Captain Cook on Easter Island
From The Life and Voyages of Captain James Cook by James Cook and Caleb George Cash, 1905.
From: 1774 C.E. To: 1774 C.E.
Location: Easter Island, Chile
Note: This article has been excerpted from a larger work in the public domain and shared here due to its historical value. It may contain outdated ideas and language that do not reflect TOTA’s opinions and beliefs.
From The Life and Voyages of Captain James Cook by James Cook and Caleb George Cash, 1905.
Easter Island
March 14th, 1774. I went ashore, accompanied by some of the gentlemen, to see what the island was likely to afford us. We landed at a sandy beach, where some hundreds of the natives were assembled, who were so impatient to see us that many of them swam off to meet the boats. Not one of them had so much as a stick or weapon of any sort in his hands. After distributing a few trinkets among them, we made signs for something to eat, on which they brought down a few potatoes, plantains, and sugar-canes, and exchanged them for nails, looking-glasses, and pieces of cloth.
We presently discovered that they were as expert thieves and as tricking in their exchanges as any people we had yet met with. It was with some difficulty that we could keep the hats on our heads, but it was hardly possible to keep anything in our pockets, not even what themselves had sold us; for they would watch every opportunity to snatch it from us, so that we sometimes bought the same thing two or three times over, and after all did not get it.
March 15th. I sent two lieutenants with a party of men, accompanied by several of the gentlemen, to examine the country. As I was not sufficiently recovered from my late illness to make one of the party, I was obliged to content myself with remaining at the landing-place among the natives. We bad at one time a pretty brisk trade with them for potatoes, which we observed they dug up out of an adjoining plantation; but this traffic, which was very advantageous to us, was soon put a stop to by the owner (as we supposed) of the plantation coming down and driving all the people out of it. By this we concluded that he had been robbed of his property, and that they were not more scrupulous of stealing from one another than from us, on whom they practised every little fraud they could think of, and generally with success.
About seven o'clock in the evening the party I had sent into the country returned, after having been over the greatest part of the island. They left the beach about nine o'clock in the morning, and took a path which led across to the S.E. side of the island, followed by a great crowd of the natives, who pressed much upon them. But they had not proceeded far before a middle-aged man, punctured from head to foot, and with his face painted with a sort of white pigment, appeared with a spear in his hand, and walked alongside of them, making signs to his countrymen to keep at a distance and not to molest our people. When he had pretty well effected this, he hoisted a piece of white cloth on his spear, placed himself in the front, and led the way with his ensign of peace, as they understood it to be.
On the east side, near the sea, they met with three platforms of stonework, or rather the ruins of them. On each had stood four large statues, but they were all fallen down from two of them, and also one from the third; all except one were broken by the fall, or in some measure defaced. The unbroken one was measured, and found to be fifteen feet in length and six feet broad over the shoulders.
Each statue had on its head a large cylindric stone of a red colour, wrought perfectly round. The one measured, which was not by far the largest, was fifty-two inches high and fifty-six in diameter. In some the upper corner of the cylinder was taken off in a sort of concave quarter-round, but in others the cylinder was entire.
They passed some huts, the owners of which met them with roasted potatoes and sugar-canes, and placing themselves ahead of the foremost of the party—for they marched in line in order to have the benefit of the path—gave one to each man as he passed by. They observed the same method in distributing the water which they brought, and were particularly careful that the foremost did not drink too much, lest none should be left for the hindmost. But at the very time these were relieving the thirsty and hungry, there were not wanting others who endeavoured to steal from them the very things which had been given them. At last, to prevent worse consequences, they were obliged to fire a load of small shot at one who was so audacious as to snatch from one of the men the bag which contained everything they carried with them. The shot hit him on the back; but he afterwards got up and walked, and what became of him they knew not, nor whether he was much wounded.
As this affair caused some delay, and drew the natives together, they presently saw the man who had hitherto led the way, and one or two more, coming running towards them; but instead of stopping when they came up, they continued to run round them, repeating, in a kind manner, a few words, until our people set forwards again. Then their old guide hoisted his flag, leading the way as before, and none ever attempted to steal from them the whole day afterwards.
