the construction of their ceremonial objects, they might have been driven to use this material in the satisfaction of their religious needs. Having unlimited time and copious supplies of the stone they needed for the construction of their burial-places and images, it is not difficult to understand that the immigrants should have sought to enhance their importance through the feature of size just as was done by the ancient kings of Egypt when they contrived the pyramids within which their bodies were to rest. The chief difficulty is to understand how immigrants stranded in a tiny island, perhaps among an earlier population inferior to themselves in culture, should have succeeded in transmitting their zeal and desire for commemoration to their descendants.
In such a case as that of the statues of Easter Island we cannot expect certainty when we seek for the motive which inspired people of long ago. But, if the statues were to serve as resting-places for the souls of the dead, the limitation of activities in other directions provides a reason for the presence of these images in islands so small that it must have been difficult to find that interest which makes human activity possible. In view of the great importance of interest in life to the welfare of a people,[1] I would even venture to suggest that it is because the people found an outlet for their energies in the construction of these monuments that they were able to persist and keep alive the spirit of their society.
I mentioned at the outset the discovery of the Routledges that it is only the statues of the burial-places which were surmounted by the crowns, and I propose now briefly to consider this special feature of the statues. Several students of anthropology have been stimulated by the work of the Routledges to speculate about the nature of these crowns which have usually been regarded as hats. Mr.
- ↑ W. H. R. Rivers, “The Dying out of Native Races,” Lancet, vol. cxcviii., 1920, pp. 42 and 109.
