55: The Mapuchi Toki's
While waiting for more favorable weather to finish the final push into the cave, and now my work life has settled down a bit, I'm back into research mode. I have found something I didn't expect from the lower eastern side of South American - Chile and Patagonia in particular. The people that lived there were called the Mapuche and the clubs they made are eerily similar to Polynesian and NZ clubs.
Top: The first two are Maori, then Moriori then Maori
Bottom: All from the Mapuche people of South America
But interestingly, the those among Mapuche who were regarded as the leaders of war, and in their own language, were themselves called Toki, (meaning axe bearers), and the symbol of their rank was an adze-like stone pendant called tokikura. In Maori 'toki' means an axe or club and 'kura' means chief or man of valor (also means red).
Co-incidence? I don't think so when the shapes are of the same form as well. We know those from Peru ventured to Rapanui about the 14th century but as these shapes were in usage much earlier, it could be that those from the far south ventured north during El Nino conditions and into Polynesia much earlier than first believed.
There is said to be a Maori chant used when cutting trees with toki preserved in a Mapuche tale. Other linguistic parallels between Mapuche and Polynesia are Mapuche piti and Rapanui iti (little); and Mapuche kuri and Rapanui uri (black). Another is a term for traditional cooperative work under rules of reciprocity—minga in Mapuche, umanga in Rapanui and mink’a in Quechua. On Chiloé Island in the south of the Mapuche area there is a type of potato called kumaka though the word is perhaps a Quechua borrowing. There are also similarities in fishing techniques, in the earth oven called curanto (umu in Polynesia) and in the use of a moon calendar celebrating New Year when the Pleiades rise after the winter solstice. A Polynesian type rocker-jaw skull was unearthed from a prehistoric shell midden on Mocha Island but no genetic evidence of Polynesian admixture has yet been found among Mapuche. The most celebrated Polynesian-like Mapuche artifact is the Clava Mere Okewa, a polished stone hand club shaped like a Maori wahaika. Wahaika means mouth of fish and the clubs are often decorated after the shape of some fish, for instance the hammerhead shark.
All the above are Mapuche clubs that may or may not look like Polynesian or Maori clubs. Below are some that are more akin to what we are used to looking at.
Below is a design from around 1300AD and a Waihaka from the 18th century, where the similarity of the large circular notch is noted.
Below is a large picture of the type shown above but note the etchings on the handle. They are remarkably like the pattern found on a MoriOri artifcat and also on a rock found near Matira Rd (which is now held at the Turangawaewae Marae) and is shown in this post (click the link) http://tangatawhenua16.wix.com/the-first-ones-blog#!37-An-unexpected-connection/cgla/56eaffca0cf2420cfd5e4e8f
And on the mention of MoriOri, here are a collection of Moriori clubs...
So - did South Americans venture westward into the Pacific? Well there seems to be lots of evidence for it. maybe that is where our skeletons came from. testing will reveal that. But here is one more photo of a Mapcuhe totem. You will see it has similarities to the headdress that Rapanui Moai once had.
