18),[1] the beaks are very decidedly hooked at the extremity, betraying the frigate-bird prototype clearly. These figures, according to Geiseler, represent Make-make, the god of the sea-bird's egg [i.e. of the tern's egg). It is remarkable, therefore, that he should be represented with the head of a frigate-bird. This mystery is, however, partly solved if we regard these representations as derived from an older cult of the frigate-bird, whose symbolism was retained even after a new cult-bird had replaced it. A comparison of Fig. 18 with Fig. 9 in my illustrations brings out the remarkable apparent fact that Make-make, represented in this guise, is identical with Kesoko of New Georgia in the Solomon Islands!
This seems to point to a recollection retained by the immigrants into Easter Island of a former cult of the frigate-bird which was practised in a region where this bird was a familiar feature, and which was gradually given up in the new environment where this bird, though probably not unknown, was certainly not abundant. The frigate-bird does not appear to breed on Easter Island; indeed, the island offers little attraction as a nesting site to a bird which usually nests in trees. It appears probable that the older (Melanesian) cult was superseded by a new cult, of which the locally abundant sooty tern became the object. The evidence derived from comparative technology suggests very forcibly that the Melanesian area, and more particularly the Solomon Islands group, was the original home of the prototype of the frigate-bird cult which became decadent and finally obsolete after immigration into Easter Island.
V. The script engraved on wooden tablets. The most remarkable and puzzling element in the art of the Easter Islanders is undoubtedly the elaborate form of ideographic "boustrophedon" script, which has proved so insoluble
an ethnological enigma. The inscribed tablets are too well known to need general description here, and many repro-
- ↑ One only of the paired figures is represented here.
