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45: Kon-Tiki



We all seem to be interested in the origins of the first ones in New Zealand, those that Maori said were here before them (until massive treaty settlements caused the old stories to be hidden or changed). Most of us have heard about the Kon-Tiki expedition and all the subsequent spin off expeditions - some of which failed. It all started back in 1947 with a Norwegian called Thor Heyerdahl. Thor believed that Polynesians were connected to Easter Island and that Easter islanders came from Peru. Everything from East to West as an old tribal elder had once told him. The old people knew, academics debate. I'll go with the old people, not the arrogant ones who think they are intelligent based on a being told what to learn by those told what to learn by those who told them what to learn. If you cannot challenge your own knowledge or beliefs, (that does not mean change - it means to challenge first because that challenge may or may not require change) and that includes us, you are very closed in your mind, and even more so in your spirit (the very essence of you). Ok, how did we get on to this...?

Now - at that time even the Geographical Society rubbished Thor's ideas as preposterous. So with his own money and a few friends he set out to prove his theories correct. Finding support among a few who read of his plans he built a raft by traditional means and drifted off into the sunset. The story is told in a movie and I encourage you to watch it here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUfacsIIUnE ( I cannot find a free version yet). Or this foreign language version once you’ve seen the trailer elsewhere on Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nn8vP6m2DzY The real story did not have them drift as far north as the movie but the principles are all there.

“Everything comes for the east, the wind, the currents, the sun…”

As told by the tribal elder, Thor Heyerdahl believed that the original inhabitants of Easter Island were the migrants from Peru. "Everything comes from the east". He argued that the monumental statues known as moai resembled sculptures more typical of pre-Columbian Peru than any Polynesian designs. He believed that the Easter Island myth of a power struggle between two peoples called the Hanau epe and Hanau momoko was a memory of conflicts between the original inhabitants of the island and a later wave of Native Americans from the Northwest coast, eventually leading to the annihilation of the Hanau epe and the destruction of the island's culture and once-prosperous economy.

Keeping in mind that the theory does not suggest that all Polynesians are of Peruvian decent, only that some of the very first were, later overtaken by those coming down from the northwest abnd Asia. Most historians consider that the Polynesians that came down from the west were the original inhabitants and that the story of the Hanau epe is either pure myth, or a memory of internal tribal or class conflicts. In fact all stories are true. Polynesia is a subtle mix and many cultures from many directions of origin.


In 2011 Professor Erik Thorsby of the University of Oslo presented DNA evidence to the Royal Society which whilst agreeing with the west origin also identified a distinctive but smaller genetic contribution from South America. This result was questioned in 2012 because of the possibility of contamination by South Americans after European contact with the islands. In 2014 further work by a team including Anna-Sapfo Malaspinas (from the Natural History Museum of Denmark) analysed the genomes of 27 native Rapa Nuipeople and found that their DNA was on average 76 per cent Polynesian, eight per cent Native American and 16 per cent European. Analysis showed that: "although the European lineage could be explained by contact with white Europeans after the island was “discovered” in 1722 by Dutch sailors, the South American component was much older, dating to between about 1280 and 1495, soon after the island was first colonised by Polynesians in around 1200.

Here is a photo showing a Peruvian bead (L) and a rock carving on Easter Island (R) [click to enlarge]


So how did they get there? The ocean and the wind. It is hypothesized that the unusual eastward winds and currents associated with El Niño have allowed some species of plants, fish and birds to colonize the islands of the central Pacific, whereas if there were only the westward trades winds this could not have happened. I have even read that it may have been only because of these anomalous El Niño winds that the Polynesians were able to reach as far east as the islands around Tahiti. During the normal trade wind regime the westward winds would have made such voyages much more difficult. Also, in El Niño conditions Polynesians could undertake exploratory voyages to the east with the knowledge that the winds would change in a few months, guaranteeing them a ride back home.


Let's examine the plant evidence. In particular, the sweet potato that came from South America and that it did indeed follow the Kon-Tiki courses. What you are looking for is the direction of the Kumara in red.


POTATO MAP: The map shows the three spread lines for sweet potato: Kumara line, ca. 1100, Camotes line (Spanish ships) and Batata line (Portuguese ships) in the early 1500s.

Here are a number of maps showing wind and sea currents and in some cases, specific ones such as the El Nino effect of being able to return home to Rapanui from Tahiti. When you study them the idea makes sense fro multi directional travel according to seasons..and they understood the seasons even better than we do know. But even then, it was only a theory until Kon-Tiki actually proved it possible. Up until then Thor could have said that 'absence of evidence is not evidence of absence', but he went ahead anyway and risked his life to prove something to us all. And still, archaeologists and academics say little about it because what they are taught to say, is more important than what evidence provides. This alone is worrying considering our task and it makes me wonder if they can all be as ignorant and biased even with our eventual evidence. The answer is absolutely they can. The solution is the internet and social media as everyone worldwide can see all of our evidence in a single day if we so wished it. Anyway, back to the Kon-Tiki.

