Religion

The religion of the Islanders, employing the word in our sense, seems always to have been somewhat hazy,^[49] and the difficulty in grasping it now is increased by the fact that since becoming Roman Catholics they dislike giving the name of “atua,” or god, to their old deities; it only drops out occasionally. They term them “aku-aku,” which means spirits, or more frequently “tatane,” a word of which the derivation is obvious. The confusion of ideas was crystallised by a native, who gravely remarked that they were uncertain whether one of these beings was God or the Devil, so they “wrote to Tahiti, and Tahiti wrote to Rome, and Rome said he was not the Devil, he was God”; a modern view being apparently taken at headquarters of the evolution of religious ideas. Both these words, tatane and aku-aku, will be employed for supernatural beings, without prejudice to their original character, or claims to divinity; some of them were certainly the spirits of the dead, but had probably become deified; the ancestors of Hotu-matua were reported to have come with him to the island. They existed in large numbers, being both male and female, and were connected with different parts of the island; a list of about ninety was given, with their places of residence. No worship was paid, and the only notice taken of these supernatural persons was to mention before meals the names of those to whom a man owed special duty, and invite them to partake; it was etiquette to mention with your own the patron of any guest who was present. There was no sacrifice; the invitation to the supernatural power was purely formal, or restricted to the essence of the food only. Nevertheless, the aku-aku, in this at least being human, were amiable or the reverse according to whether or not they were well fed. If they were hungry, they ate women and children, and one was reported as having a proclivity for stealing potatoes; if, on the contrary, they were well-disposed to a man, they would do work for him, and he would wake in the morning to find his potato-field dug, which, as our informant truly remarked, was “no like Kanaka.”

The aku-aku appeared in human form, in which they were indistinguishable from ordinary persons. One known as Uka-o-hoheru looked like a very beautiful woman, and was the wife of a young Tupahotu who had no idea she was really a tatane. She lived with him at Mahatua on the north coast, and bore him a child. One very wet day she was obliged to leave the house to take fresh fire to the cooking-place where it had gone out. When she returned, her husband was angry that she had no red paint on her face, and, not heeding her explanation that the rain had washed it off, took a stick to beat her. She ran away, and he followed, till at last she sat down on the edge of the eastern headland, where there is now an ahu known by her name. When by and by he came up, she told him to go back and look after the child, and fled away like a rushing whirlwind over the sea and was no more seen.

Two other female tatane are reported to have lived together in a cave on the cliff-side of Paréhé,^[50] whose names were Kava-ara and Kava-tua. They heard all men tell of the beauty of a certain Uré-a-hohové, a young man who lived near Hanga Roa; so they went down to see him, put him to sleep, and carried him on his mat up to their cave, where they left him. Before going away they told an old woman, also an aku-aku, that she was not to go and look into the cave. This she naturally proceeded to do, and, finding Uré, warned him to eat nothing the two tatane might give to him, supplying him herself with some chicken. When therefore his captors came back and offered him food, he only pretended to take it, and ate the chicken instead. They then went away again. The old woman came back, and said, “If cockroaches come, kill them; if flies come, kill them; but if a crab comes, do not kill it.” Uré did as he was told, and killed the cockroaches and flies, which were other tatane; but the crab he did not kill, it was the old woman. Meanwhile for many days the father of Uré wept for him, till some men sailing under the cliff while fishing, heard a song, and looking up saw the missing man; but they would not go and fetch him, though the father gave them much food, for the cliff was steep and the cave difficult to reach. At last a woman volunteered for the task, and was lowered over the cliff in a net, and by this means succeeded in fetching Uré safely to the top. The history ends with his return to his home, and does not mention if, in correct fashion, he married his fair deliverer.

Aku-aku were not immortal. A man called Raraku, after whom the mountain is said to have been named, caught a big “heke,” which seems to have been an octopus, in the sea near Tongariki and ate it, with the result that he went mad, and all people gave chase to him. He caught up a wooden lizard (fig. 117), and, using it as a club, ran amok among tatane across the north shore and down the west coast, killing them right and left; the names of twenty-three were given who thus met their fate.

Human beings, on the other hand, were liable to be attacked by tatane, more particularly at night, when there was risk, not only to their bodies, but also to their own spirits,^[51] which were at large while they slept. It is still firmly believed that in dreams the soul visits any locality present to the thought. On one of the ahu is a rough erection of slabs, said to be the house of the aku-aku Mata-wara-wara, or “Strong-Rain.” He had as a partner another aku-aku called Papai-a-taki-vera, and they arranged between them that Mata should bring on rain, while Papai constructed a house of reeds which was only there at night; then when the spirits of sleeping people, which were wandering abroad, became cold with the rain, they went into the house and the tatane killed them. The unfortunate sleeper waked in the morning feeling distinctly unwell, he lingered on for two or three days, and then died. It was not essential to life to have a soul, but you could not really get on comfortably without it. No knowledge survives of any belief or ideas with regard to a future state. The spirit, it was said, appeared occasionally for five or ten years after a man’s death and then vanished.

