Kon-Tiki: Peru’s Polynesian Links

In 1947 Norwegian Thor Heyerdahl made an incredible expedition across the Pacific Ocean to prove his theory that the Polynesian isles were originally settled by South Americans. Sixty five years after Heyerdahl’s famous expedition, a film dramatizing the Norwegian’s adventures is set to be released.

Heyerdahl’s theory remains almost as controversial as Darwin’s theory of evolution, but it was not concocted out of pure whim. It appears that  ocean trade in the Pacific existed long before the Spaniards arrived. Unlike the Aztec emperor Monteczuma in Mexico, the Incas and the Rapanui of Easter Island were unfazed by the arrival of the Spaniards – in other words, Pizarro was not greeted like a god compared to his counter-part Cortes.

The Incas were called “orejones” or long ears by the Spaniards due to their stretched ear lobes, and according to Rapanui legend, the island was visited by a foreign dignitary with stretched ears. This dignitary is thought to have been the Inca Tupac Yupanqui. In Libros Peruanos, it was written by Alonso Rabi do Carmo that:

“On the return to Tawantinsuyo, Yupanqui made a stop on Easter Island where he found, to his surprise, that tortora [reeds] and camote [sweet potato] grew, with no explanation even today as to how they got there or who brought them.”

Prior to the stop-over on Easter Island, Inca Tupac Yupanqui had allegedly traveled as far as Papa New Guinea, bringing back with him dark skinned people. This story prompted the young nephew of Peru’s Spanish viceroy to re-discover the islands that Yupanqui had voyaged to – the voyage ended in failure.

Inca mythology, however, has its own story pre-dating Tupac Yupanqui’s 15th century maritime excursion. According to Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, a race of giants came to Peru by sea landing in the area of Santa Elena, Lambayeque. This is what Inca Garcilaso de la Vega had to say of the legend:

“The natives, repeating a story received from their forefathers from very remote times, say that there came from across the sea on reed rafts that were as large as big ships some men that were so big that an ordinary man of good size scarcely reached up to their knees: their members were in proportion to the size of their bodies, and it a monstrous thing to see their enormous heads and their hair hanging down about their shoulders. Their eyes were as large as small plates. They say they had no beards and that some of them were clad in the skins of animals, and others only in the dress nature gave them. There were no women with them.”

It is absolutely plausible that encounters with other sea-faring cultures had in fact existed prior to the voyages of Tupac Yupanqui and Christopher Columbus. The Chincha culture was one such Peruvian culture that had its own fleet for the purpose of maritime trade. The Incas, who had their origins in the Peruvian alto-plano greatly admired the Chinchas for their coastal dominance.

Something that is perhaps even more controversial than Heyerdahl’s theory and the legend of Tupac Yupanqui’s voyage, is another theory which suggests that New Zealand was first settled by South Americans and not the Maori. Archeological evidence, similar to Heyerdahl’s findings, suggests that New Zealand was settled 1,000 years prior to the Maori’s arrival. Could these people have come from Peru? Or were these people earlier ancestors to pre-Columbian Peruvian cultures?

In recent decades, modern technology has allowed scientists to track human migration through the analysis of mitochondrial DNA. The DNA suggests that the American ancestors came from Asia via the land bridge between Siberia and Alaska. Yet, according to the Smithsonian Institute, the most likely theory is that human migration into South American and Oceania followed a coastal route. The only questions left to ask are whether oral tradition was correct and Heyerdahl’s theory thus proven? The answer: only time and science will be sure to tell.

1950 Original documentary:

2012 Kon-Tiki movie: