Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-04-06

the shape of whales teeth, black and honey
combed with decay, and no less than seven
skeletons of women who had probably been
strangled for the chiet to lie upon after the
| custom OF the country prior to the introduc-
tion of Christianity This cairn was Ger
tainly two centuries old, if at least any
| judgment could be based upon the size Of
the trees which had grown 10 it. Yet, old
as it undoubtedly was, it was modern, and
| its rough rubble work bore no comparison
with the finished work OF the really antique
masons.
In Easter Island the maraes have at
tracted the attention of all voyagers. Upon
Nukahiva In the Marquesas are similar
maraes of even greater extent. The topmost
and the lowest terraces each have quad
| rangular depression in the center sunk sew
eral feet below the general surface. AT
Kaksoa in the Hawaiian Islands is a marae
| OF large and carefully dressed stone, plat
form 40 yards in length BY 20 in width
standing IA feet high, fiat and neatly paved
upon the top.
HINTS AS TO THEIR ANTIQUITY.
On Maiden Island nearly under the equa-
tor there are large stone areas neatly paved,
and in some stances these platforms are
raised as much as three feet above the
ground. supported by blocks of coral. A
slight hint of the antiquity of these almost
imperishable works may be gathered from
the fact that one such raised pavement has
recently been uncovered under several feet
of guano. Pitcairn's Island, uninhabited at
the time the Bounty mutineers took posses
sion, was found to be covered with these ter
races and platforms of very high antiq-
uity.
Departing from the usual type Of care
fully built cairn close approach is made to
the peculiar style of the Druidic monument
IN two solitary yet conspicuous instances.
The first is at Huahine, in the Society
Islands, where superstition attaches rever-
ence and awe to a large slab of unhewn
stone resting on the points of three huge
boulders. In Tongatabu, of the Friendly
Islands, there stands at Moa, some II miles
from Nukualofa, the principal town, a
monster trilithon composed of two rectan-
gular blocks OF gray volcanic stone, stand
ing 20 feet out of the soil and no one knows
how deep below it, about IL feet thick and
10 broad, with well-squared faces and neatly
dressed edges. The tops of these two stones
are mortised SO as to receive part OF third
as carefully hewn monolith OF much the
same dimensions. Until within the last
score of years there rested on the center Of
this stone huge bowl cut in the same ma
teriaL The art which could dress this rock
and raise the great masses into place is
strange enough, but stranger vet is the fact
that the material is nowhere found in Tonga
or the neighboring islands. in fact nowhere
nearer than Uvea or Wallis Island, several
hundred miles away.
NOT UNLIKE THE MOUND BUILDERS.
Close to this imposing monument is the
ruin OF what must have been an enormous
pyramid. Not far away in the island Of
Lefuka, of the same group, is found a huge
stone standing out of the earth about 20 feet
in slanting direction. This bears the
mark of human work and seems to belong
in the same category with the famous
Kaaba, or sacred stone of Mecca, which is
known to have been sacred ages before Mo-
hammed incorporated 1t in his religious
system. Not many rods away from this
stone shalt is found a memorial, the onlv
one of its kind in Polynesia, which makes
slight approach to the work of the mound
builders in this country. This is mound
evidently artificial, in shape 1t is the
frustrum of cone, about 40 feet in height;
its summit is quite fiat and almost perfect
circle of some 80 feet diameter. What its
age may be it is impossible to determine,
but enormous trees of an undoubtedly ven
cradle antiquity have grown up through it.
Finally. on Easter Island is found the
greatest effort of this ancient people in the
statues. They are large stones surmounted
by bust and head, the lower portion from
the shoulders down being rudely dressed
into shape, with no attempt to represent
either body or limbs. These statues are of
trachyte, which is found in the extinct
crater of Otuiti, at the northern end of the
island, with at least 80 statues in all stages
of comDletion remaining nm il
HINTS AS TO HEAD DRESS.
Some Of the statues are erected at least
eight miles from this quarry. They stand
from Is to 80 feet high, with breadth across
the shoulders of from to feet. Upon the
head of each is a cylinder of red tufa
measuring some so inches in height and 60
bling that of civilization divested of its
brim is still worn by the New Caledonians.
The countenance upon these statues is
strongly marked, expression stern, eyeballs
deeply sunken and gaze directed upward
The ears are not carved out, but simply in
dicated by large, square masses depending
almost to the shoulders.
Nothing, absolutely nothing, is known of
the race that labored in these quarries.
There is not a tradition on which to weave
the finest web to connect them with the
present. Analogy gives no clew, because it
gives too many, each one as good as the next
and no means of giving weight to one above
another. An extinct people heaped up
along the Valley cf the Mississippi;
the mound is found in the islands. The an
cient Aymaras of Peru carved huge statues
and left them standing in Andean valleys;
statues almost the very counterpart stand on
Easter Island. The ancient Sabaans of
Africa and Arabia stuck long stones in the
ground to worship them; a rocky shaft still
is found in Tonga. In, Southeastern Asia
are huge terraces of massy rock; the island
world is filled with just such monuments
England and Normandy show huge blocks
on stone uprights; SO does the
realm in which these ancient workers hewed
stone. All solutions are probable, all are
i'm probable; the dead are dead to all time.