Pan in the shape of tatane is by no means dead. Not only do such beings haunt the crater of Rano Raraku, but tales are told of weird apparitions at dusk which vanish mysteriously into space.

There were no priests, but certain men, known as “koremaké,” practised spells which would secure the death of an enemy, and there was also the class known as “ivi-atua,” which included both men and women. The most important of these ivi-atua, of whom it was said there might be perhaps ten in the island, held commune with the aku-aku, others were able to prophesy, and could foresee the whereabouts of fish or turtle, while some had the gift of seeing hidden things, and would demand contributions from a secreted store of bananas or potatoes, in a way which was very disconcerting to the owner.

There was practically only one religious function of a general nature; it was very popular and had a surprising origin. Attention was attracted on the south coast by a particularly long stoep of rounded pebbles measuring 139 feet, and obviously connected with a thatched house now disappeared. That, our guides said in answer to a question, “is a haré-a-té-atua, where they praised the gods.” “What gods?” “The men who came from far away in ships. They saw they had pink cheeks, and they said they were gods.” The early voyagers, for the cult went back at least three generations, were therefore taken for deities in the same way as Cook was at Hawaii. The simplest form of this celebration took place on long mounds of earth known as “miro-o-orne,” or earth-ships, of which there are several in the island, one of them with a small mound near it to represent a boat. Here the natives used to gather together and act the part of a European crew, one taking the lead and giving orders to the others. A more formal ceremony was held in a large house. This had three doors on each side by which the singers entered, who were up to a hundred in number, and ranged themselves in lines within; in one house, of which a diagram was drawn, a deep hole was dug in the middle, at the bottom of which was a gourd covered with a stone to act as a drum. On the top of this a man danced, being hidden out of sight in the hole.

In other cases, two, or perhaps three, boats were constructed inside the house, the masts of which went through the roof; these boats were manned with crews clad in the garments of European sailors, the gifts from passing vessels being kept as stage properties. Fresh music was composed for every occasion, and in one song, which was quoted, much reference is made to the “red face of the captain from over the seas.” The position of chief performer was one of great honour, being analogous, on a glorified scale, to the leader of a cotillon of our own day. It was stated by an old man that his great-grandfather had so acted, and even the words sung were still remembered. Te Haha, a Miru (fig. 83), gave us to understand that he had been a great social success in his youth, and counted up three koro, and seven haré-até-atua at which he had been present. As he was a handsome old man, and was connected with the court of the chief Ngaara, his pride of recollection was very probably justified. Juan, mixing up, no doubt, recollections of a later date, gave a vivid representation on one of these spots of the pseudo-captain striding about and using very strong language, while he called upon the engineer to “make more smoke so that the ship should go fast.”

The Miru Clan

On the border-line, between religion and magic, wherever, if anywhere, that line exists, was the position of the clan known as the Miru. Members of this group had, in the opinion of the islanders, the supernatural and valuable gift of being able to increase all food supplies, especially that of chickens, and this power was particularly in evidence after death. It has been known that certain skulls from Easter are marked with designs, such as the outline of a fish; these are crania of the Miru, and called “puoko-moa,” or fowl-heads, because they had, in particular, the quality of making hens lay eggs (fig. 96). Hotu, the Miru, whose mother, it may be remembered, was the victim of a cannibal feast, made his own skull an heirloom, as “it was so extremely good for chickens,” that he did not wish it to go out of the family. His son gave it to a relative, who was the father of an old man from whom we managed to obtain it. When the time came to hand it over to us, the late owner began to cling to it affectionately, and say that he “wept much at the thought of its going to England”; as, however, the bargain had already been completed, we remained obdurate, and at the time of writing Hotu resides with Ko Tori at the Royal College of Surgeons.

The Miru were unique in other ways; they were the only group which had a headman or chief, who was known as the “ariki,” or sometimes as the “ariki-mau,” the great chief, to distinguish him from the “ariki-paka,” a term which seems to have been given to all other members of the clan.^[52] The office of ariki-mau was hereditary, and he was the only man who was obliged to marry into his own clan. It was customary when he was old and feeble that he should resign in favour of his son. There are various lists of the succession of chiefs, counted from the first immigrant, Hotu-matua. The oldest lists are those given by Bishop Jaussen^[53] and by Admiral Lapelin,^[54] which contain some thirty names. Thomson gives one with fifty-seven. In our day there was admittedly much uncertainty about the sequence, but the number was said to be thirty,^[55] and two independent lists were obtained. All these categories differ, though they contain many of the same names, particularly at the beginning and end.

