The Mystery of Easter Island

Author: Katherine Routledge
Year: 1919 (facsimile edition 2005)
Source type: Field research + oral history interviews

Core Argument

Routledge conducted extensive interviews with Easter Island oral tradition keepers about moai, ahu, genealogies, and ceremonial practices. Her documentation preserves pre-collapse Easter Island knowledge system through oral testimony.

Relationship to Kelly's Work

Routledge is primary source for Kelly's Easter Island genealogical memory system thesis. The oral accounts describe moai as ancestor-indexes and ahu platforms as public memory-performance spaces. Without Routledge's interviews, the genealogical function would be less clearly documented.

Status & Limitations

[PARAPHRASED] — Text read through Kelly's citations and summaries; original oral history data is fragile (collected over 100 years ago; cultural context was already disrupted). Use with acknowledgment that interpretations are filtered through Routledge's early-20th-century anthropological lens.

Key Documentation

• Moai genealogies and ancestor names
• Ahu platform ceremonial uses
• Rongorongo tablet traditions (claimed to be genealogical/administrative records)
• Pre-collapse settlement patterns