1889-] Archeology and Ethnology of Easter Island. 883 
way, it is necessary, in reading a new line, to turn successively 
the right side of the tablet to the left. 
The native traditions state that their ancestors came from. 
Rapaiti (27° 35' S. lat., 144° 20' W. long.) under Chief Tocuyo, 
and that twenty-two chiefs have succeeded him up to twenty years 
ago (about 500 years).^ They say that Tocuyo knew the lan- 
guage of these tablets, and brought with him sixty-seven tablets 
containing allegories, proverbs, and traditions of the country from 
Fig. 6.— Skull with Sign Engraved on Frontal Bone, {a) Designs 
FROM Other Skulls. 
(From specimens in the United States National Museum.) 
which they came. A certain number of youths from each clan 
were instructed in the reading of these writings, and on a great 
fete day, once a year, the people assembled to hear them read 
Some characters like those on the tablets appear on the platforms 
and the doorposts of the ancient stone houses. Three skulls 
(Fig. 6) in the Thomson collection have each a character deeply 
cut in the frontal bone. These skulls were said by the natives to 
have been of their chiefs. 
1 Palmer, Visit to Easter Id. /. Roy. Geog. Soc, XL.. 1870. 