The last man to fill the post of ariki with its original dignity was Ngaara; he died shortly before the Peruvian raid, and becomes a very real personage to anyone inquiring into the history of the island. He was short, and very stout, with white skin, as had all his family, but so heavily tattooed as to look black. He wore feather hats of various descriptions, and was hung round both back and front with little wooden ornaments, which jingled as he walked. When our authorities can remember him his wife was dead and he lived with his son Kaimokoi. It was not permitted to see them eat, and no one but the servants was allowed to enter the house. His headquarters were at Anakena, the cove on the island where, according to tradition, the first canoe landed. It is unique in having a sandy shore, and is surrounded by an amphitheatre of low hills. Behind it to the west rises the high central ground of the island, beyond it, on the other side, is the eastern plain; it thus approximately terminates the strip of land held by the Miru (fig. 97). There are now at Anakena the remains of six ahu, a few statues, and the foundations of various houses. Ngaara held official position for the whole island, but he was neither a leader in war, nor the fount of justice, nor even a priest; he can best be described as the custodian of certain customs and traditions. The act most nearly approaching a religious ceremony was conducted under his auspices, though not by him personally. In time of drought he sent up a younger son and other ariki-paka to a hill-top to pray for rain: they were painted on one side red, on the other black with a stripe down the centre. These prayers were addressed to Hiro, said to be the god of the sky, a supernatural being in whom we seem getting nearer the idea of a divinity, as distinct from a spirit of the dead, and of whom we would gladly have learnt more than could be discovered.

The ariki-paka had other duties besides praying for rain; they made “maru,” or strings of white feathers tied on to sticks, which they placed among the yams to make them grow. They buried a certain small fish among the sugar-canes to bring up the plants, and when a koro was being held, and it was consequently particularly desirable that the fowls should thrive, an ariki-paka painted a design in red, known as the “rei-miro,” below the door of the chicken-house (fig. 115).

Te Haha, the “social success,” who was an ariki-paka in the entourage of Ngaara, gave graphic descriptions of life at Anakena when he was a boy. If, he said, people wanted chickens, they applied to the Ariki-mau, who sent him with maru, and his visits were always attended with satisfactory results.

Ngaara never consumed rats, and one day, coming across the boy watching rats being cooked, he was extremely angry, for it transpired that, if Te Haha had eaten them, his power for producing chickens would have diminished; presumably because he would have imbibed ratty nature, which was disastrous to eggs and young chickens. The Ariki, however, made himself useful to him on occasion. The younger Miru had long hair reaching to his heels, and one day, when he was asleep in a cave, some one cut it off. So he went to Ngaara, who told him to bring ten coconuts, which he broke and put in pieces of the sacred tree, “ngau-ngau”; the spell blasted the offender, who promptly died. Ngaara himself attended the inauguration of any house of importance. The wooden lizards were put formally on each side of the entrance to the porch, and the Ariki and an ivi-atua, who “went with him like a tatane,” were the first to eat in the new dwelling: only the houses with stone foundations were thus honoured. The Ariki was visited one month in the year by “all people,” who brought him the plant known as pua on the end of sticks, put the pua into his house, and retired backwards.

He also held receptions on other occasions, seated on the broken-off head of an old image, which was pointed out on a grassy declivity among the hills behind Anakena; these were special occasions for criticising the tattoo. Those who were well tattooed were sent to stand on one hill slope, whilst those who were badly done were sent to another; the Ariki and men behind him laughed contemptuously at the latter, which, as the process was permanent and could not be altered, seems slightly unkind. These receptions were also attended by men who had made boats, and by twins, to whom the Ariki gave a “royal name.” Such children were not, as in so many countries, considered unlucky, but it was necessary that at birth they should live in a house apart, otherwise they would not survive. This superstition still exists. Shortly before our arrival a woman in the village had given birth to twins, for whom a little grass house was put up; another woman went in and brought them out to the mother to nurse.

The Script

Closely connected with the subject of the Miru clan is that of the method of writing. While we can only catch glimpses of the image cult through the mists of antiquity, the tablets, known as “koháu-rongo-rongo,”^[56] were an integral part of life on the island within the memory of men not much past middle age (fig. 98). The highest authority on them was the ariki Ngaara. It was tantalising to feel how near we were to their translation and yet how far. Te Haha had begun to learn to write, but found that his hand shook too much, besides, as he explained, Ngaara used “to send him to the chickens.” Juan had had the offer of learning one form of such script, but, not unnaturally, had looked upon it with some contempt, preferring European accomplishments. The information which could be gathered was, therefore, with one exception, which will be noted later, simply that of the layman, or man in the street, who had been aware of the existence of the art and seen it going on around him, but had no personal knowledge.

