The Kon-Tiki raft is shown on the cover of the DVD of the documentary.
'''Kon-Tiki''' was the raft used by
Norwegian explorer and writer
Thor Heyerdahl in his
1947 expedition. It was named after the
Inca sun god,
Viracocha, for whom "Kon-Tiki" was said to be an old name. ''Kon-Tiki'' is also the name of the popular
book that Heyerdahl wrote about his adventures.
Heyerdahl believed that people from
South America could have settled
Polynesia in the south Pacific in
Pre-Columbian times. His aim in mounting the ''Kon-Tiki'' expedition was to show, by using only the materials and technologies available to them at the time, that there were no technical reasons to prevent them from having done so.
Heyerdahl and a small team went to
Peru, where they constructed a
balsa wood raft out of balsa logs and other native materials in an indigenous style as recorded in illustrations by Spanish conquistadores. This trip began on
April 28,
1947. Accompanied by five companions, Heyerdahl sailed it for 101 days over 4,300 miles across the
Pacific Ocean before smashing into the
reef at
Raroia in the
Tuamotu Islands on
August 7,
1947. The only modern equipment they had was a radio and watches.
The book ''Kon-Tiki'' was a best-seller, and a documentary
motion picture of the expedition won an
Academy Award in
1951.
The original ''Kon-Tiki'' is now on display in the Kon-Tiki Museum in
Oslo.
Crew
The ''Kon-Tiki'' was crewed by six men, all Norwegian except for Bengt Danielsson, who was from Sweden.
★ '
Thor Heyerdahl' was expedition leader.
★ 'Erik Hesselberg' was the navigator and artist. He painted the large Kon-Tiki figure on the raft's sail.
★ 'Bengt Danielsson' took on the role of steward, in charge of supplies and daily rations. Danielsson was a sociologist interested in
human migration theory. He also served as translator, as he was the only member of the crew who spoke Spanish.
★ '
Knut Haugland' was a radio expert, decorated by the British in World War II for actions in the
Norwegian heavy water sabotage that stalled Germany's plans to develop an
atomic bomb.
★ '
Torstein Raaby' was also in charge of radio transmissions. He gained radio experience while hiding behind German lines during WWII, spying on the German battleship ''
Tirpitz''. His secret radio transmissions eventually helped guide in Allied bombers to sink the ship.
★ 'Herman Watzinger' was an engineer whose area of expertise was in technical measurements. He recorded meteorological and hydrographical data while underway.
Construction
The raft in the Kon-Tiki Museum, Oslo
The main body of the raft was composed of nine
balsa tree trunks up to 13.7 metres (45 feet) long, 60 cm (2 feet) in diameter, lashed together with 3.175 cm (1¼ inch)
hemp ropes. Cross-pieces of balsa logs 5.5 m (18 feet) long and 30 cm (1 foot) in diameter were lashed across the logs at 1 m (3 feet) intervals to give lateral support.
Pine splashboards clad the bow, and lengths of pine 2.5 cm (1 inch) thick and 60 cm (2 feet) long were wedged between the balsa logs and used as
centerboards.
The main mast was made of lengths of mangrove wood lashed together to form an A-frame 8.8 m (29 feet) high. Behind the main-mast was a cabin of plaited bamboo 4.2 m (14 feet) long and 2.4 m (8 feet) wide was built about 1.21-1.51 m (4-5 feet) high, and roofed with banana leaf thatch. At the stern was a 5.8 m (19 feet) long steering oar of mangrove wood, with a blade of fir.
The main sail was 4.6 m by 5.5 m (15 by 18 feet) on a yard of bamboo stems lashed together. Photographs also show a top-sail above the main sail, and also a mizzen-sail, mounted at the stern.
The raft was partially decked in split bamboo. No metal was used in the construction.
