THE EASTER ISLAND STATUES [To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
Sin,—In reply to Lieut.-Col. H. J. Kelsall, may I say that I have lived in New Zealand for thirty years and am generally acquainted with the English books on Easter Island " riddles" and " mysteries " Whether these have any more value than the Japanese student's idea of England, I cannot say. All I am doing is reporting Maori legends, as dictated to me by a member of the House of ATRWR.
According to these, the Maori left Assyria (iluria) some six thousand years ago, crossed Europe to Portugal, crossed the Atlantic to Mexico (Hawaiki-nui) ; thence migrated through Central America to Peru (Maori--Eperie ; and they have the legends of Titikaka) ; crossed to Easter Island ; thence westward to New Zealand (some parties breaking off at Tahiti reached Hawaii). Many halts and settlements and minor migrations were made en route, but that generally is alleged to be the course of the Great Migration as recorded on the Sacred Memory Tablets, copies of which have been supplied -in Maori Symbolism. • (Kegan Paul.)
In these Sacred Legends it is claimed that the ancestors
of the Neyv Zealand Maori erected the Easter Island statues, fashioning them in situ out of cooling volcanic material, and those claims I have reported accurately. Simultaneously the British Museum is exhibiting specimens from British Honduras of mould-made ornaments, figures, tirm., and pottery with "impressed ornament," also a fragment of a mould. Clearly we may have to revise our present conceptions of hard- caTving compared with soft-working. We are not at the end of knowledge. As a working hypothesis it would be at least interesting to take the Maori migration route, and see what similarities there were in the fashioning of the Chaldean bulls, the Spanish bulls, the Maya carvings, the Easter Island statues, and the Maori " stone " statues.
In the Easter Island literature, Lieut.-Col. Kelsall will find various references to the heads and faces carved on the walls and ceilings (volcanic material) of the so-called " quarries."—I am, Sir, &c., E. A. Rotrr.
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