The tablets were of all sizes up to 6 feet. It was a picturesque sight to see an old man pick up a piece of banana-stem, larger than himself, from among the grove in which we were talking, and stagger along with it to show what it meant to carry a tablet, though, as he explained, the sides of the tablet were flat, not round like the stem. It is said that the original symbols were brought to the island by the first comers, and that they were on “paper,” that when the paper was done, their ancestors made them from the banana plant, and when it was found that withered they resorted to wood. Every clan had professors in the art who were known as rongo-rongo men (“tangata-rongo-rongo”). They had houses apart, the sites of which are shown in various localities. Here they practised their calling, often sitting and working with their pupils in the shade of the bananas; their wives had separate establishments. In writing, the incision was made with a shark’s tooth: the beginners worked on the outer sheaths of banana-stems, and later were promoted to use the wood known as “toro-miro.”^[57]

The glyphs are, as will be seen, so arranged that when the figures of one row are right way up, those of the one immediately below it are on their heads; thus only alternate rows can, at the same time, be seen in correct position (fig. 98). The method of reading was, according to Te Haha, to read one row from left to right, then come back reading the next from right to left, the method known as boustrophedon, from the manner in which an ox ploughs a furrow. The finished ones were wrapped in reeds and hung up in the houses. According to two independent authorities they could only be touched by the professors or their servants, and were taboo to the uninitiated, which, however, does not quite agree with other statements, nor with that of the missionaries that they were to be found in “every house.” They were looked upon as prizes to be carried off in war, but they were often burnt with the houses in tribal conflict.

Ngaara is said to have had “hundreds of kohau” in his house, and instructed in the art, which he had learnt from his grandfather. He is described, with a vivid personal touch, as teaching the words, holding a tablet in one hand and swaying from side to side as he recited. Besides giving instruction, he inspected the candidates prepared by other professors, who were generally their own sons; he looked at their kohau and made them read, on which he either passed them, clapping if they did well, or turned them back. Their sponsors were made personally responsible. If the pupils acquitted themselves creditably, presents of kohau were made to the teachers; if the youth failed, the tablets of the instructor were taken away.

Every year there was a great gathering of rongo-rongo men at Anakena, according to Te Haha, as many as several hundreds of them came together. The younger and more energetic of the population assembled from all districts in the island to look on. They brought “heu-heu” (feathers on the top of sticks), tied pua on to them, and stuck the sticks in the ground all round the place. The inhabitants of the neighbouring districts brought offerings of food to Ngaara, that he should be able to supply the multitude, and the oven was “five yards along.” The gathering was near the principal ahu, midway between the sandy shore and the background of hills. The Ariki and his son Kaimokoi sat on seats made of tablets, and each had a tablet in his hand; they wore feather hats, as did all the professors. The rongo-rongo men were arranged in rows, with an alley-way down the centre to the Ariki. Some of them had brought with them one tablet only; others as many as four. The old ones read in turn, or sometimes two together, from the places where they stood, but their tablets were not inspected. Te Haha and his comrades stood on the outskirts, and he and one other lad held maru in their hands. If a young man failed, he was called up and his errors pointed out; but if an old man did not read well, Ngaara would beckon to Te Haha, who would go up to the man and take him out by the ear. Our informant repeated this part of the story identically months later, and added that the Ariki would say to the culprit, “Are you not ashamed to be taken out by a child?”; the offender’s hat was taken away, but the tablet was not inspected.

The entire morning was spent in hearing one half of the men read; there was an interval at midday for a meal, after which the remainder recited, the whole performance lasting till evening. Fights occasionally ensued from people scoffing at those who failed. Ngaara would then call Te Haha’s attention to it, and the boy would go up to the offenders with the maru in his hand and look at them, when they would stop and there would be no more noise. When the function was over, the Ariki stood on a platform borne by eight men and addressed the rongo-rongo men on their duties, and doing well, and gave them each a chicken. Another old man, Jotefa, gave a different account of the great assembly, by which the Ariki sat on his stoep and the old men stood before him and “prayed”; according to this version they either did not bring their tablets or their doing so was voluntary. In addition to the great day, there were minor assemblies at new moon, or the last quarter of the moon, when the rongo-rongo men came to Anakena. The Ariki walked up and down reading the tablets, while the old men stood in a body and looked on.

Ngaara used also to travel round the island, staying for a week or two in different localities with the resident experts. Another savant on the south coast was said to be “too big a man to have a school,” and also went about visiting and inspecting learned establishments in the same manner.

