by Maya Lynch
Maya Lynch
The Samoan Pyramid
Journey to the Heart of a Lost Empire. Book 1.
First published by Maya Lynch in 2017
Copyright © Maya Lynch, 2017
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.
First Edition
ISBN: 978-0-473-38932-1 | 978-0-473-38933-8
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Contents
Introduction
Welcome to Samoa
Lapita
Savai'i
California Love
Noah
The History of the History
A Lead?
Christianity is Stupid
The Blue Lake
Baba
Giant at the Gates
A New Approach
Heart of a Lost City
The Raw Numbers
To the Top
High Place of the Chief
The Heyerdahl Institute
Dread
Missing
Vailima
That Last Night
About the Author
Acknowledgements
Introduction
A forgotten pyramid. An ancient curse. A real-life archaeological adventure.
Since the 1800s rumours have circulated about an ancient pyramid, built on an immense scale, hidden deep in the jungles of Samoa. An archaeological enigma called ‘Pulemelei’. Evidence perhaps of a great forgotten Pacific Empire. And yet there is no mention of the pyramid in the entire pantheon of Samoan myth. Samoan society is steeped in tradition and storytelling, steadfastly and proudly connected to its past. But the local legends are silent on the subject of the pyramid.
In 2012, while digging into the archives of ancient Samoan artefacts, I noticed something strange, an outlier in the dataset of Pacific history. This was the catalyst for an adventure that took me deep into the jungles of Samoa.
What follows is a raw and sometimes brutal first hand account of my adventures in Samoa, based on extensive research, interviews and my own experiences in Samoa. Some names have been changed. Some scenes have been created for the purpose of dramatisation.
This book is the first in a series in which I hope to dig away at some unanswered questions and faulty assumptions regarding the history of the human race and offer to the reader an honest, raw and compelling account of my journeys and discoveries. I hope you enjoy the ride as much as I have.
Maya Lynch May 2017
1
Welcome to Samoa
Faleolo International Airport, Upolu Island, Samoa. August 2012.
As I collected my luggage, I quickly became aware of a strange energy that hung in the air. At first I told myself that it was all in my head; my body reacting to the incredible heat, but as I showed my passport and passed into the arrivals hall, I couldn’t shake the sense of a dark, brooding atmosphere all around me. The air felt charged, like something was brewing. A latent intensity surrounding me. I would later come to learn that this extraordinary spirit rose from the land herself. This extraordinary spirit that thrummed through everything, this was Samoa.
In the thick heat outside of the airport terminal I dragged my suitcase, my backpack hanging from one shoulder. I managed to hail a taxi and with great relief I threw my bags into the boot and collapsed onto the back seat. The upholstery was hot to the touch. We left the airport and made dull, halting progress through patches of traffic. The driver - a thin middle aged man whose quick, darting eyes I could see reflected in his rearview mirror - didn’t seem interested in small talk. Fine by me.
We’d covered only a few hundred meters before we drove into what turned out to be the beginnings of a riot. The car slowed right down and through the window I watched the snapshot of a strange scene: a group of around twenty villagers dragging stones and old tyres into the road. Nearby, the police were waiting in riot gear, on standby for the inevitable escalation. A few meters away the tourists at Aggie Greys luxury resort were sinking cocktails at the bar. As we gathered speed again, I noticed that hanging over the road was a sign that read ‘Welcome to Samoa’. The car accelerated as I sank deeper into my seat. The crazy scene flashed by in an instant and disappeared behind me.
Arriving in Apia about an hour later, I paid the driver and went straight to the tourist office without even stopping to drop off my bags. I was looking for advice on how to get to Pulemelei, the ancient pyramid that I had read and researched so much about, the history of which had left me with so many questions that I had been drawn across the ocean to witness for myself.
Naively, I thought that I’d be able to book some kind of tour, or maybe find a guide who could take me. I couldn’t have been more wrong. After a short conversation with a friendly but firm tourism assistant, it became clear that gaining access to the ancient pyramid was going to be much more difficult than I had first imagined. There were no coach tours, or tours of any kind. I would apparently not find a guide willing to take me there, either. If I really insisted on going, I would have to find my own way to the pyramid, but I was advised against this in severe tones. The more I pushed, the more officious the response. After some insistence I did at least manage to persuade the lady to point me in the direction of the right island. I was reluctantly shown a vague area on a map. Beyond that, I was completely on my own. I took a moment to absorb all of this, lingering in front of her desk. I must’ve had a particularly dumbstruck look on my face because eventually she took pity on me and threw me another morsel of information.
‘You have to go to Savai’i,’ she said, jabbing her finger at the map again. ‘Take the ferry.’
‘Then what?’ I asked, not hoping for much of an answer.
She shrugged. ‘Get yourself on the coast road and ask someone,’ she said, looking past me to signal the end of the exchange. At the time I was grateful for the advice, but in hindsight I can see that this was a spectacularly bad idea. As I was soon to learn, one does not simply walk into Pulemelei.
