Kon-Tiki: The mysterious relationship between Polynesia and Peru

Kon-Tiki was a small ship that played the leading role in one of the most daring and, at the same time, scientifically curious episodes in the history of navigation.

At dawn in late April 1947, an almost unbelievable feat crystallized and was to be completed three months later, on July 31, 1947. It was one of the most daring and, at the same time, scientifically curious episodes in the history of shipping.

On that day, a small raft, about nine meters long and four meters wide, set sail from the port of “El Callao” in Peru. It was called Kon-Tiki and was supposed to connect Peru in South America with Polynesia in faraway Oceania.

The crew consisted of six scientists of different disciplines, five of them Norwegian and one Swedish. The main motive of the expedition was not adventure – which was an adventure and to what extent – but the desire to demonstrate a historical-scientific fact.

Heyerdahl had been to Chile’s Easter Island in the Pacific two years earlier and shortly after that to several Polynesian islands in the Pacific. And there, he had discovered two coincidences that struck him: First, the stone sculptures and structures on the Polynesian islands looked very similar to the ruins of Peruvian monuments from the Inca period that he had found thousands of miles away on Easter Island.

Moreover, in Polynesia, he found men with not very dark complexions whose facial features were very similar to those of the ancient Peruvian Incas. From this, he concluded that some American Indians came to Polynesia from South America five hundred or more years ago, having been driven from their land by the Spaniards.

But how could they have traveled such a distance if there were no engines to power the ships then?

He shrewdly assumed that these men sailed on rafts – the name comes from the light and very stable balsa wood abundant in Peru – and settled in Polynesia, aided by favorable ocean currents. But this was only a thesis with which almost all scientists disagreed.

Moreover, those who knew the sea told Heyerdahl that a journey of four thousand miles in their fragile boat, with the dangers of storms, sharks, etc., could only lead to certain death.

But Heyerdahl and an expert in meteorology, another in radiotelegraphy, and another in navigation, did not want to turn back. They understood that when one nears the end, one sets out on a path. They had all found their place. They knew it was difficult, but they didn’t want another.

On April 27, 1947, they set out from Peru. They would take different routes than the usual ones. They knew that even with a lucky outcome, they would not find a ship in the three or four months the trip would take.

For the first few days, the winds were favorable. A sail gave them momentum. The biggest fear was that the logs that made up the raft – connected by a sort of vine – would not hold up.

They used neither iron nor steel in the construction of the small vessel, confirming their theory that ancient mariners – who had also used no metals – were unaware of them and had traveled the sea in the same conditions.

In his famous book, Kon-Tiki, Heyerdahl told of the vicissitudes they endured. Drinking water and food shortages, a fight against a giant octopus, a broken mast, hurricanes, and loneliness. But the crew felt it was better to live for something than to die for nothing.

They discovered birds of hitherto unknown species. And when thirst overcame them, the same rain that threatened disaster brought them salvation. They understood the immensity, the minimal value of vanity, selfishness, and ambition.

At night, looking at the stars, they discovered the true clarity, the clarity of life. And on July 31, 1947, after one hundred and four days at sea, they heard a cry: an island! They had crystallized a dream and proved a scientific truth.

That nature drove them with the winds, fed them with their fish, and quenched their thirst with the rains. It allowed them to achieve something that seemed impossible and that they made possible.

And this adventure of the Kon-Tiki, which found a happy end through the wonderful fraternization of these men with the sea, inspires the following aphorism: “The laws of nature do not need to be written”.

With information from Latina Press

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