pyramidal form when it became necessary to reconstruct dilapidated ahu of the platform variety.
If I am right in my interpretation of the association of burial-place, pyramid and image in Easter Island and San Cristoval it will become necessary to understand why the human image, which is not very conspicuous in the Solomons, should have become the imposing statue of Easter Island. It is a remarkable fact that these images occur especially in three small islands of the Pacific, Easter and Pitcairn Islands and Lavaïvaï, I have already mentioned the large image of Mangaia, and according to Moerenhout large statues once existed in other islands of the Pacific, but even if this were so, it would be necessary to understand why the images should be so large in tiny islets such as Easter Island and Pitcairn.
According to the view here put forward, the images are the expression of an art which was introduced into many parts of the Pacific. In large islands, such as the Marquesas and Tahiti, the stone-workers would find many outlets for their energy and for the satisfaction of their religious and artistic impulses. There would be no reason why any one element of their culture should undergo hypertrophy; why their energies should take the direction of magnifying the images which, as I suggest, they may have trusted their souls would occupy when they were no longer living.
A little place like Easter Island, on the contrary, would give no outlet for the energies of the immigrants in an economic or social direction. The volcanic soil would soon provide them with an ample supply of such foods as were either there already, or were provided by plants they had brought with them. We know that the supply of timber was so scanty that the people were driven to depend upon driftwood to make their canoes, and still find it diffcult to obtain sufficient wood to cook their food. Even if they had not already possessed the practice of using stone for
