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Crew The Kon-Tiki was crewed by six men, all Norwegian except for Bengt Danielsson, who was from Sweden. Construction The main hull was made 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 this hull 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 a A-frame 8.8 m (29 feet) high. Behind the main-mast was a cabin of plaited bamboo 4.25 m (14 feet) long and 2.4 m (8 feet) wide was built about 1.2-1.5 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 liters of water in bamboo tubes. For food they took 200 coconuts, sweet potatoes, bottle gourds and other assorted fruit and roots. The Quarter-Masters Department of the US Army provided field rations, tinned food, and survival equipment. They also caught plentiful numbers of fish, particularly flying fish, "dolphin", yellowfin tuna and shark. Communications LI2B 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. She then sailed roughly west carried along on the Humboldt Current. Their 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. They had travelled a distance of around 3,770 nautical miles (c.6980 km) in 101 days, at an average speed of 1.5 knots. Anthropology While this was an interesting experiment that demonstrated the seaworthiness of Heyerdahl's raft, his theory of the Polynesians' origins is now widely discounted by anthropologists. 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. It should be noted that 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 Filipino natives (whom Heyerdahl asserted held cultural and physical affinities with 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 Filipinos or 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. 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. 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.• 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. Notes | ||||||||||
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