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| THOR HEYERDAHL AND THE SOUTH AMERICA CONNECTION
At first glance Thor Heyerdahl’s theory that Easter Island was populated by visitors from South America seems interesting. He observed, for example, that some of the stonework on one Easter Island ahu is similar to that of Inca structures in Perú (smooth, interlocking stone blocks). He noted that the kneeling moai known as Tukuturi is similar to statues at Tiahuanacu in Bolivia (where stone heads are also incorporated into masonry walls). And he observed that the totora reed [1] boats made by Inca (and modern Peruvian and Bolivian) peoples are similar to flotation devices (known as pora) used by Easter Islanders for competing in the Birdman ceremony. Heyerdahl also observed, and proved, that there are prevailing western winds and currents that could (and in the case of his Kon-Tiki expedition, did) transport a large raft many thousands of miles westward from South America. He noted that the sweet potato — native to South America — was and is a staple of the Rapa Nui diet. Of course, a sweet potato, with few exceptions, is not a human being — and it’s more likely that eastern Polynesians (who were among the world’s expert mariners and navigators) reached South America and returned with the sweet potato — thus supplying the colonizers of Easter Island in the first place. (It’s also possible that the sweet potato reached Polynesia without human influence. Purseglove notes that sweet potato capsules float in water and that seeds, which have an almost impervious outer covering, germinate after emersion in sea water. Bellwood speculates that the sweet potato was introduced, perhaps in the Marquesas, more than 1500 years ago and only later gained importance as a crop that would thrive in places like Easter Island). [2] On the periphery of this argument, some have observed correctly that, both on Easter Island and in Perú, aristocracy was said to have been represented by the use of large earplugs or discs [3]. Figures with inlaid eyes made of bone and obsidian have been found in South America, and crouching birdmen images on ceramic beads from the Puna Islands are remarkably similar to tangata manu petroglyphs on Easter Island But one problem with Heyerdahl’s theories is he developed them in the absence of evidence, then sought the evidence to bolster the theory. There have been reported accounts of islanders attempting to satisfy Heyerdahl’s desire for "ancient evidence" of contact with the South American continent (in the form of pottery, for example), though this might be as much an indictment of the islanders as of Heyerdahl (who apparently never fell for any deception) [4]. While there are prevailing western winds and currents part of the year, they are just as strong eastward the rest of the year. And the strong ocean currents off the Peruvian coast actually make it virtually impossible for anything but a powered vessel to escape into the south Pacific (in the absence of motorized capabilities, rafts are caught in the Humboldt coastal currents that carry them northward to Central America rather than westward into the south Pacific; rarely emphasized by Heyerdahl is the fact that his own Kon-Tiki expedition raft had to be towed 50 nautical miles out to sea by a tug boat before beginning his long and courageous journey). Moreover, there is very little evidence to support the idea that continental South Americans ever ventured further offshore than, say, the Galapagos Islands — whereas we know the Polynesians were among the most proficient sea travelers of all time and that even so distant a place as Easter could have been within their reach. The totora reeds (nga'atu) in South America and Easter Island may well share a common ancestor (though the species on Easter Island resembles a Chilean, not Peruvian, species) — but the botanical evidence indicates the gna'atu on Easter Island have been there for 30,000 years — long before the island was ever inhabited. One of the oft-overlooked problems with the theory of a South American origin for Easter Islanders is the absence of any other South American cultural iconography, language, or technology (with the one exception of some of the stonework on the one ahu — which is similar to its Incan counterpart in appearance only; the Inca used solid blocks of stone, whereas the ahu in question on Easter Island is back-filled with rubble) [5]. Indeed, the South Americans were prolific and creative makers of all kinds of pottery (to name one element) — yet not a single piece of pottery, nor any reference to pottery, has ever been discovered on Easter Island [6]. As for elongated ear lobes and the insertion of ear spools, this is a custom known to be practiced around the world but, most importantly, it's also prominent in the Marquesas and on Mangareva — meaning there is sufficient, compelling evidence for its direct association with Polynesia rather than with other areas of the planet. Again, to be fair, there have been rocker jaws [7] found in burials in southern Chile similar to those found on Easter Island — and the South American Mapuche word "toki" can mean either a warrior or an axe head (the latter being the meaning on Easter Island). Also, the Mapuche word "minga" (which represents social reciprocity) is comparable in meaning and very similar in spelling to the Quechua "minḱa" as well as the Rapa Nui