Ngaara, before the end, fell on evil days. The Ngaure clan was in the ascendancy, and carried off the Miru as slaves; the Ariki was taken to Akahanga on the south coast with his son, Kaimokoi, and grandson, Maurata. They were there five years in captivity, and the “Miru cried much”; at the end of that time the clan united with the Tupahotu and rescued the old man. He was then ill, and died not long afterwards at Tahai, on the west coast, near Hanga Roa, while living with his daughter, who had married a Marama. For six days after his death everyone worked at making the sticks with feathers on the top (heu-heu), and they were put all round the place. He was buried in the ruined image ahu at Tahai, his body being carried on three of the tablets, and followed through a lane of spectators by the rongo-rongo men; the tablets were buried with him. His head paid the penalty of its greatness, and was subsequently stolen; its whereabouts was unknown. Ten or fifteen of his tablets were given to old men; the rest went to a servant, Pito, and on his death to Maurata. When Maurata went to Peru, Také, a relative of Te Haha, obtained them, and Salmon asked Te Haha to get hold of them for him. Také, however, unfortunately owed Te Haha a grudge, because when Te Haha was in Salmon’s service, and consequently well off, he did not give him as many presents as his relative thought should have been forthcoming, and he consequently refused to surrender them. They were hidden in a cave whose general locality was surmised, but Také died without making known the exact site, and they could never be found. Kaimokoi’s tablets were burnt in war.

The question remains what were the subjects with which the tablets dealt, and in what manner did they record them? Various attempts have been made to deal with a problem which will probably never be wholly solved. Twice before our own day native assistance has been sought to decipher them. It will be remembered that the existence of these glyphs was first reported by the missionaries; but even at that time, when volunteers were asked for who could translate them, none came forward. Bishop Jaussen, Vicaire Apostolique of Tahiti, managed to find in that island a native of Easter among those brought there to work on the Brander plantations, who was supposed to understand them, and who read them after the boustrophedon method. From the information given by him, the Bishop was satisfied that the signs represented different things, such as sun, stars, the ariki, and so forth, and has given a list of the figures and their equivalent. At the same time he held that each one was only a peg on which to hang much longer matter which was committed to memory. The other attempt to obtain a translation was that of Paymaster Thomson, of U.S.S. Mohican, in 1886. There was then living an old man, Ure-vae-iko by name, who was said to be the last to understand the form of writing; he declined to assist in deciphering them on the ground that his religious teachers had said it would imperil his soul. Photographs, however, were shown, and, by the aid of stimulants, he was induced to give a version of their meaning, the words of which were taken down by Salmon. It was, however, remarked that when the photographs were changed, the words proceeded just the same.

Inquiries were made by the Expedition about this old man, and it was agreed by the islanders that he had never possessed any tablets nor could he make them, but that he had been a servant of Ngaara and had learnt to repeat them. Before leaving the island we went with the old men through the five translations given by Thomson. Of three nothing was known; one which describes the process of creation was recognised as that of a kohau, but looked at a little askance, as there were Tahitian words in it. The last was laughed out of court as being merely a love-song which everyone knew.

Our own early experiences had resembled those of the Americans. Photographs of tablets, which were produced merely to elicit general information, were to our surprise promptly read, certain words being assigned to each figure; but after a great deal of trouble had been taken, in drawing the signs and writing down the particular matter, it was found that any figure did equally well. The natives were like children pretending to read and only reciting. It was noted, however, with interest, that in perhaps half a dozen cases different persons recited words approximately the same, beginning, “He timo te ako-ako, he ako-ako tena,” and on inquiry it was said that they were derived from one of the earliest tablets and were generally known. It was “like the alphabet learned first”; Ure-vai-iko had stated that they were the “great old words,” all others being only “little ones.” To get any sort of translation was a difficult matter, to ask for it was much the same as for a stranger solemnly to inquire the meaning of some of our own old nursery rhymes, such as “Hey diddle diddle, the cat and the fiddle”—some words could be explained, others could not, the whole meaning was unknown. It seems safe, however, to assume that at least we have here the contents of one of the old tablets.

With regard to other kohau, a list was obtained of the subjects with which they were believed to deal. These amounted to thirteen in all, most of the names being given by several different persons. We have seen that there was a kohau of the “Ika,” the murdered men; this was known to only one professor, who taught it to a pupil, and the two divided the island between them, the master taking the west and north coast to Anakena and the pupil the remainder. A connected, or possibly the same, tablet was made at the instance of the relatives of the victim and helped to secure vengeance. Certain kohau were said to be lists of wars; some dealt with ceremonies, and others formed part of ceremonies themselves. They were in evidence at koro, where Ngaara and the professors used to come and “pray for the father,” and a woman went on to the roof of the house holding the “Kohau-o-te-puré” (prayer tablet). In another case, a woman who wished to honour her father-in-law, and at the same time secure fertility, set up a pole round which she walked holding a child and a tablet, given her by Ngaara, while he and other rongo-rongo men who brought their kohau at his order stood by and sang.

