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Brooding over this bloody scene stood the unearthly stone faces. According to native legends, they were made by a tribe called "the Long-Ears," who were eventually massacred by "the Short-Ears." According to Dr. Wolff's psychological analysis, the statues were set up to protect the souls of the dead, or to protect the volcanoes (symbolizing rebirth) from the spirit of death. The statues were carved in the crater of a volcano. Several, as if just completed, lie there still. Others lie unfinished, as if their long-eared carvers had dropped their crude tools just before being killed and eaten.
How did the ancient islanders, who had no metal or even timber, manage to transport the statues over the steep rim of the crater and down the rugged mountain? Their hideous religion may have supplied the motive, but not the means.
The natives have an easy answer: the statues flew into place. Even the heaviest statues, they say, if imbued with enough mana (life force), can fly like sooty terns.
Dr. Wolff has thought about it long and earnestly (in half a dozen languages); psychological symbols clash in his fact-crammed presentation. Toward the end of the book, as if drugged with an Easter Islander's point of view, he wonders whether the statues really did fly. Maybe the volcano erupted every now & then and blew them out.
Mystery lovers can be grateful to the learned Dr. Wolff. With all his painstaking erudition, he has not solved, but has deepened the fascinating mystery of Easter Island.