Volume 14 Australasia - dana ward's homepage

EQUATOEIAJ. POLTNESIx\.. 475pletel}- detached from tlie primitive rock. The surrounding district is strewn withobsidian implements, scrapers, and knives, doubtless the instruments employed bythis extinct race of sculptors. In Easter Island are also seen avenues with regularflag pavements and walls embellished with little obelisks, besides tablets of foro-'iiiro, a species of hard-grained acacia, on which are carefully inscribed in regularlines objects of various kinds, such as fishes, turtles, snakes, plants, shells, men andtheir weapons. Most of these "speaking" tablets, or hieroglyphics, arc preservedin the museum of Santiago, Chili, but they do not appear to have yet been interpreted,although a chief, who died about I80O, was said to understand and even2n8.-EAsTEK Island.Scale 1 :30B,000.write these characters. Other monuments occur in Fanning, Rapa, and elscnhcrc,and in Tonga-Tabu is seen a sort of triumphal arch.The Polynesians properly so called; to whoin the collective terms Mahori andSavaiori have also been applied, and who call themselves Kanaka, that is, " Men,"have a light brown or coppery complexion, and rather exceed the tallest Europeansin stature. In Tonga and Samoa nearly all the men are athletes of fine proportions,with black and slightly wavy hair, fairly regular features and proud glance. Theyare a laughter-loving light-hearted people, fond of music, song, and the dance, andwhere not visited by wars and the contagion of European "culture," the happiestand most harmless of mortals. When Dumont d'Urville questioned the Tukopiansas to the doctrine of a future life with rewards for the good and punishment forthe wicked, they replied ": Ainongst us there are no wicked people."