THE STATUES OF EASTER ISLAND.
BY W. H. R. RIVERS, D.SC, LL.D., F.R.S.
The recent work of Mr. and Mrs. Routledge[1] has given a fresh stimulus to the perennial interest of anthropologists in Easter Island and its statues. The additions to our knowledge concerning the statues and their manufacture, which this work has made, allow us to formulate more definitely than before the relation of these objects to other expressions of Oceanic workmanship.
The first point to notice in Mrs. Routledge’s description of the statues is that they are of two kinds; one, associated with the burial-places or ahu; the other, either lining roads which may have had some ceremonial function, or situated in isolated spots about the island. A point which is probably of great significance is that only the statues of the ahu or burial-places are surmounted by the objects for which Mrs. Routledge uses the convenient term “crown.” The statues on the roads and those in isolated situations do not possess these crowns.
I propose at first to confine my attention to the statues of the ahu, and I will begin by calling attention to another significant discovery of the Routledges. There are two chief kinds of burial-place with three less frequent varieties, including one in the form of a canoe. The statues only occur on one of the two chief kinds where they stand on stone platforms to which lead sloping structures of stone, containing vaults, upon which were placed the wrapped bodies of the dead. The burial-places of the second chief
- ↑ The Mystery of Easter Island. London, 1920.
