Sidestep: Polynesians in California?

There appears to be a growing body of evidence to suggest that there were exchanges between Polynesian seafarers and native peoples in the Americas. From c. 300 to c. 1450 CE, the Polynesians traversed the Pacific Ocean, settling remote island chains like those of present-day Hawaii, New Zealand, and Easter Island. Could they have also made it to the New World?

The Chumash had the most highly developed coastal technologies in North America. The islands that they inhabited have a remarkably pristine and abundant archaeological record. The Chumash, and their neighbors to the south–the Gabrielino of the Tongva ethnic group, were the only North American natives to build seagoing-plank canoes. Building a plank-sewn boat requires a significant amount of skill and specialized engineering. They are usually only found in Polynesia and one was found in NZ at the Anaweka Estuary.

The Anaweka Waka from Westland NZ. Of the same type

Contacts was unlikely to be sustained, but there is the likelihood of two distinct contact events: one around c.700 CE that resulted in conveyance of sewn-plank boat technology and the composite harpoon, and a second event around c.1300 CE that resulted in diffusion of the compound bone hook, grooved and barbed bone fishhooks, and grooved and barbed shell fishhooks. The earlier event may have originated from central Polynesia, while the second was definately from Hawaii.

There is strong material evidence to support the premise that the Polynesians also visited South America; namely, that of sweet potato diffusion across the Pacific Ocean to Polynesia, Micronesia, and Melanesia. Much has also been made about alleged “Polynesian” chicken bones found at El Arenal, in Arauco Province, Chile. Chile is the only other place in the New World where canoes were made by plank-sewing. The date of c. 1300 CE that we assign to the later contact event in southern California is very similar to the time when chickens were likely introduced into Chile from Polynesia. This date falls well within the era of greatest eastern Polynesian long-distance seafaring (documented by the chemistry of stone adzes) that ended around c. 1450 CE.

Language is also a clue. Polynesian language began as “proto-Central Eastern Polynesian,”. Hawaiian was one of the languages which developed out of proto-CEP (others include Tahitian and Maori). The following additional words, which are phonologically anomalous in their languages, are believed to be borrowed from Central Eastern Polynesian (CEP):

1. Ti’at, the Gabrielino/Tongva word for ‘sewn-plank canoe,’ is the word meaning ‘to sew’ in CEP.

2. Taraina, tarainxa, the Gabrielino/Tongva word for ‘any boat’ is very similar to the word ‘talai’ meaning ‘to hew or adze wood’ in CEP.

3. The Santa Cruz Island Chumash word, ‘kalui,’ a word for composite bone harpoon, seems to be derived from a combination of ‘tala,’ meaning ‘sharp-pointed object, spine, or prong’ in Polynesian, and ‘hui,’ meaning ‘bone.’

One point of further clarification: Chumash is not an “isolated Native American language.” It is surrounded on three sides by other indigenous languages, and the ocean (and Polynesians) are on the fourth side. It is a “language isolate,” a technical term meaning that the Chumashan family has no known or well-established close relatives among other languages; in California, it is a true language isolate as it is not related to any other language or language family in the state. If any related languages are found, they will be much further away, probably somewhere along the west coasts of North and South America. But so far, it is still considered an “isolate” not “isolated.”

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Taking into consideration their sailing and navigation abilities, it is likely many areas were reached by Polynesians that were not settled or they briefly existed on and yet show no archeological evidence of that arrival. This is the same for any Northern Hemisphere ships reaching NZ before Cook. After all the only way we know Cook arrived here in NZ was because he made it home again! Think about that one!

So if we only know certain people reached certain parts of the world because they arrived home to tell the tale, and therefore others could have reached parts of the world and stayed for varying reasons leaving so little evidence and when an item is found it is interpreted as belonging to something else because it couldn't possibly be anything else!