Stores
The ''Kon-Tiki'' carried 250 litres of water in bamboo tubes. For food they took 200
coconuts,
sweet potatoes,
bottle gourds and other assorted fruit and roots. The
U.S. Army Quartermaster Corps of the
US Army provided field rations, tinned food, and survival equipment. In return, the ''Kon-Tiki'' explorers reported on the quality, and utility of the provisions. They also caught plentiful numbers of fish, particularly
flying fish, "
dolphin",
yellowfin tuna and shark.
Communications
★ Call Sign :
LI2B
★ Receiver: National NC-173
★ Transmitter: unknown
★ As an emergency backup they also carried a British Mark II
transceiver originally produced by the
SOE in 1942.
The Voyage
The ''Kon-Tiki'' left
Callao,
Peru, on the afternoon of April 28, 1947. It was initially towed 50 miles out to open water by the Fleet Tug ''Guardian Rios'' of the
Peruvian Navy. The ship then sailed roughly west carried along on the
Humboldt Current. The crew's first sight of land was the atoll of
Puka-Puka on July 30. They made brief contact with the inhabitants of
Angatau Island on August 4, but were unable to land safely. Three days later, on August 7, the raft struck a reef and was eventually beached on an uninhabited islet off
Raroia Island in the
Tuamotu group. The team had travelled a distance of around 3,770 nautical miles (c.6980 km) in 101 days, at an average speed of 1.5 knots.
Discoveries: Marine Life
The ''Kon-Tiki'' explorers discovered the legendary
snake mackerel (latin name Gempylus) and had a rare sighting of the
whale shark. Heyerdahl had two experiences with the Gempylus. The first was at night, when the snake mackerel was washed into Torstein's (one of the crew members) sleeping bag, the second was also at night, when the Gempylus tried to attack the lantern. The whale shark, huge in size, hence its name, was so big that as it swam under the raft the explorers could see its huge, flat head on one side and its tail on the other. After about an hour of the whale shark circling the raft, a crew member rammed a harpoon into its skull. The whale shark simply broke the harpoon and swam away.
Anthropology
While this was an interesting experiment that demonstrated the seaworthiness of Heyerdahl's raft, his theory of the Polynesians' origins never gained acceptance by
anthropologists.
[1] Physical and cultural evidence had long suggested that Polynesia was settled from west to east, migration having begun from the
Asian mainland, not South America. In the late
1990s,
genetic testing found that the
mitochondrial DNA of the Polynesians is more similar to people from southeast Asia than to people from South America, showing that their ancestors most likely came from Asia. It should be noted, however, that Heyerdahl claimed the race that settled Polynesia from South America was a white race that was distinct from the South Americans, and had in fact been driven from those shores. Therefore, it would be expected that the DNA of the Polynesians would be dissimilar to that of South Americans.
The Kon-Tiki adventure is often cited as a classic of
pseudoarchaeology, although its daring and inventive nature is still widely acclaimed.
Thor Heyerdahl never set out to prove that the ''current'' Polynesians were descended from South America. According to Heyerdahl, some Polynesian legends say that Polynesia was originally inhabited by two peoples, the so-called long-eared and the short-eared. In a bloody war, all the long-eared peoples were eliminated and the short-eared people assumed sole control of Polynesia. Heyerdahl asserted that these extinct people were the ones who could have settled Polynesia from the Americas, not the current, short-eared inhabitants. However one of the problems with this argument is that traditions involving long-ears and short-ears are found only at
Easter Island, and are unknown in the rest of Polynesia.
Heyerdahl further argues in his book ''
American Indians in the Pacific'' that the current inhabitants of Polynesia did indeed migrate from an Asian source, but via an alternate route. He proposes that Polynesians travelled with the wind along the North Pacific current. These migrants then arrived in British Columbia. Heyerdahl points to the contemporary tribes of British Columbia, such as the
Tlingit and
Haida, as the descendants of these migrants. Again Heyerdahl notes the cultural and physical similarities between these British Columbian tribes, Polynesians, and the Old World source. Heyerdahl notes how simple it would have been for the British Columbians to travel to
Hawaii and even onward to the greater Polynesia from their New World stepping-stone by way of wind and current patterns. Heyerdahl's claims aside, however, there is no evidence that the Tlingit, Haida or other British Columbian tribes have any special affinity with Polynesians. Linguistically, their morphologically complex languages are about as far from Austronesian and Polynesian languages as it is possible to be, and their cultures evince their undeniable links to the rest of the peoples of North America.