Perhaps the most interesting tablet was one known as the “Kohau-o-te-ranga.” The story was told to us sitting on the foundation of a house on the east side of Raraku, the aspect which is not quarried. This house, it was said, had been the abode of two men, who were old when the informant was a boy, and who taught the rongo-rongo; some days ten students would come, other days fifteen. The wives and children of the old men lived in another house lower down the mountain. One of the experts, Arohio by name, was a Tupahotu, and had as a friend another member of the same clan called Kaara. Kaara was servant to the Ariki, and had been taught rongo-rongo by him, and Ngaara, trusting him entirely, gave into his care this most valuable kohau known as “ranga.” It was the only one of the kind in existence, and was reported to have been brought by the first immigrants; it had the notable property of securing victory to its holders, in such a manner that they were able to get hold of the enemy for the “ranga”—that is, as captives or slaves for manual labour. Kaara, anxious to obtain the talisman for his own clan, stole the kohau and gave it to Arohio, who kept it in this house. When Ngaara asked for it, the man said that it was at Raraku, but before the Ariki could get hold of it, Arohio sent it back to Kaara, and these two thus sent it backwards and forwards to one another, lying to Ngaara when needful. The Ariki seems to have taken a somewhat feeble line, and, instead of punishing his servant, merely tried to bribe him, with the result that he never again saw his kohau. The son of Arohio sold it to one of the missionaries, and it is presumably one of those which went to Tahiti. The matters with which it would naturally have been supposed that the rongo-rongo would deal, such as genealogies, lists of ariki, or the wanderings of the people, were never mentioned.

We were fortunately just in time to come across a man who had been able to make one species of glyphs, though he was no longer, alas! in the hey-day of his powers. We were shown one day in the village a piece of paper taken from a Chilean manuscript book, on which were somewhat roughly drawn a number of signs, some of them similar to those already known, others different from any we had seen (fig. 99). They were found to have been derived from an old man known as Tomenika. He was, by report, the last man acquainted with an inferior kind of rongo-rongo known as the “tau,” but was now ill and confined to the leper colony. We paid a visit to him armed with a copy of the signs, but found him inside his doorway, which it was obviously undesirable to enter, and disinclined to give help; he acknowledged the figures as his work, recited “He timo te ako-ako,” and explained some of the signs as having to do with “Jesus Christ.” The outlook was not promising.

Another visit, however, was paid, this time with Juan’s assistance, and though the old man appeared childish, and the natives frankly said that “he had lost his memory,” things went better.

He was seated on a blanket outside his grass-hut, bare-legged, wearing a long coat and felt hat; he had piercing brown eyes, and in younger days must have been both good-looking and intelligent. He asked if we wanted the tau, and requested a paper and pencil. The former he put on the ground in front of him between his legs, and took hold of the pencil with his thumb above and first finger below; he made three vertical lines, first of noughts then of ticks, gave a name to each line, and proceeded to recite. There was no doubt about the genuineness of the recitation, but he gabbled fast, and when asked to go slowly so that it could be taken down, was put out and had to begin again; he obviously used the marks simply to keep count of the different phrases. At the end of the visit he offered to write something for next time. We left some paper with him, and on our return two or three days later he had drawn five lines horizontally, of which four were in the form of the glyphs, but the same figure was constantly repeated, and there were not more than a dozen different symbols in all. It was said by the escort to be “lazy writing.” Tomenika complained that the paper was not “big enough,” so another sheet was given, which was put by the side of the first and the lines continued in turn horizontally. He drew from left to right rapidly and easily. Unfortunately, it did not seem wise to touch the paper, but the writing was copied, by looking over it as he went on, with the sincere hope that his blanket did not contain too many inhabitants of some infectious variety. The recitation was partly the same as on the previous occasion, the signs taking the place of ticks; anything from three or four to ten words were said to each sign. If he made a variation when asked to repeat, it was in transposing the order of two phrases; evidently the signs themselves were not to him, now at any rate, connected with particular words.

When we subsequently went with our escort into the meaning of the words, it was found that the latter half of each phrase generally consisted of one of the lower numericals preceded by the word “tau,” or year—thus, “the year four,” “the year five,” etc.; the numbers, roughly speaking, ran in order of sequence up to ten, recommencing with each line. The first part of the phrase was generally said to be the name of a man, but of this it was difficult to judge, as children were called after any object or place; thus “flowering grass” might be the name of a thing, or of a place, or of a man called after either the object or the locality.

Happily, one of the most reliable old men, Kapiera by name, had at one time lived with Tomenika, who was said to have been in those days always busy writing; and he was able to explain the general bearing of the tau. When a koro was made in honour of a father, an expert was called in to commemorate the old man’s deeds, “how many men he had killed, how many chickens he had stolen,” and a tablet was made accordingly. There was, in addition, a larger tablet containing a list of these lesser ones, and giving merely the name of each hero and the year of his koro. It would read somewhat thus, “James the year four, Charles the year five,” and so forth, going up to the year ten, when the numbers began again. If there were two koro in a year, they came under the same numeral. It was this general summary which had been recited by Tomenika, and, though there was a certain amount of confusion, each line seems to have represented a decade. In addition, as will be seen, “James” and “Charles” each had a kohau of their own.

