Cook, James, 1728-1779.

A voyage towards the South Pole and round the world. : Performed in His Majesty's ships the Resolution and Adventure, in the years 1772, 1773, 1774, and 1775 / written by James Cook ... In which is included, Captain Furneaux's narrative of his proceedings in the adventure during the separation of the ships. 4th ed. (London : printed for W. Strahan; and T. Cadell, 1784) v. 2.

“Monuments in Easter Island”, drawn in nature by William Hodges; engraved by W. Woollett.

Although the Dutch voyager, Roggeveen in 1722 described the Easter Islanders as worshipping the statues with fire, and prostrating themselves before the monuments at sunrise, Cook, when he surveyed the island in March 1774 did not see any such rituals.

The gigantic statues, so often mentioned, are not, in my opinion, looked upon as idols by the present inhabitants, whatever they might have been in the days of the Dutch … 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; which last in some measure depends 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 not be 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. (p. 294)

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