Towards the eastern end of the island they met with a well whose water was perfectly fresh, being considerably above the level of the sea; but it was dirty, owing to the filthiness or cleanliness (call it which you will) of the natives, who never go to drink without washing themselves all over as soon as they have done; and if ever so many of them are together, the first leaps right into the middle of the hole, drinks, and washes himself without the least ceremony, after which another takes his place and does the same.
They observed that this side of the island was full of those gigantic statues before mentioned, some placed in groups on platforms of masonry, others single, fixed only in the earth, and that not deeply; and these latter are, in general, much larger than the others. Having measured one which had fallen down, they found it very near twenty-seven feet long and upwards of eight feet over the breast or shoulders; and yet this appeared considerably short of the size of one they saw standing, its shade, a little past two o'clock, being sufficient to shelter all the party, consisting of near thirty persons, from the rays of the sun.
In a small hollow on the highest part of the island they met with several such cylinders as are placed on the heads of the statues. Some of these appeared larger than any they had seen before; but it was then too late to stop to measure them. The gentleman from whom I had this information is of opinion that there had been a quarry here, whence these stones had formerly been dug, and that it would have been no difficult matter to roll them down the hill after they were formed. I think this a very reasonable conjecture, and have no doubt that it has been so.
The gigantic statues are not, in my opinion, looked upon as idols by the present inhabitants; at least, I saw nothing that could induce me to think so. On the contrary, I rather suppose that they are burying-places for certain tribes or families. I, as well as some others, saw a human skeleton lying in one of the platforms, just covered with stones.
Some of these platforms of masonry are thirty or forty feet long, twelve or sixteen broad, and from three to twelve in height, this last in some measure depending on the nature of the ground. For they are generally at the brink of the bank facing the sea, so that this face may be ten or twelve feet or more high, and the other may be not above three or four. They are built, or rather faced, with hewn stones of a very large size; and the workmanship is not inferior to the best plain piece of masonry we have in England. They use no sort of cement; yet the joints are exceedingly close, and the stones morticed and tenanted one into another in a very artful manner. The side walls are not vertical, but incline a little inwards, in the same manner that breast-works, &c., are built in Europe; yet had not all this care, pains, and sagacity been able to preserve these curious structures from the ravages of all-devouring Time.
The statues, or at least many of them, are erected on these platforms, which serve as foundations. They are, as near as we could judge, about half-length, ending in a sort of stump at the bottom, on which they stand. The workmanship is rude, but not bad; nor are the features of the face ill-formed, the nose and chin in particular; but the ears are long beyond proportion; and as to the bodies, there is hardly anything like a human figure about them.
I had an opportunity of examining only two or three of these statues which are near the landing-place; and they were of a gray stone, seemingly of the same sort as that with which the platforms were built. But some of the gentlemen, who travelled over the island and examined many of them, were of opinion that the stone of which they were made was different from any other they saw on the island, and had much the appearance of being-artificial. We could hardly conceive how these islanders, wholly unacquainted with any mechanical power, could raise such stupendous figures, and afterwards place the large cylindric stones before mentioned upon their heads.
The only method I can conceive is by raising the upper end by little and little, supporting it by stones as it is raised, and building about it till they got it erect; thus a sort of mount or scaffolding would be made, upon which they might roll the cylinder, and place it upon the head of the statue, and then the stones might be removed from about it. But if the stones are artificial, the statues might have been put together on the place, in their present position, and the cylinder put on by building a mount round them as above-mentioned. But let them have been made and set up by this or any other method, they must have been a work of immense time, and sufficiently show the ingenuity and perseverance of the islanders in the age in which they were built; for the present inhabitants have most certainly had no hand in them, as they do not even repair the foundations of those which are going to decay.
Besides these monuments of antiquity, which were pretty numerous, and nowhere but on or near the sea-coast, there were many little heaps of stones piled up in different places along the coast. Two or three of the uppermost stones in each pile were generally white, perhaps always so when the pile is complete. It will hardly be doubted that these piles of stones had a meaning. Probably they might mark the place where people had been buried, and serve instead of the large statues.
Cook, James, and Caleb George Cash. The Life and Voyages of Captain James Cook: Selections with Introductions and Notes by C.G. Cash. Blackie & Son, 1905.
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