kind are semi-pyramidal in form, also containing vaults, and made of smaller stones. Some of the old platforms upon which images stood have been reconstructed in pyramidal form, but Mrs. Routledge tells me that the semi-pyramidal ahu never sustained images and from their structure could not have done so. I propose to return later in this paper to the relation between the two chief kinds of ahu and content myself now with pointing out the presence of the two features of pyramidal form and stone images in the burial-places of Easter Island.
Let us inquire whether this association is found elsewhere in Oceania. Statues comparable with those of Easter Island occur in Pitcairn Island and Lavaïvaï, and according to Moerenhout[1] they once had a wider distribution. In Pitcairn Island the Routledges studied[2] some remains which resembled one of the semi-pyramidal ahu of Easter Island. This was said once to have been occupied by three statues, and the trunk of one of these, which has been preserved, resembled, though crudely, the workmanship of Easter Island.
Several statues with points of resemblance to the remains of Easter Island have been found in the Marquesas. In Nuku-hiva Porter[3] saw a statue of stone, about the height of a man but “larger proportioned in every way,” round which the dead were exposed in canoes. This figure differed from those of Easter Island in being in the squatting position, but a greater similarity is present in a statue found by Christian[4] in the island of Hiva-oa. This was about eight feet high and in the position of the arms and general character of the features definitely resembled the statues of Easter Island.