umanga. At the same time, Maori words, like "mana", "tapu", and "umu" are identical in spelling and meaning to their counterparts on Easter Island — and "waka" (canoe) is quite similar to vaka on Easter Island (where it means the same thing). Likewise with "tohunga" among the Maori (which means expert, priest, or wizard) and tahonga on Easter Island (a ritual object worn by the king). On the Tuamotus Islands the word "rongo" means "great deeds of a hero as re-told by a specialist" — and this easily conjures up the Easter Island rongorongo tablets, which were used for ritual recitations or chants. Makemake-like images have been found elsewhere in Polynesia. And string figures similar to the Rapa Nui kai-kai have been found on the Gilbert and Marquesas Islands. Heyerdahl stresses the physical and linguistic role of the sweet potato on Easter Island and South America (kumara for the former, kumar for the latter), but this word is virtually identical to the word for the tuber among the Maori (kuumara), where it’s said (by A.W. Reed) to have been imported to New Zealand in the first place, and may have been the source (before or after other Polynesians may have had contact with South America) for the word and the food on Easter Island. Robert Suggs asserts that the Quechuan word in common use for the sweet potato wasn’t kumar at all but apichu (the former possibly European in origin). Robert Langdon refers to documents from the Gonzáles (Spanish) expedition and reports errors in recording, translation, and interpretation that may have disguised for centuries the presence of manioc on Easter Island (and thus, according to him, possible evidence for contact with South America). But a particularly damning observation comes from W. Wilfried Schuhmacher, who notes that it would be hard to imagine Polynesian/Peruvian contact in which the sweet potato was carried across the Pacific but not the staple of much of the whole South American continent: maize, which is much more easily stored, preserved, and transported. Patrick Kirch made a discovery on Mangaia in 1989 that reinforces the Eastern Polynesian antiquity of the sweet potato. He recovered carbonized pieces of sweet potato tubers, which were identified by archaeobotanist Jon Hather and radiocarbon dated to around 1000 ce. "These materials", Kirch went on to say, "along with slightly later carbonized tubers from New Zealand and Hawai’i, prove that the sweet potato was introduced into Eastern Polynesia in prehistory". In a subsequent publication with Jon Hather, Kirch concluded that "The most likely transferrors would have been the seafaring Polynesians, on a voyage of exploration to South America and return". Even the presence of a South American plant in Polynesia is not necessarily proof of South American human contact with Polynesia; numerous articles have been published on seed dispersal throughout the Pacific and it is widely acknowledged that various natural systems have enabled the distribution of plants around the world, from seeds being carried in the digestive tracts of birds and tucked into feathers or even wedged into tiny crevices in their toes to coconuts floating for thousands of miles and germinating on sandy beaches where they eventually find themselves. (Charles Darwin washed the seeds of 52 species of plants from the feet of water birds.) Ultimately, the most definitive evidence against Heyerdahl’s theory is the DNA phenotyping technology available to us today, which makes it abundantly clear that the modern-day Easter Islander is a descendant of eastern Polynesian people. According to a 1994 article in Nature, mitochondrial DNA sequences extracted by biochemist Erika Hagelberg from Easter Island skeletons proved identical to DNA from living Polynesians and ancient Polynesian skeletons. Hagelberg thinks these data put the notion of a South American connection to rest. What’s more, the shape and configuration of the skull, the development of certain language characteristics, and the similarity in both the statue-building cult (eastern Polynesians carved similar statues, just not on such a grand scale) and in ancestor worship makes it clear virtually beyond the shadow of a doubt that Easter Island was populated by people from eastern Polynesia. On the Marquesas Islands, for example, statutes dominate terraces of the sanctuaries and represent famous chiefs or priests whose spirits had entered the ranks of the islanders’ deities. And Suggs reports ellipsoid-to-oval pole and thatch houses are widespread in Polynesia that are remarkably similar to boat-shaped houses used on the island (hare paenga). Since this kind of evidence is indeed most destructive for Heyerdahl’s theories, he chose to not only disregard the data but invent claims that had no foundation in the scientific literature. For example, he re-interpreted the archaeo-osteological work of researcher George Gill by saying that "Gill found traits that deviated from the Polynesian norm; many of the crania, for example, had ‘rocking-chair’ jawbones, an un-Polynesian feature known from the aboriginal population of America" (Easter Island: The Mystery Solved). Except that what Gill found is just the opposite: The rocker jaw is in fact the most characteristically Polynesian skeletal trait known to physical anthropology (three-quarters of Polynesian mandibles show these characteristics). If Heyerdahl wasn’t so busy trying to twist