Section 2 Oceanica
The term “Oceanica” is used here without geographic precision, to include several islands not mentioned in other sections of the present work, in different parts of the globe, where specially interesting petroglyphs have been found and made known in publications. Although more such localities are known than are now mentioned, the pictographs from them are not of sufficient importance to justify description or illustration, but it may be remarked that they show the universality of the pictographic practice.
New Zealand
Dr. Julius von Haast (a) published notes, condensed as follows, descriptive of the illustration produced here as Fig. 133:
The most remarkable petroglyphs found in New Zealand are situated about 1 mile on the western side of the Weka Pass road in a rock shelter, which is washed out of a vertical wall of rock lining a small valley for about 300 feet on its right or southern side. The whole length of the rock below the shelter has been used for painting, and it is evident that some order has been followed in the arrangement of the subjects and figures. The paint consists of kokowai (red oxide of iron), of which the present aborigines of New Zealand make still extensive use, and of some fatty substance, such as fish oil, or perhaps some oily bird fat. It has been well fixed upon the somewhat porous rock and no amount of rubbing will get it off.
Some of the principal objects evidently belong to the animal kingdom, and represent animals which either do not occur in New Zealand or are only of a mythical or fabulous character. The paintings occur over a face of about 65 feet, and the upper end of some reaches 8 feet above the floor, the average height, however, being 4 to 5 feet. They are all of considerable size, most of them measuring several feet, and one of them even having a length of 15 feet.
Beginning at the eastern end in the left-hand corner is the representation a of what might be taken for a sperm whale with its mouth wide open diving downward. This figure is 3 feet long. Five feet from it is another figure c, which might also represent a whale or some fabulous two-headed marine monster. This painting is 3 feet 4 inches long. Below it, a little to the right in d, we have the representation of a large snake possessing a swollen head and a long protruding tongue. This figure is nearly 3 feet long, and shows numerous windings.
It is difficult to conceive how the natives in a country without snakes could not only have traditions about them but actually be able to picture them, unless they had received amongst them immigrants from tropical countries who had landed on the coasts of New Zealand.
Between the two fishes or whales is b, which might represent a fishhook, and below the snake d a sword e with a curved blade.
Advancing toward the right is a group which is of special interest, the figure i, which is nearly a foot long, having all the appearance of a long-necked bird carrying the head as the cassowary and emu do, and as the moa has done. If this design should represent the moa, I might suggest that it was either a conventional way of drawing that bird or that it was already extinct when this representation was painted according to tradition; in which latter case k might represent the taniwha or gigantic fabulous lizard which is said to have watched the moa. h is doubtless a quadruped, probably a dog, which was a contemporary of the moa and was used also as food by the moa hunters. j is evidently a weapon, probably an adz or tomahawk, and might, being close to the supposed bird, indicate the manner in which the latter was killed during the chase. The post, with the two branches near the top l, finds a counterpart in the remnant of a similar figure g between the figures c and i. They might represent some of the means by which the moa was caught or indicate that it existed in open country between the forest. m, under which the rock in the central portion has scaled off, is like f, one of the designs which resemble ancient oriental writing.
Approaching the middle portion of the wall we find here a well-shaped group of paintings, the center of which n has all the appearance of a hat ornamented on the crown. The rim of this broad-brimmed relic measures 2 feet across. The expert of ancient customs and habits of the Malayan and South Indian countries might perhaps be able to throw some light upon this and the surrounding figures, o to r.
From q, which is altogether 3 feet high, evidently issues fire or smoke; it therefore might represent a tree on fire, a lamp or an altar with incense offering. * * * The figure o is particularly well painted, and the outlines are clearly defined, but I can make no suggestion as to its meaning. In s we have, doubtless, the picture of a human being who is running away from q, the object from the top of which issues fire or smoke. I am strengthened in my conviction that it is meant for a man by observing a similar figure running away from the monster aa. p, which has been placed below that group, might be compared to a pair of spectacles, but is probably a letter or an imitation of such a sign.
A little more to the right a figure 6 feet long is very prominent. It is probably the representation of a right whale in the act of spouting. Above it, in v, the figure of a mantis is easily recognizable, whilst u and the characters to the right below the supposed right whale again resemble cyphers or letters. w and y, although in many respects different, belong doubtless to the same group, and represent large lizards or crocodiles. * * * w is 4 feet long; it is unfortunately deficient in its lower portion, but it is still sufficiently preserved to show that besides four legs it possesses two other lower appendages, of which one is forked and the other has the appearance of a trident. I wish also to draw attention to the unusual form of the head. y is a similar animal 3 feet long, but it has eight legs, and head and tail are well defined. The head is well rounded off, and both animals represent, without doubt, some fabulous animal, such as the taniwha, which is generally described as a huge crocodile, of which the ancient legends give so many accounts.
aa, a huge snake-like animal 15 feet long, is probably a representation of the tuna tuoro, a mythical monster. It is evident that the tuna tuoro is in the act of swallowing a man, who tries to save himself by running away from it.
Kei Islands
Mr. A. Langen (a) made a report on the Kei islands and their Ghost grottoes, with a plate now reproduced as Fig. 134. He says:
The group of the small Kei islands, more correctly Arue islands [southwest from New Guinea], is a sea bottom raised by volcanic forces and covered with corals and shells. The corals appear but at a few points. They are in the main covered with a layer of shells cemented together, whose cement is so hard and firm that it offers resistance to the influence of time even after the shell has been weathered away.
On the whole, all the figures in similar genre are represented in thousands of specimens. [They may be divided into three series, the first including letters a to k; the second, letters l to t; the third, letters u to cc.] Many are effaced and unrecognizable, only letter k, series 1; letters n, o, s, t, series 2; and letters cc, series 3, stand isolated and seem to have a peculiar meaning. The popular legend ascribes the greatest age to the characters of series 1 and series 2, and it is said that the signs record a terrible fight in which the islanders lost many dead, but yet remained victors. It is stated that the signs were produced by the ghosts of the fallen. The signs of series 3 are said to be the work of a woman named Tewaheru, who was able to converse with ghosts as well as with the living. But, when on one occasion she helped a living man to recover his dead wife by betraying to him the secret of making the spirit return to the body, she is said to have been destroyed by the ghosts and changed into a blackbird, whose call even at this day indicates death. Since that time no medium is said to exist between the living and the dead, nor do any new signs appear on the rock.
Investigation in place showed me that the color of series 3 consists of ocher made up with water. The very oldest drawings seem to have been made with water color, as the color has nowhere penetrated into the rock. Most of the figures are painted on overhanging rocks in such a way as to be protected as much as possible against wind and weather; whether they bear any relation to the signs on the rocks of Papua, and what that relation may be, I am not yet able to judge.
It may safely be assumed that the caves as abodes of spirits were sacred, but did not serve as places of burial. The lead rings and pieces of copper gongs found in small number before some of the caves seem to be derived from sacrifices offered to the spirits. At the present day no more sacrifices are offered there, and the islanders knew nothing of the existence of these things.
Easter Island
In this island carved human figures of colossal size have been frequently noticed in various publications, with and without illustrations, but apart from those statues ancient stone houses remain in which have been found large stone slabs bearing painted figures. Paymaster William J. Thompson, U. S. Navy (a) says of the Orongo houses, that the “smooth slabs lining the walls and ceilings were ornamented with mythological figures and rude designs painted in white, red, and black pigments.” The figures partake of the form of fish and bird-like animals, the exaggerated outlines clearly indicating mythologic beings, the type of which does not exist in nature. Fig. 135 is presented here, extracted by permission from the work above cited, and it may be of interest to know that nearly all, if not all, of the original specimens are now deposited in the U. S. National Museum.
While the curious carvings on the wooden tablets which are discussed in the work of Paymaster Thompson are not petroglyphs, it seems proper to mention them in this connection. Fig. 136 is taken from Mittheilungen der Anthropologischen Gesellschaft, in Wien (a), and shows one of the tablets, which does not appear to be presented in this exact form in the work before mentioned.
The following remarks by Prof. de Lacouperie (b) are quoted on account of the eminence of his authority, though the subject is still under discussion:
The character of eastern India, the Vengi-Châlukya, was also carried to north Celebes islands. The people have not remained at the level required for the practical use of a phonetic writing. It is no more used as an alphabet. Curiously enough, it is employed as pictorial ornaments on the MSS. they now write in a pictographic style of the lowest scale. This I have seen on the facsimile (Bilderschriften des Ostindischen Archipels, Pl. I, 1, 11) published by Dr. A. B. Meyer, of Dresden, in his splendid album on the writings of this region.
In the Easter island, or Vaihu, some fourteen inscriptions have been found incised on wooden boards, perhaps of driftwood. The characters are peculiar. Most of them display strange shapes, in which, with a little imagination, forms of men, fishes, trees, birds, and many other things have been fancied. A curious characteristic is that the upper part of the signs are shaped somewhat like the head of the herronia or albatross. A pictorial tendency is obvious in all of these. Some persons in Europe have taken them for hieroglyphics, and have ventured to find a connection with the flora and fauna of the island. The knowledge of this writing is now lost; and it is not sure that the few priests and other men of the last generation who boasted of being able to read them could do so thoroughly. Anyhow, in 1770, some chiefs were still able to write down their names on a deed of gift when the island was taken in the name of Carlos III of Spain.
In examining carefully the characters I was struck by the forked heads of many of them, which reminded me of the forked matras of the Vengi-Châlukya inscriptions. A closer comparison with Pls. i to viii of the Elements of South Indian Paleography (A. C. Burnell, Elements of South Indian Paleography, from the fourth to the seventeenth century A. D., being An Introduction to the Study of South Indian Inscriptions and MSS., 2d edit., London and Mangalore, 1878; Pls. i, vii, viii are specially interesting for the forked matras) soon showed me that I was on the right track, and a further study of the Vaihu characters, and their analysis by comparing the small differences (vocalic notation) existing between several of them, convinced me that they are nothing else than a decayed form of the above writing of southern India returning to the hieroglyphical stage. With this clue, the inscriptions of Easter island are no more a sealed text. They can easily be read after a little training. Their language is Polynesian, and I can say that the vocabulary of the Samoan dialect has proved very useful to me for the purpose.