a circle on the lower part of the 

 back. It can hardly be doubted, in view of the symbolism 

 which pervades almost everything in Easter Island, that 

 these squelettes are connected with the story of the voyage 

 from Oparo, and represent the half-starved condition in 

 which it may well be conceived that the crews arrived. 



In one of these images, in the Ethnographical Room 

 at the British Museum, the head is perfectly smooth, 

 which appears to intimate that it was shaven. It perhaps 

 represents a priest ; for we are informed that Roggewein, 

 the discoverer of Easter Island in 1720, noticed a native 

 wiih his head shaved, who had large "white balls" in 

 his ears, and appeared very devout : the Dutch judged 

 him to be a priest. 



Returning to the tablets, of which casts are in the 

 museum of the Anthropological Institute, it will be suf- 

 ficient to mention that they are engraved wirh hiero- 

 glyphics on both sides, every part being covered with 

 minute signs, apparently intended as actual represen- 

 tations of various forms of animal and vegetable life ; 

 as well as scenes and incidints such as were likely 

 to have been met with ainong the islands in the 

 Pacific. On the bottom line of what is considered to 

 be the front face of the smaller tablet there is a pro- 

 cession of bird-headed men, who are approaching or 

 standing before 'a pillar, or stone,* with two discs, or 

 circles, on each side. Immediately before the first figui'e, 

 which it is presumed is a chief, from his holding a staff 

 in his hand, are two curved lines, the hieroglyphic for a 

 boat or canoe. Behind the chief another bird-headed man 

 is represented as kneeling down, and holding up his 

 hands ; he is probably a priest.f A third bird-headed 

 figure follows without a staff. Then, after two small 

 curves high up in the line of hieroglyphics — perhaps 

 a sign for the moon, — there is a character with a bird's 

 head and b- ak, of a different shape from those 

 of the bird-headed men. It has a crest on its head, 

 and short wings, and is probably intended for a domestic 

 fowl— the only land bird in Easter Island. It appears 

 to be a victim about to be 'arrificed. Two more bird- 

 headed men, without staffs, folloiv in a certain stately order. 

 Thi n there is a second sign or hieroglyphic for a boat, 

 f Uowed by another chief ; and then a third sign for a 

 b)rt, with a waved or zigzag line before it, which is per- 

 haps intended to signify that the vessel which follows it 



♦ Compare the legend of the " Emigration of Turi," Poh Myth. p. jt^- 

 " Amongst the ch efs who landed there was one called Ponia . . . the 

 second (doe) they cut up raw as an offering for the gods . . . and huilt a 

 second place, and act up pillars for the spirits." 



t See Pol. Myth. p. 136, where a priest is msntioned as accompanying a 

 boat expedition. 



was lost or driven away in some other direction by a 

 storm. This last boat is followed by a bird-headed man 

 without a staff". 



The signs for the chiefs' vessels, it will be seen, 

 agree in number with the large rapas, or steering 

 paddles, upon the back of the stone statue ; and the bird- 

 headed chiefs answer to the two herronias. The diminu- 

 tive steering paddle, represented apait from the others 

 on the ear of the statue, may symbolise the same casualty 

 that appears to be signified by the waved line, viz., that 

 there was a third boat, which did not reach Easter Island. 

 The small carving of a rapa would thus have been erected 

 merely in iiu-moriam. However this may be, taken in 

 conjunction with the tradition, there can be little doubt 

 that the hieroglyphics on the tablet and the carvings on 

 the statue relate to a more important matter than the 

 arrival of the chiefs. 



As regatds the signs generally, a considerable nuinbcr 

 have been identified as conventional representations of 

 birds and animals which are not found in Easter Island ; 

 weapons, also, and other objects are introduced {e.g., an 

 Eastern bow), which belong to regions far to the west. 

 Some of the identifications that have been suggested 

 may be doubtful ; but amongst those that will perhaps 

 meet with general acceptance, by no means the [east 

 important are the hieroglyphics of three distinct types 

 of men : (i) Tall, bird-headed men, with short legs, 

 as in the wooden iinages. (2) Men with large orna- 

 ments or projections on each side the head, scarcely 

 exaggerating the practice of enlarging the ear-lobes by in- 

 serting in them discs, or plugs of wood and other 

 materials, which prevails in certam islands in the Pacific, 

 as well as amongst the older races in India and Burmah. 

 (3) Dog-faced men, or Negritos, with strangely shaped 

 heads, which, from plates in the " Cruise of the Curacoa" 

 appear to be characteristic of the natives of the Solomon 

 Islands, as well as the more westerly islands of the P"iji 

 group. They squat like the dog-faced men in the tablets, 

 whilst the large-eared men sit in the Eastern manner. The 

 peculiar appearance of the head is explained by the cus- 

 tom of dressing and plastering the hair. .Several of 

 these Negritos are represented about the middle of the 

 tablet as celebrating a fish-fete ; the men dancing by them- 

 selves on one side, and the women in couples on the 

 other. Two of the men with enlarged ear-lobes stand by 

 as spectators. 



Enough has perhaps been said to suggest the great im- 

 portance of an early and systematic exploration, above 

 and below ground, of Easter Island and Oparo, as almost 

 unwoiked mines, abounding in matter of the greatest 

 ethnological and anthropological interest. 



J. Park Harrison 



ON THE DLSTRIBUTION OF THE HEAT 

 DEVELOPED BY COLLISION* 



TV /r ANY of our colleagues who have become aware 

 -'-'-'- of a fact in thermodynamics which it has been in 

 our power recently to observe, think it possessed of si 

 great an interest that I ought immediately to announce it 

 to the Academy. It is as follows : — 



Daring the forging, which has been very successful, of 

 the ingot of pi itino-iridium for the stand ird metre, I at 

 first remarked that it sometimes produced, under the 

 action of the hainmer, luminous streaks, having an 

 oblique direction upon the lateral faces of the piece, when 

 this, while cooling, was yet at the temperature of a dull 

 red. I showed some of these effects to M. Fizeau, but 

 they were then incomplete, and I have only lately suc- 

 ceeded in obtaining a good observation of the pheno- 

 menon, and in defining its character with perfect 

 certainty. 



* A paper read by M. Tresca before the Paris Academy of Sciences 

 June 8. 



