Re: Amerindian navigators

[agdndmc@showme.missouri.edu (Domingo Martinez)]

In article <editor-2507972243000001@news.earthlink.net>, editor@macware.com (Bill Moore) wrote:
>In article <5r51jd$6hg$1@trends.ca>, yuku@mail.trends.ca (Yuri Kuchinsky)
> wrote:
>> On Tue, 22 Jul 1997, Domingo Martinez wrote:
>> > 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.

And how far is that F going, I wonder...?

>> 
>> > If they
>> > used balsa wood, wher did they get it?
>> 
>> How am I supposed to know? From the forest, I presume...

More scholarship.... huh?

>> 
>> > "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.


Now I have to ask you to post that information:  Please, tell us which one 
river in Peru comes from the "highland jungle"  to the Pacific Coast 
(especially around Chincha!).  There is not a single river in the Peruvian 
Coast (except in the Northern Tumbes area) which comes from any "highland 
jungle".   The "highland jungle"  (I would assume you are referring to the 
so-called "Ceja de Monta�a")  faces East, and all the rivers in that side go 
to the Amazon basin, to the Atlantic.  The Andean slopes facing west are 
semi-desertic, with almost no trees, and surely no jungle or anything close to 
that, and the rivers are so steep that very few can be used even for things 
like whitwater rafting (there are some very good for this, though), let alone 
floating chinks of wood..   Between most "highland" jungles ("cloud forest" is 
the common ecological name) and the Pacific Coast there's   the Andean 
Cordillera, which is the largest and  second highest mountain range in the 
world, with two or three different chains of very high mountains running 
parallel (three at the latitude of Chincha).  That very cordillera is what 
makes so difficult to use the resources of the Amazon jungle (which may. after 
all, be a blessing).

For all that, it is important to know the source of the balsa wood with a tiny 
bit more precision.

Regards,





-----
Domingo Martinez-Castilla
agdndmc@showme.missouri.edu

An archive of discussions on pre-Columbian inter-continental
diffusion can be found at:

http://www.andes.missouri.edu/personal/dmartinez/diffusion/
-----