Kapiera was able to give a specimen of the lesser tau; it illustrates interestingly the general method of condensation in which, even in the recitations, a few words assume or implicate extended knowledge. It ran thus, “Of Kao the year nine,” “Ngakurariha the eldest”; then come five men’s names followed by the name of a fish; then a doubtful word; then “that side island my place.” “I see Ngakurariha at the koro.” The story, as explained, was that Kao, a man of Vinapu on the south coast, and Ngakurariha, his eldest son, went to Mahatua on the north side and stayed with the five men whose names are given, who were brothers, and learnt from them the tau. Having done this, they proceeded to murder them, and went and took a fish, then returned to Rano Kao, made a koro and the tau.

The tau was, it was said, originally made by an ancestor of the first immigrant chief, Hotu-matua; it was not taboo in the same way as the other rongo-rongo, and was not known to Ngaara. There were, about the beginning of last century, only three personages acquainted with it. One was Omatohi, a Tupahotu, whose son, Tea-a-tea, was Tomenika’s foster-father and instructor in the art. It was said by Tomenika himself and by others that he “only knew part,” and there were other signs with which he was not acquainted, for his foster-father had died before he knew all.

A great effort was subsequently made to get further information from Tomenika, more particularly as to the exact method of writing, but he was back in his hut very ill, and all conversation had once more to be done through the doorway. Every way that could be thought of was tried to elicit information, but without real success. He did draw two fresh symbols, saying first they were “new” and then “old,” and stating they represented the man who gave the koro, but “there was no sign meaning a man.” “He did not know that for ariki, the old men did,” “the words were new, but the letters were old,” “each line represented a koro.” An attempt to get him to reproduce any tau made by himself was a failure. The answers, on the whole, were so wandering and contradictory, that after a second visit under those conditions, making five in all, the prospect of getting anything further of material value did not seem sufficient to justify the risks to others, however slight. As the last interview drew to a close, I left the hut for a moment, and leant against the wall outside, racking my brains to see if there was any question left unasked, any possible way of getting at the information; but most of what the old man knew he had forgotten, and what he dimly remembered he was incapable of explaining. I made one more futile effort, then bade him good-bye and turned away. It was late afternoon on a day of unusual calm, everything in the lonely spot was perfectly still, the sea lay below like a sheet of glass, the sun as a globe of fire was nearing the horizon, while close at hand lay the old man gradually sinking, and carrying in his tired brain the last remnants of a once-prized knowledge. In a fortnight he was dead.

No detailed systematic study of the tablets has as yet been possible from the point of view of the Expedition, but it seems at present probable that the system was one of memory, and that the signs were simply aids to recollection, or for keeping count like the beads of a rosary. To what extent the figures were used at will, or how far each was associated with a definite idea it is impossible to say. Possibly there was no unvarying method; certain ones may conveniently have been kept for an ever-recurrent factor, as the host in the tau, and in well-known documents, such as “he timo te ako-ako,” they would doubtless be reproduced in orthodox succession. But in the tablets which we possess the same figures are continually repeated, and the fact that equivalents were always having to be found for new names, as in that of the fish-man, or ika, suggest that they may have been largely selected by the expert haphazard from a known number. As Tomenika said, “the words were new, but the letters were old,” or to quote Kapiera to the same effect, they were “the same picture, but other words.” It will be noted how few men are reported to have known each variety of rongo-rongo, and that while Ngaara looked at the tablets of the boys, apparently to see if they were properly cut, it was in the recitation only of the older men that accuracy was insisted on. The names which Bishop Jaussen’s informant assigned to some five hundred figures may or may not be accurate, but whether the native or anyone else could have stated what the signs conveyed is another matter. It is easy to give the term for a knot in a pocket-handkerchief, but no one save the owner can say whether he wishes to remember to pay his life insurance or the date of a tea-party.

In trying to enter into the state of society and of mind which evolved the tablets there are two points worth noticing. Firstly, the Islanders are distinctly clever with their hands and fond of representing forms. Setting aside the large images, the carving of the small wooden ones is very good, and the accuracy of the tablet designs is wonderful. Then they have real enjoyment in reciting categories of words; for example, in recounting folk-tales, opportunity was always gleefully taken of any mention of feasting to go through the whole of the food products of the island. In the same way, if a hero went from one locality to another, the name of every place en route would be rolled out without any further object than the mere pleasure of giving a string of names. This form of recitation appears to affect them æsthetically, and the mere continuation of sound to be a pleasure. Given, therefore, that it was desired to remember lists of words, whether categories of names or correct forms of prayer, the repetition would be a labour of love, and to draw figures as aids to recollection would be very natural.

