1889.] Archeology and Ethnology of Easter Island. 887 
2d. Because the present Easter Islanders do not know about 
the ruins, but say, " The gods made them." This failure or in- 
completeness of record is a matter of common observation. 
3d. The strange facies of the remains. While some local 
modifications exist in the island, these monuments were no doubt 
built under the same impulses that prompted the erection of 
megalithic structures everywhere. 
4th. The fact that writing was known. The discovery of the 
engraved slabs brings out an unique phase of progress not known 
elsewhere in the units that go to make up the Polynesian race. 
Until the tablets are read there is doubt as to the character of the 
record, whether they are lists of chiefs or a sequence of ideas in 
written language. There seems to be a pretty clear tradition as 
to the introduction of the tablets, and those that I have seen, from 
their state of preservation do not appear to be very ancient. 
However, it would seem but a small step from the plaiting of 
hieroglyphic tabu signs, spoken of by Turner among the Samoans 
(Samoa, p. 185), to the delineation of them on surfaces, and this 
step may have been taken in this case. 
In the dry caves of the island are skulls of the supposed former 
inhabitants, that might, if craniometry were of any value in race 
classification, throw some light on the inquiry. 
A people who have been thought possibly to have been the 
builders of the Easter Island remains, are the Papuans. It is 
said that they are more energetic than the Polynesians, and are 
hence more likely to have undertaken the difficult works. The 
art has also been thought to have a Papuan appearance. 
Conclusions of this kind are very unstable, because based on 
an uncertain premise. It is probable that a judicial review would 
show the facts equally pointing to the agency of the ancestors of 
the miserable remnant of Easter Islanders in the works. The 
presumption should always be in favor of an existing tribe against 
unknown peoples ; but it is one of the sins of ethnologists that 
they have " gone after strange gods," and dealt too much in mere 
speculation. The language of the Easter Islanders should be 
closely examined for words derived from other sources ; language 
