Peru Connection

Origin Of Islands Races

Six Scientists Out on Raft to Prove Early Peru Connection

SO far as is known, a party of six young Scandinavian scientists are still adrift somewhere out in the Eastern Pacific. Led by Thor Heyerdahl, they are living on a raft which measures 45 ft. by 18 ft. (At the end of June it was re ported that they had drifted well over 3,000 miles.) They are using the Humboldt and south equatorial currents, from Ho, on the coast af Peru, to the Tuamotu Archi pelago, 4,000 miles away, in an effort to prove a theory that Polynesia was settled some 1,500 years ago by pre-Incan peoples, fair-haired and blue-eyed.

According to the theories and argu ments of Mr. Heyerdahl, North and South America were settled, in the very long ago, by low-class Asiatics —nomadic people who reached the Americas by way of Behring Strait.

Then, about the dawn of the Christian era, there was a strange flare-up of cul ture in the region of Central America, and the north-west part of South America.

The low-class aborigines, under brilliant leadership, were suddenly organised into communities which undertook great works and contributed much to the arts. The movement began in Mexico, and spread to Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia.

It was as if a ruling class of culture teachers had suddenly appeared, and taken control.

These now extinct people were said to have differed from the local inhabitants through their white or fair complexion, tall stature, beak-like noses, and long, flowing beards. They settled for extensive periods among the peoples concerned, and, as they always married among their own

kin, they formed the hierarchy and the ruling classes. They organised commun ities, built temples and cities, roads and monuments; they introduced agriculture, and they worshipped the sun. They are always said to have left in the end, just as suddenly as -they arrived.

INCA historians say that the white and bearded people had a sacred leader, called Viracocha, whose other name was Kon-Tiki, who was regarded as the earthly representative of Kon, the sun.

In the course of a long war, the pro genitors of the Incas defeated the white people, massacred them on Titicaca Island, and drove the remnants, under Kon-Tiki, down the west coast of South America, whence it is believed they fled across the sea.

Support for the theory that light

skinned people went from South America into the islands of the South-east Pacific • Polynesia) is given by the facts that the sweet potato, and the calabash, both essentially of South American origin, are found in Polynesia; that the Polynesian name for sweet potato is kumera, which is similar to the name by which it was known to the ancients of South America; and that certain words of early South American origin are found also in Polynesia—“tiki”, for instance, meaning god.

At any rate, Mr. Heyerdahl is trying to prove his theory by demonstrating that a vessel without motive power, like a raft, can get from the coast of Peru into Polynesia by drifting, and being swept along by currents and winds.

Many people have assumed that the Peru-Polynesian theory is in conflict with the arguments that the Polynesians came from South-east Asia. But that need not be so. It may be that, while the prin cipal migrations which peopled the Pacific Islands were from west to east, settlement was influenced bv a small in cursion of clever people who came from east to west.