Easter Island remains a mystery today. Experts still disagree over the date the Polynesians colonised the island and why the civilisation collapsed so quickly. Here’s what people thought a century ago.
‘Mystery of Easter Island
“All the seashore is lined with numbers of stone idols, with their backs turned towards the sea,” wrote a navigator 150 years ago of this island–“which caused us no little wonder, because we saw no tool of any kind for working these figures.”
The “idols” are not the only mystery on Easter Island. Whence came the inhabitants ? From South America, 2,000 miles to the East ? Or did they sail against the prevailing winds from the distant island to the West ? Some hold that Easter Island is all that remains of a sunken continent. Wooden tablets have been found there, bearing a script which has defied all translation.
The statues stand on the slopes of Rano Raraku, an extinct volcano. The quarries from which the statues came are on the higher slopes. The shadow of this mystery lies over the land. “The inhabitants of today are less real than the men who have gone. In Easter Island the past is the present ; it is impossible to escape from it.”
Some of the statues are over 30ft. in height. They weigh 40 to 50 tons. They were erected chiefly, it is believed, to mark the “ahu” or burial-place of the dead. It is impossible, save on the great eastern and western headlands, to go for more than a hundred yards without coming across one of these abodes of the dead.
Looked at from the landward side, the “ahu” appears as a vast theatre stage, the floor of which runs gradually upwards from the footlights. At the back is a great terrace, on which are set the giant stone images, all facing the spectator.
“Irrespective of where he stands, he will ever see them towering above him, clear cut against a turquoise sky. In front of them are the remains of the departed. Unseen on the farther side of the terrace is the sea. The stone giants and the faithful dead over whom they watch are never without music, as countless waves launch their strength against the pebbled shore, showering on the figures a cloud of mist and spray.”
All of these remains have been overthrown and many broken. It is not known how they were overthrown. It is not even known how they were set up. In one place an “ahu” was built on a natural eminence. One side was sheer cliff, the other, a slope of 29ft., was as steep as the roof of a house. Near the top a statue was lying.
“Do you mean to tell me,” said a guide who was directing the party, “that that was not done by mana? (magic).”–From “The Mystery of Easter Island,” by Mrs. Scoresby Routledge (Sifton Praed).’
Stamford Mercury, 2nd January, 1920.