History of recorded drift voyages:

The Rev. Willam Gill mentions the case of sixty natives who, in 1862, drifted from Fakaofo to Samoa, a distance of three hundred miles. The Rev. Mr. Gill was one of the early missionaries at the Cook Group, and has put on record much native lore of that region.


In 1696 a party of twenty-nine natives landed at Samal whose craft had been drifting for seventy days before easterly winds. This drift was from the Caroline Islands to the Philippine Group. These folk had supported life by means of rain-water and fish caught in a funnel- shaped net.


In Callander's Voyages is given an account of the arrival at Guam, in the Ladrones, of two drift canoes in the year 1721. These vessels contained thirty men, women, and children, who had suffered much from hunger and thirst during a twenty-days drift. These craft are said to have drifted from Farroilep, or Faraulep (Gardner Island), of the Caroline Group.


The " Bounty " seems to have been the first European vessel seen by the Rarotongans, but prior to that time they had heard of them. Soon after Cook's visit to Tahiti a woman of that isle reached Rarotonga in some unexplained manner, and told of the wonders of the strange visitors, their vessels, and belongings. Some time after this occurrence a party of Tahitians drifted to Rarotonga, bringing further information concerning the amazing white strangers who sailed the broad seas in huge single canoes without outriggers, and which, marvellous to relate, did not capsize.


In 1817 Kotzebue found a native of Ulea, one of the Caroline Isles, on an island in the Radack Chain, to which, with three companions, he had drifted in a canoe a distance of fifteen hundred miles due east.


Cook, in the account of his third voyage, speaks of finding castaways from Tahiti on Atiu, in the Cook Group. Some years previous to that time about twenty natives had left Tahiti to go to Raiatea Isle, but their canoe was caught in a storm and carried westward. Having so drifted for many days, provisions became exhausted, and one by one the ocean waifs perished until only four survived. When near Atiu the canoe capsized, the four natives clinging to it until rescued by the inhabitants of that isle. This drift occurred prior to Wallis's visit to Tahiti in 1767, of which the castaways knew nothing. Cook saw three of these men (one having died), and obtained their story from Omai, his Tahitian interpreter. He remarks thereon: " The application of the above narrative is obvious. It will serve to explain, better than a thousand conjectures of speculative reasoners, how the detached parts of the earth, and in particular how the islands of the South Seas, may have been first peopled, especially those that lie remote from any inhabited continent or from each other."


While at the Friendly Islands Cook heard of the Fiji Group, and saw some of the natives thereof, who had come over in a canoe.


Missionary Williams states that he drifted twelve hundred miles in his boat, from Rarotonga to Tongatapu, through the influence of the trade-winds, and on another occasion from Tahiti to Aitutaki. He also states that one of his boats that left Tahiti for Raiatea was driven about the ocean for six weeks, when it made Atiu, in the Cook Group.


When at Vanikoro, in the Santa Cruz Group, Dillon learned that, about the time of the wreck of the ships of La Perouse, a canoe from Tongatapu, with about fifty men on board, after a long drift, made Combermere Island. Here most of the crew were slain, the fifteen survivors putting to sea again in their craft. In this drift of about fifteen hundred miles this party of Polynesians entered far into the Melanesian area; and such an occurrence may tend to explain the isolated colonies of Polynesians found in both Melanesia and Micronesia.


Dillon also mentions the case of a canoe, containing four men, that, about the year 1800, drifted from Rotuma to Tikopia, about five hundred miles - another invasion of Melanesia, though the latter isle is inhabited by a Polynesian people. This writer also states that the natives of Rotuma, an adventurous folk, are not infrequently so carried to Tikopia, the Fiji Isles, and the Navigators, lying to the west, south, and east of their own island. Early in the last century these Rotuma men were much in demand as sailors on European vessels.


At Manua, in the Samoan Group, Williams found, in 1832, a native of one of the Austral Isles, which lie south of the Society Group. Having left Tubuai with others to return to an adjacent isle, the party was driven to sea, and drifted about for some three months, during which time about twenty of them perished.



The Migration canoes:


The great canoes, Tainui included, sailed from Hawaiiki so we are told in oral tradition. I always wondered how many individuals could fit safely aboard a double hulled canoe for a journey consisting of over 2200 nautical miles. Logic suggests that that number could only be about twenty. This is important as we will cover in the story about the Tainui in days to come.



Below is a photo of a Polynesian canoe portion found in the South Ilsand and carbon dated to about 1400AD. This was not a 'migration' canoe built for the journey to Aotearoa, this was a Polynesian canoe from Polynesia built for cruising the oceans. The turtle proves it. 'Maori' arrived in ordinary ocean craft, not specially built migration canoes, that is just a fanciful notion. They used what they already had. but in making a purposeful journey south (some would have visited but deciding to stay) they would have named it something new to reflect the intention of permanent relocation. You can read more on this canoe here -








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