The Bird Ctilt of Easter Island, 3 5 r
always hidden in a hole ; it might be thrown into the sea or kept and buried with the bird-man. The place of residence for the taboo period was also subject to variation. Orohie was mentioned with pre-eminence, but there were other bird -houses on the Raraku slope and one on the adjoining ahu of Tongariki, some used more particularly when there was more than one bird-man ; it transpired also that it was permissible for a man to remain in his own place though he could not stay in his own dwelUng ; in most of the larger settlements, which would be those with important image ahus, there was a house specially appointed for the residence of the local bird-man should he so elect, but this may have been a later development. The bird-men of the Western clans had a special Mecca in Anakena on the north coast, where the annual inspection of the tablets took place, and an adjoining spot ; they went there in all the cases which could be quoted, with the exception of two or three who took up their abode at Raraku, but it was said by three authorities that these places were only resorted to when there was war between the clans and the western men dared not venture into the eastern territory of Orohie. It is a tempting surmise that the quarries and statues inside the Raraku crater,, which is entered by a road from the west, may have been associated originally with the Western clans, and those outside the mountain with the Eastern. If so it is not improbable that, owing to internicine war,, the work in the crater was suspended first, which would account for the much smaller number of completed statues found inside the crater.^
The last year which the Ao went to Orongo. which is known as " Rokunga," appears to have been 1866 or 1867. The names of twelve subsequent years are given during
- Thirty statues have been erected inside the crater against some fifty-five
outside, exchisive of those around the base, which appear to have formed the approach.