facts to suit his theories, he would have noticed that within Gill’s research data is one small shred of evidence that could have supported the American origin theory — namely the fact that of all the Polynesian regions in question (Marquesas, Hawaíi, New Zealand, Tonga, and Easter Island), Easter Island has the lowest percentage of rocker jaw traits. So Heyerdahl could have emphasized that but instead chose to twist Gill’s data out of proportion. According to Vince Stefan, Charles Clow, and George Gill, some data lend support to the theory that the founding members of Rapa Nui possibly originated in the Gambier Islands — which is further reinforced in some ways by significant differences between the Marquesas Islands and Rapa Nui data sets; indeed, the evidence of this study does not support the theory that the founding members of Rapa Nui originated in the Marquesas Islands. And there is further anthropological support for a Mangarevan origin. More recently, Gill and others have proposed a radically different model of Rapa Nui settlement. Their theory proposes that a boatload of eastern Polynesians, probably Marquesas Islanders, voyaged to Central America or northern South America. Realizing that they had encountered an inhabited land, they utilized uninhabited off-shore islands as temporary home bases. After some years of moving southward along the coast, these seafarers regrouped to attempt a return voyage to their Polynesian homeland. However, during their travels they lost some aspects of their Polynesian culture, as well as the domestic pig and dog. Yet, they acquired new gods, new goods, and new stone-carving skills. On their attempted return, they instead encountered the strong Humboldt Current, reached Rapa Nui, and made no further attempt to leave. Though this theory does not support the view of a South America source of the Polynesians, it does suggest some South American influence on the ancestral Rapanui. Researcher Ben Finney, however, states that the Marquesas-to-South America portion of the voyage "seems highly implausible". In any case, Heyerdahl raised public consciousness about Easter Island, conducted numerous experiments in carving, moving, and erecting moai, and garnered financial and other support to repair and reconstruct numerous moai and ahu. So whatever shortcomings he had as an archaeologist were more than made up for in his preservation of the historic and cultural heritage of Rapa Nui. Thor Heyerdahl died April 18, 2002. — Shawn McLaughlin NOTES [1] Scirpus riparius or Scirpus californicus. Strictly speaking, the word "totora" is neither Rapanui nor Polynesia; it is a modern introduction; nga'atu is a more appropriate term. [return to text] [2] Purseglove goes on to observe: "Had man taken the sweet potato from Peru to Easter Island or Polynesia, I would have expected him to have taken clonal vegetative material for propagation, either cuttings, tubers, or plants, which would have resulted in much more uniform and less distinct clones than those at present found in the Pacific. I suggest, therefore, that the sweet potato was distributed by sea currents unaided by man and taken into cultivation in two places, which is not unlikely in areas where root crops were important foods". [return to text] [3] "Orejones" means "big ears" in Spanish, and was used to describe Inca royalty; Hanau Eepe was once said to mean "long ears" and referred to the ruling class on Easter Island (vs. the Hanau Momoko or "short ears"). Note, however, that although earplugs or discs were undeniably worn by both the Inca and the early Easter Islanders (some of the moai were carved with elongated earlobes), the linguistic interpretation of Hanau Eepe and Hanau Momoko favors instead "corpulent" and "thin", respectively — representing, perhaps, class distinctions for other reasons. [return to text] [4] And this is a phenomena pre-dating Heyerdahl’s major expedition by at least 20 years: Upon Alfred Métraux’s arrival in July of 1934, islander Pedro Atan asked the reason for his visit; Métraux explained that he and his team were searching for archaeological objects. Atan "had no difficulty in understanding what we meant, and declared in a detached tone: ‘There aren’t many ancient objects about nowadays and it will take time to find them. But don’t worry, we’ll make as many as you want. We’ll give you whatever you ask for’". [return to text] [5] Perhaps more problematical is the fact that the earliest available date for Peruvian polygonal block masonry is after 1440 ce, while that for the comparable stonework on Easter Island is c. 1200 ce. [return to text] [6] Despite the fact that clay suitable for making pottery has been found in caves throughout the island (there is even a Rapanui term for clay: rare rare). [return to text] [7] The term "rocker jaw" refers to a characteristic of the mandible of a skull when placed on a level surface and given a slight nudge: It rocks back and forth. [return to text] |
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All text on this page © 2005 by Shawn McLaughlin |
SELECTED REFERENCES
Bahn, Paul & John Flenley Easter Island Earth Island - Thames & Hudson, 1992
Bellwood, Peter Man’s Conquest of the Pacific - Oxford University Press, 1979
Chapman, Patrick M. & George W. Gill "Easter Islander Origins: Non-metric Cranial Trait Comparison Between Easter Island and Peru" - Rapa Nui Journal (June 1997), pp.58-63.
