Re: Amerindian navigators

[editor@macware.com (Bill Moore)]

In article <5r51jd$6hg$1@trends.ca>, yuku@mail.trends.ca (Yuri Kuchinsky) wrote:

> On Tue, 22 Jul 1997, Domingo Martinez wrote:
> 
>         ...
> 
> > 1. Have you read articles criticizing Heyerdahl? 
> 
> Yes.
> 
> > Or you take him
> > verbatim, as an act of scholarly faith and wishful thinking? 
> > 
> > 2. Do you know the difference between a "reed boat", as used in the
> > Titicaca Lake, and a "caballito de totora" ("reed pony" would be a nice
> > translation), as used in the Lambayeque coast?. "You see, Yuri," the
> > caballito de totora is mounted like a horse: it is no raft, or boat, or
> > anything like that, being its use closer to that of a Hawaiian surfing
> > board before it reached LA ("There you have it: contact between Hawaii
> > and the Redondo Beach and the Andes!").  I really doubt that Heyerdahl
> > mentions "reed boats" in Lambayeque today, really. 
> 
> Wrong. According to Heyerdahl, fishermen on Peru's north coast recently
> organized
> 
> "...paddling competitions with large numbers of their regular one-man
> bundle-boats of totora reeds, and also real sailing regattas for their
> somewhat larger fishing vessels of balsa logs." (Heyerdahl et al.,
> PYRAMIDS OF TUCUME, p. 222-3.)
> 
> > 3. Did the "amazing maritime Chincha civilization" (cf. one of Yuri's
> > dozens of recent scholarly posts) use reed or balsa-wood rafts? 
> 
> AFAIK, they used both.
> 
> > If they
> > used balsa wood, wher did they get it?
> 
> How am I supposed to know? From the forest, I presume...
> 
> > "You see, Yuri,"  there are no too many balsa trees in the Peruvian
> > Coast, especially around Chincha, which sits in a riverine oasis in one
> > of the driest deserts of the world, and which also is the coastal region
> > which is among the farthest away from any jungle.
> 

I've got to jump in here on this one.  After following the debate here for
a couple weeks, I happened across a copy of Kon Tiki while house sitting
in Phoenix last week.  Intrigued, I decided to read it... almost in one
sitting... it makes a great read.

Anyway to answer the question as to where the logs came from.  Hyerdahl's
12 balsa logs were lashed together temporarily and floated down a river
from their jungle highland location (Sorry, I don't recall the name of the
river) to the Pacific Coast.  From there they were transported by coastal
steamer to the Navy base where the nine largest were lashed together to
create the Kon Tiki.

By the way, all the "experts" told them the raft wouldn't hold together
more than a few weeks and that the logs would become waterlogged and
sink.  

Obviously, the "experts" were wrong.

Bill

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