Anthropologist Robert C. Suggs included a chapter on "The Kon-Tiki Myth" in his book on
Polynesia. He concludes:
:"The ''Kon-Tiki'' theory is about as plausible as the tales of
Atlantis,
Mu, and "Children of the Sun." Like most such theories it makes exciting light reading, but as an example of scientific method it fares quite poorly.
[2]
The Kon-Tiki expedition attracted many comments similar to the above. Donald P. Ryan presents a retrospective overview about Heyerdahl's theories and their reception.
[3]
New data on chicken migration
In
2007, evidence was released by the
University of Auckland showing that a specific mutation in chickens native to Samoa and Tonga was seen in chicken bones found in
Chile and
dated to about 1400 AD. This provides very strong evidence that there was trade between Polynesia and South America, as Heyerdahl suggested, though the researchers suspect that the trade originated from Polynesia, not South America
[4][5].
Popular culture
★ It was parodied in an episode of
Tiny Toon Adventures called ''Kon-Ducki''. It featured
Plucky Duck as Pluck Heyerdahl,
Hamton J. Pig as his assistant Koom-bye-ah, and
Sweetie Pie. Pluck attempts to prove that he is able to, like his ancestors from the
1970s, sail on a
raft apparently filled with
ABBA 8-tracks and
Screaming Yellow Zonkers and make it to
Salinas, California.
★ In the '' episode, "
Explorers,"
Benjamin Sisko and his son go on a
solar sailing voyage on a
spacecraft based on ancient
Bajoran design to see if an old tale of a Bajoran successfully sailing to
Cardassia was possible.
★ It is the book Holly reads to Kit in their treehouse in
Terrence Malick's ''
Badlands''.
Tangaroa Expedition
On
April 28,
2006, a
Norwegian team attempted to duplicate the
Kon-Tiki voyage using a newly-built raft, the Tangaroa, named after the Māori sea-god
Tangaroa. Again based on records of ancient vessels, this raft used relatively sophisticated
square sails that allowed sailing into the wind, or
tacking.
[6] It was 16m long by 8m wide. It also included a set of modern
navigation and
communication equipment, including
solar panels,
portable computers, and
desalination equipment. The crew posted to their web site,
www.tangaroa.no. The crew of six was led by
Torgeir Higraff, and included
Olav Heyerdahl, grandson of
Thor Heyerdahl. The voyage was completed successfully in July 2006 and a documentary film is forthcoming.
See also
★
Polynesian navigation
Notes
1. Robert C. Suggs ''The Island Civilizations of Polynesia'', New York: New American Library, p.212-224.
2. Robert C. Suggs, ''The Island Civilizations of Polynesia'', New York: New American Library, p.224.
3.
4. Why did the chicken cross the sea?
5. Polynesian navigation
6. Norwegian team embarks on 'Kon-Tiki' trip Rick Vecchio
References
★ Heyerdahl, Thor (1950). ''Kon-Tiki''. Rand McNally & Company.
★ Hesselberg, Erik (1950). ''Kon-Tiki and I : illustrations with text, begun on the Pacific on board the raft "Kon-Tiki" and completed at "Solbakken" in Borre.'' Allen & Unwin
External links
★
Kon-Tiki Museum
★
National NC-173 receiver
★
Quick Facts: Comparing the Two Rafts: Kon-Tiki and Tangaroa Azerbaijan International, Vol 14:4 (Winter 2006)
★
Testing Heyerdahl's Theories about Kon-Tiki 60 Years Later: Tangaroa Pacific Voyage (Summer 2006) Azerbaijan International, Vol 14:4 (Winter 2006)
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