I left the air conditioned tourist office and waded back out into the thick heat, surprised by the reticence I’d encountered. Close as I was, information on how to actually get to the pyramid was still so vague. It seemed almost as though the precise location of the pyramid had somehow slipped out of common knowledge? Surely not.
I crossed the road to the local market where they sold water, fresh fruit and tourist tat. My bag was getting heavy, but at least here I could stock up on the provisions I might need for the journey before heading to the hotel. I wandered through the mostly empty market place, savouring the occasional weak breeze as it drifted through the narrow causeways between the stalls. Eventually a stall selling fine carved wooden statues caught my eye. I browsed for a while, taking them in. Some of the carvings were of grotesque masks with tall foreheads. I looked towards the thick-set stall holder sat behind his counter and reading a newspaper.
‘Excuse me sir, what are these?’ I asked.
His eyes moved from his newspaper towards me. ‘Hm?’
‘These ones with the long heads?’ pointing to the ones that had piqued my interested.
‘Gods,’ he said disinterestedly, going back to his reading.
I scanned the rest of the collection on the stall. I picked up one of the carvings and held it in front of my face like a mask. ‘Hey, how do I look?’ I said.
I watched through the holes in the mask as he raised his head.
; ‘Much better,’ he said, completely deadpan. A smile slowly spread over his face and soon he was laughing - a giggle so high-pitched that it seemed strange emanating from his stocky frame. As he rocked back and forth in his chair, I imagined a tiny person living somewhere inside of him, working the controls. Grinning, I put the mask back on the stall and left.
A few hours in the cloying damp heat with the sun high overhead had been enough for me. I bought some water and some fruit and retreated to my digs, provisions in hand. After checking in, I climbed the stairs with the last of my strength, opened the door and dropped my bags on the tiled floor. I looked around the room. White-washed walls, floral curtains, strip lights. Through the thin pane of glass in the window I could see and hear the traffic on the main road. I took a breath and immediately smelled the damp, musty scent - an almost unavoidable result of the intense humidity. By this point I was beyond caring about such things. After a quick shower, I brushed my teeth and flopped onto the ever-so-slightly damp mattress and lay staring at the spinning, squeaking fan on the ceiling above me. Within just a few minutes my eyelids were drooping shut. I slept.
2
Lapita
The next morning, I awoke early with the pale light creeping into the room. Apia in the morning light is stunningly beautiful. Lush greens against the backdrop of an opal sea. After a quick breakfast in the near-deserted hotel restaurant, I caught a local bus to the western end of the island and then made my way on foot to the ferry terminal at Mulifanua. Soon I found myself awed by my surroundings. This busy working port, incongruous in its verdant tropical setting, belies the history of the site. Gazing out at the salt-rusted boats, trucks and cranes as I did that morning in August 2012, it would be hard to guess at the ancient significance of this location. It was here, when the ferry terminal was being upgraded in 1973, that the diggers uncovered more than 4,000 pottery sherds, the submerged remains of an ancient settlement - the earliest archaeological evidence of human activity in Samoa.
The discovery was fascinating because the pottery sherds discovered here at Mulifanua bore a striking resemblance to remains that had been found thousands of miles away to the South, in New Caledonia.
In 1952 the American anthropologist Ed Gifford, a Professor of Anthropology at Berkeley University, was excavating at a site on the Foué peninsula in New Caledonia when he began to uncover strange pottery fragments made of red clay. The pottery was decorated with beautiful geometric patterns. They were unlike anything he had ever seen. Surprised by this new discovery, Gifford asked a local man from a nearby village to come and take look at the site, in the hope that he could help to identify who had made the distinctive pottery. The two men walked up to the site together, where Gifford pointed into the hole containing the finds.
‘What’s all this?’ he asked.
The local man peered into the hole and nodded slowly. ‘Xapeta’a,’he said.
Gifford heard the man’s answer as ‘Lapita’ and so gave this name to the new discovery. The name quickly caught on. In no time at all, archaeologists and anthropologists the world over were talking enthusiastically about the newly discovered ancient pottery-making culture of the South Pacific they called the ‘Lapita people’. What the archaeologists didn’t realise is that ‘xapeta’a’ in the local Kanak language means ‘that’s a hole’. So the conversation between Gifford and his local guide, roughly translated, really went like this:
‘What’s all this?’
‘… That’s a hole?’
Or so the story goes at least. Despite rumours of these comedic beginnings, Gifford had made a major discovery. The name stuck and the pottery making culture became known as ‘Lapita.’
In the sixty years since Gifford’s discovery, archeologists have found Lapita pottery sites all the way from the Bismarck Archipelago, through Fiji and Tonga and on to the port at Mulifanua in Samoa, covering a geographical distance of over 3,000 miles.
These Lapita sites are remarkable for two reasons. Firstly, the unique style of pottery makes them easy to identify as Lapita and secondly, the great distances between the sites suggests that when the Lapita people entered the Pacific, they were in an explosive state of expansion. Carbon dating gives us the earliest date for the Lapita people at around 1,300 BC in the Bismark Archipelago, off the coast of Papua New Guinea and the most recent date of around 800 BC in Samoa. Both of these dates are within the standard deviation for carbon dating, so you could say that the arrival of the Lapita in the Pacific was remarkably sudden.
