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Easter Island: Early Witnesses

William Thomson


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this flow had ceased, there was a heavy deposit of mud, covering deeply both hill and dale. This condensed earth, after the lapse of centuries, has formed a soil that produces a natural grass affording an excellent pasturage for flocks and herds. The expiring energy of the volcanic power appears to have been directed, long after the formation of this soil, to sprinkling thickly the entire surface of the island with stones and small bowlders, thus providing the means of attraction and holding the moisture, nature's substitute, as it were, for trees. The natives have distinct names for the following varieties: Black and red tufa with volcanic cinder and pumice are called "Maea-Hane-hane," "maea" being the generic term applied to all stone. A soft gray tufa is ground down with the juice of the sugar-cane and used as a paint. This is known as "Kiri-kiri Teu." Hard slates, black, red, and gray, are used for stone axes and called "Maea-Toke." Granite used for the same purpose is known as "Maea-Nevhive. The hardest and finest stone implements are made of the flinty beach pebble known as "Maea-Reng-rengo." The hard cellular stones from which the majority of the platforms are built are called "Maea-Pupura." The material from which images were constructed is called "Maea-Matariki," and the obsidian from which spearheads were made is known as "Maea-Mataa."

VARIOUS NAMES OF THE ISLAND.

   Previous to the general recognition of the name bestowed by Admiral Roggeveen in commemoration of the day upon which the land was discovered, it had not been regularly christened by either of the earlier navigators who claimed to have sighted it. The Spaniards afterwards gave it the name of San Carlos, but the Dutchman's title of Easter Island was preferred by the chart-makers and was adopted by the world in general.
   The island is known to the natives as "Te Pito te Henua," the literal interpretation of the words signifying the "navel and uterus." This singular name was given to the land, according to the ancient traditions, by Hotu Metua immediately after its discovery, and has been handed down through succeeding generations unchanged. To the simple-minded Polynesian this name is suggestive, appropriate, and beautiful. The child of nature recognizing the volcanic origin of the island can see in the great volcano, Rana Roraka, a resemblance to the human "te pito" in relation to its shape and gently sloping sides surrounding the shallow crater. The same association of ideas would picture the majestic volcano, Rana Kao, at the southwest end, as "te henua," in whose womb was conceived the embryo and whose vitals brought forth the rocks and earth from which the island was formed.
   "Kiti te eiranga" is stated by an English writer of some note to be the native name for the island, but we could not find any authority for it, nor did the natives with whom we came in contact recognize the name.

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