Nevertheless, the signs themselves have no doubt a history, which as such, even apart from interpretation, may prove to be signposts in our search for the origin of this mysterious people.

Knowledge of the tablets was confined to a few, and formed a comparatively small element of life in the island; the whole of social existence revolved round the bird cult, and it was the last of the old order to pass away. The main object of the cult was to obtain the first egg of a certain migratory sea-bird, and the rites were connected with the western headland, Rano Kao. Little has yet been said of this volcano, but, from the scenic point of view, it is the most striking portion of the island. Its height is 1,300 feet, and it possesses a crater two-thirds of a mile across, at the bottom of which is a lake largely covered with weeds and plant life. On the eastward, or landward face, the mountain, as already explained, slopes downward with a smooth and grassy incline, and the other three sides have been worn by the waves into cliffs over 1,000 feet in height. On the outermost side the sea has nearly forced its way into the crater itself; and the ocean is now divided from the lake at this point by only a narrow edge, along which it would be possible but not easy to walk with safety. At some near date, as geological ages reckon, the island will have a magnificent harbour (figs. 100 and 108). Off this part of the coast are three little islets, outlying portions of the original mountain, which have as yet withstood the unceasing blows of the ocean. Their names are Motu Nui, Motu Iti, and Motu Kao-kao, and on them nest the sea-birds which have for unknown centuries played so important a part in the history of the island. On the mainland, immediately opposite these islets, there is on the top of the cliff a deserted stone village; it is known as Orongo, and in it the Islanders awaited the coming of the birds. It consists of nearly fifty dwellings arranged in two rows, both facing the sea, and partly overlapping; the lower row terminates just before the narrowest part of the crater wall is reached. The final houses are built among an outcrop of rocks; they are betwixt two groups of stones, and have in front of them a small natural pavement. The stones nearest the cliff look as if at any moment they might join their brethren in headlong descent to the shore below (fig. 103). Both the upstanding rocks and pavement are covered with carvings; some of them are partly obliterated by time, and can only be seen in a good light, but the ever-recurrent theme is a figure with the body of a man and the head of a bird; portions of the carvings are covered by the houses, and they therefore antedate them.

The whole position is marvellous, surpassing the wildest scenes depicted in romance. Immediately at hand are these strange relics of a mysterious past; on one side far beneath is the dark crater lake; on the other, a thousand feet below, swells and breaks the Pacific Ocean, it girdles the islets with a white belt of foam, and extends, in blue unbroken sweep, till it meets the ice-fields of the Antarctic. The all-pervading stillness of the island culminates here in a silence which may be felt, broken only by the cry of the sea-birds as they circle round their lonely habitations.

The stone village formed the scene of some of our earliest work during our first residence at the Manager’s house; for some weeks, weather permitting, we rode daily up the mountain, an ascent which took about fifty minutes, and spent the day on the top studying the remains, and picking the brains of our native companions. Some of the houses have been destroyed in order to obtain the painted slabs within, but most are in fair, and some in perfect, preservation. The form of construction suitable to the low ground has perhaps been tried here and abandoned, for some of the foundation-stones, pierced with the holes to support the superstructure of stick and grass, are built into the existing dwellings. The present buildings (fig. 104) are well adapted to such a wind-swept spot; they are made of stone laminæ, with walls about 6 feet thick; the inside walls are generally lined with vertical slabs, and horizontal slabs form the roof.

The greater number are built at the back into rising ground, and their sides and top are covered with earth; the natives call them not “haré,” or houses, but “ana,” or caves. Where space permits it, the form is boat-shaped, but some have been adapted to natural contours.^[58] The dwellings vary in shape and size, from 52 feet by 6 feet to 8 feet by 4 feet; the height within varies from 4 feet to over 6 feet, but it is the exception to be able to stand upright. In some cases they open out of one another, and not unfrequently there is a hatch between two through which food could be passed. The doorway, with its six foot of passage, is just large enough to admit a man. Into each of them, armed with ends of candles, we either crawled on hands and knees, or wriggled like serpents, according to our respective heights. The slabs lining the wall, which are just opposite the doorway, and thus obtain a little light, are frequently painted; some of them have bird and others native designs, but perhaps the most popular is a European ship, sometimes in full sail, and once with a sailor aloft in a red shirt (fig. 105). Inside the houses we found the flat, sea-worn boulders which are used as pillows and often incised with rough designs; there were also a few obsidian spear-heads, or mataa, and once or twice sphagnum from the crater, which was used for caulking boats, and also as a sponge to retain fresh water when at sea. Outside many of the doors are small stone-lined holes, which we cleared out and examined. They measure roughly rather under 2 feet across by some 15 inches in depth. Our guides first told us that they were “ovens,” but, as no ash was found, it seems probable that their second thoughts were right, and they were used to contain stores.