The Lapita arrived in the Pacific, sailed through the Bismark Archipelago, became the first people ever to sail into remote Oceania and made it all the way to Samoa in the Central Pacific. It was an astounding achievement and it happened within, at most, just a few hundred years.
The Lapita people were seafarers. They lived for the most part on the water, apparently more at home at sea than they were on land. Whenever they did settle on land, it was right on the water’s edge, as they did at Mulifanua, or on small outlying islands and remote peninsulas. The Lapita introduced new plants to the Pacific such as taro, yams, coconuts and bananas. They also brought new livestock in the form of pigs, chickens and, of course, rats. Why would people bring rats with them to colonise new lands? Quite simply, a decent sized rat provides decent meat. Rats are small, hardy and they breed rapidly, and are therefore a reliable source of protein. I can also confirm that they do taste remarkably similar to chicken.
Trade was a very important aspect of Lapita life, perhaps the most important. They traded in a rare black volcanic glass called obsidian, a highly desirable commodity in the ancient world, more precious even than gold. Obsidian was used for making sharp blades, items of huge value in a world that had no metals. It was this rare black volcanic glass, formed in the volcanoes of Samoa, that first attracted the Lapita people to these islands. Obsidian from Samoa has been identified thousands of miles from its original source, evidence of an ancient trade network that spanned the open seas, from the Bismark Archipelago in the South to this remote northernmost outpost, here on the waters’ edge, at the port of Mulifanua in Samoa.
But the history of the Lapita traders, as fascinating as it is, does not help us. The Lapita people didn’t build pyramids. Someone else is responsible for Pulemelei.
Later that morning I boarded the Lady Samoa III, a big blue and white ferry that would take me to the island of Savai’i. As we got underway I walked out onto the deck to get some air. Enjoying the buffeting wind, I leaned over the barrier, looking out to sea and wondering what adventures Savai’i might bring. A woman appeared next to me and with some difficulty, lit a cigarette. I don’t remember how, but we struck up a conversation over one thing or another. She turned out to be from the main island, my age, although she looked much younger. She was a no-nonsense, fast-talking, body-building, mother of three and she was going to Savai’i to drive a mini-van for a foreign television crew. ‘Not my real job,’ she told me, crushing her cigarette on the deck. ‘It’s just for pocket money.’
As luck would have it, it turned out that we’d be staying at the same place: Manase, in the north of the island. ‘You can have a lift up there,’ she said. ‘So long as you don’t mind cramming into the van with everyone else.’
‘Of course not!’ I said, grateful that my journey was finally gathering some momentum. ‘That’d be great.’
‘I didn’t get your name? I’m Tina,’ she said offering her hand.
‘Maya. Nice to meet you.’
3
Savai'i
The Pacific Ocean is vast. More than two thirds of the earth’s surface is water, and the Pacific Ocean accounts for more than half of that. This great ocean, its scale almost beyond comprehension, covers more than 63 million square miles, an area larger than every nation on earth combined. At the very heart of this practically endless expanse is the island of Savai’i. I watched from the deck of the Lady Samoa as the island rose on the horizon, as though lifted out from the sea on the back of an unseen le
viathan. Rugged volcanic mountain peaks disappearing into a canopy of mist, slopes covered in dense verdant jungle stretching all the way down to the waters edge. As we drew closer, I could make out deep valleys and high black cliffs, rushing waterfalls tumbling from heights of hundreds of feet, sparkling in the sunlight like threads of silver. Along the shoreline, the black lava flows gave way to shining white sands. I spotted a natural seaport fringed by coconut palms, their tops swaying in the breeze.
The boat’s engines beat the water to a foam and pulled the island ever closer. Six thousand miles east was South America, and roughly the same distance to the west was China. And in the middle, me, on a rusty old ship, with the air reeking of diesel fumes, excited enough to jump in and swim the final length to shore.
We arrived on the island late in the afternoon. Across the street from the ferry terminal was a concrete bunker, paint peeling off in the damp heat. It served as the general store. I bought water, sweets, cigarettes. There is no dry season on Savai’i, only the wet season and the wetter season. Everything is always hot and damp. Archaeologists argue that at one time, Savai’i was the most economically important of the Samoan islands, but these days Savai’i is the quieter cousin, beautiful but without the buzz of the ‘main’ island. The pace of things here is markedly slower than Upolu. I left the store, crossed back to the port and got into the van with Tina, passing her a bottle of water. It quickly became apparent that Tina drove as fast as she spoke, which is to say very fast indeed. We made our way along the coast road, heading north to Manase just as the sun was setting. Crammed into the back of the van was the previously mentioned TV crew, who turned out to be from New Zealand and were here to make a documentary about a local artist. Ebullient, we chatted and joked as we bumped our way along the coast road. Two characters from the crew, young, effusive, friendly and full of jokes, made an impression on me straight away. They were called Jess and Mani.