Finney, Ben "Polynesian-South America Round Trip Canoe Voyages" - Rapa Nui Journal (June 1994), pp.33-35.
Flenley, John & Paul Bahn Enigmas of Easter Island - Oxford University Press, 2002
Gill, George W. "Basic Skeletal Morphology of Easter Island and East Polynesia with Paleoindian Parallels and Contrasts" - Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Easter Island and the Pacific (August 2000) "Craniometric Evaluation of Prehistoric Easter Island Populations" (abstract) - paper presented at the 52nd annual meeting, American Association of Physical Anthropologists - Indianapolis (1983) "Easter Island Rocker Jaws"- Rapa Nui Journal (Vol.4, No.2), p.21
Hagelberg, Erika "Genetics in the Study of Human History: Problems and Opportunities" - Kroon lecture monograph, Stichting Nederlands Museum, Amsterdam (2000) "Ancient DNA Studies" - Evolutionary Anthropology Vol. 2, No. 6 (1993/94), pp.199-207 "Genetic Affinities of the Principal Human Lineages in the Pacific" - Terra Australis 17:167-176 (1992) "Ancient Bone DNA Amplified" - Nature 342:485 (1989) Hagelberg, Erika; M. Kayser; M. Nagy; L. Roewer; et al. "Molecular Genetic Evidence for the Human Settlement of the Pacific: Analysis of Mitocondrial DNA, Y Chromosome and HLA Markers" - Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B 354:141-152 (1999)
Hagelberg, Erika; Silvia Quevedo; Daniel Turbon, & J.B. Clegg "DNA from Ancient Easter Islanders"- Nature 369:25-26 (May 1994)
Hather, Jon & Patrick V. Kirch "Prehistoric Sweet Potato (Ipomoea batatas) from Mangaia Island, Central Polynesia" - Antiquity 65:887-893 (1991)
Heyerdahl, Thor Kon-Tiki - Pocket Books, 1950. Easter Island: The Mystery Solved - Random House, 1989.
Kirch, Patrick V. On the Road of the Winds - University of California Press, 2000
Langdon, Robert "Manioc, a Long Concealed Key to the Enigma of Easter Island" - Geographical Journal 154:324-366 (1988).
Métraux, Alfred Easter Island: A Stone-Age Civilization of the Pacific - Oxford University Press, 1957 Ethnology of Easter Island - Bernice P. Bishop Museum Bulletin 160, 1940.
Purseglove, J.W. Tropical Crops - John Wiley & Sons, 1968 "Spread of Tropical Crops" in The Genetics of Colonizing Species (H.G. Baker, ed.) - Academic Press, 1965
Reed, A.W. & Roger Hart Maori Myth & Legend - Reed Books, 1983.
Schuhmacher, W.W. "On the Linguistic Aspects of Thor Heyerdahl’s Theory: The So-called Non-Polynesian Number Names from Easter Island" - Anthropos 71:806-847 (1976).
Suggs, Robert Island Civilizations of Polynesia - Mentor, 1960. |
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