Drawings of an Easter Island man and woman as depicted by an artist from the Captain Cook expedition.
(Garcilaso de la Vega, RC, p.55: "as well as being shaven, they had their ears pierced, as women usually do for earrrings, but they expanded the hole artifically...to a remarkable size which would be incredible to one who had seen it, for one would think it impossible for so small a quantity of flesh as the lobe of the ear to be stretched until it could take a loop the size and shape of the stopper of a jar, for the ear ornaments that they put in the loops they made in their ears were like plugs for pitchers. If the loops happened to break, they hung a quarter of a vara in length and half a finger in thickness. Because of this the Spanish called the Indians 'Big-Ears' (orejones.)
Some speculation:
http://home.earthlink.net/~rnisbet/nazcaridge3.JPG