Re: Amerindian navigators and Eurocentrism in scholarship

[yuku@globalserve.net (Yuri Kuchinsky 17784)]

gilrood@suite224.net (Gil Rood) wrote on Wed, 17 Sep 1997 04:29:23 GMT:
> yuku@mail.trends.ca (Yuri Kuchinsky) wrote:

> >Ancient art styles of Easter Island have many strong parallels to S.
> >America. I suggest you get the book, EASTER ISLAND, and look at the
> >pictures. You may be surprised.

> Picked up the following book from my local library.
> 
> AKU-AKU The Secret of Easter Island by Thor Heyerdahl
> 
> Is this the one you are refering to.

Gil,

This is the book detailing the archaeological excavations done under his
leadership in the 1950s. 

The one by him that I've recently been reading is called EASTER ISLAND,
and is about another set of excavations he organized in the 1980s. It has
PLENTY of very good illustrations of various relevant artifacts and
artistic styles. 

The history of Easter Island is extremely complex and to some extent still
controversial. Much misunderstanding and misinformation exists in this
area. A lot of trouble occurred on the island since the first Europeans
reported on it. There were brutal civil wars, and much deliberate
destruction of historical heritage since first Europeans arrived. 

Heyerdahl diligently collected oral histories of the descendants of the
original islanders still living on the island. It turned out that some of
the traditional stories told by old islanders, disbelieved by most modern
scholars, in fact were proven correct by the archaeological excavations. 

Best regards,

Yuri.

Yuri Kuchinsky in Toronto -=O=- http://www.io.org/~yuku

It is a far, far better thing to have a firm anchor in nonsense than
to put out on the troubled seas of thought -=O=- John K. Galbraith