Kon-Tiki

by Thor Heyerdahl

  Bengt presented us to the chief with great ceremony. The chief’s name, Bengt said, was Tepiuraiarii Teriifaatau, but he would understand whom we meant if we called him Teka. We called him Teka.

  Teka was a tall, slender Polynesian with uncommonly intelligent eyes. He was an important person, a descendant of the old royal line in Tahiti, and was chief of both the Raroia and the Takume islands. He had been to school in Tahiti, so that he spoke French and could both read and write. He told me that the capital of Norway was called Christiania and asked if I knew Bing Crosby. He also told us that only three foreign vessels had called at Raroia in the last ten years, but that the village was visited several times a year by the native copra schooner from Tahiti, which brought merchandise and took away coconut kernels in exchange. They had been expecting the schooner for some weeks now, so she might come at any time.

  Bengt’s report, summarized, was that there was no school, radio, or any white men on Raroia, but that the 127 Polynesians in the village had done all they could to make us comfortable there and had prepared a great reception for us when we came over.

  The chief’s first request was to see the boat which had brought us ashore on the reef alive. We waded out toward the Kon-Tiki with a string of natives after us. When we drew near, the natives suddenly stopped and uttered loud exclamations, all talking at once. We could now see the logs of the Kon-Tiki plainly, and one of the natives burst out:

  “That’s not a boat, it’s a pae-pae!”

  “Pae-pae!” they all repeated in chorus.

  They splashed out across the reef at a gallop and clambered up on to the Kon-Tiki. They scrambled about everywhere like excited children, feeling the logs, the bamboo plaiting, and the ropes. The chief was in as high spirits as the others; he came back and repeated with an inquiring expression:

  “The Tiki isn’t a boat, she’s a pae-pae.”

  Pae-pae is the Polynesian word for “raft” and “platform,” and on Easter Island it is also the word used for the natives’ canoes. The chief told us that such pae-pae no longer existed, but that the oldest men in the village could relate old traditions of them. The natives all outshouted one another in admiration for the great balsa logs, but they turned up their noses at the ropes. Ropes like that did not last many months in salt water and sun. They showed us with pride the lashings on their own outriggers; they had plaited them themselves of coconut hemp, and such ropes remained as good as new for five years at sea.

  When we waded back to our little island, it was named Fenua Kon-Tiki, or Kon-Tiki Island. This was a name we could all pronounce, but our brown friends had a hard job trying to pronounce our short Nordic Christian names. They were delighted when I said they could call me Terai Mateata, for the great chief in Tahiti had given me that name when adopting me as his “son” the first time I was in those parts.

  The natives brought out fowls and eggs and breadfruit from the canoes, while others speared big fish in the lagoon with three-pronged spears, and we had a feast round the campfire. We had to narrate all our experiences with the pae-pae at sea, and they wanted to hear about the whale shark again and again. And every time we came to the point at which Erik rammed the harpoon into its skull, they uttered the same cries of excitement. They recognized at once every single fish of which we showed them sketches and promptly gave us the names in Polynesian. But they had never seen or heard of the whale shark or the Gempylus.

  The raft arrives at Tahiti in tow of the government schooner “Tamara.”

  Teriieroo a Teriierooiterai is the name of the last chief on Tahiti. He was on the quay to meet us when we arrived. Ten years before he had adopted the author as his son and had given him the name Terai Mateata (Blue Sky).

  Tiki was the name of the first great chief on Tahiti. He was regarded by the inhabitants as their divine ancestor, and stone statues of South American type were erected in his honor on many of the islands.

  The country which Tiki found. Low coral islands, like those of the Tuamotu group, and lofty mountainous islands like Tahiti and Moorea were found by Kon-Tiki, Son of the Sun, when he came from Peru with the first men on balsa rafts.

  Hula dance on Tahiti. Purea was related to the last queen of the island. After Tiki another Indian race came to these islands in big double canoes from British Columbia via Hawaii. The Polynesian race is a mixture of these two immigrant peoples.

  A Tahitian belle. When we came to the native village on Raroia, the natives started festivities that lasted the fourteen days we spent on the island. Our stay on Tahiti was of the same nature, but lasted longer.

  At the White House. After our return to Washington, President Truman received the members of the expedition. The American flag that had accompanied us across the Pacific was presented to him. From left: (half hidden) Knut Haugland, the author, Herman Watzinger, President Truman, Mr. Lykke (counselor to the Embassy), Erik Hesselberg, and Torstein Raaby. Bengt Danielsson had remained on the west coast.

  When the evening came, we turned on the radio, to the great delight of the whole assemblage. Church music was most to their taste until, to our own astonishment, we picked up real hula music from America. Then the liveliest of them began to wriggle with their arms curved over their heads, and soon the whole company sprang up on their haunches and danced the hula-hula in time with the music. When night came, all camped round a fire on the beach. It was as much of an adventure to the natives as it was to us.

  When we awoke next morning, they were already up and frying newly caught fish, while six freshly opened coconut shells stood ready for us to quench our morning thirst.

  The reef was thundering more than usual that day; the wind had increased in strength, and the surf was whipping high into the air out there behind the wreck.

  “The Tiki will come in today,” said the chief, pointing to the wreck. “There’ll be a high tide.”

  About eleven o’clock the water began to flow past us into the lagoon. The lagoon began to fill like a big basin, and the water rose all round the island. Later in the day the real inflow from the sea came. The water came rolling in, terrace after terrace, and more and more of the reef sank below the surface of the sea. The masses of water rolled forward along both sides of the island. They tore away large coral blocks and dug up great sandbanks which disappeared like flour before the wind, while others were built up. Loose bamboos from the wreck came sailing past us, and the Kon-Tiki began to move. Everything that was lying along the beach had to be carried up into the interior of the island so that it might not be caught by the tide. Soon only the highest stones on the reef were visible, and all the beaches round our island had gone, while the water flowed up toward the herbage of the pancake island. This was eerie. It looked as if the whole sea were invading us. The Kon-Tiki swung right round and drifted until she was caught by some other coral blocks.

  The natives flung themselves into the water and swam and waded through the eddies till, moving from bank to bank, they reached the raft. Knut and Erik followed. Ropes lay ready on board the raft, and, when she rolled over the last coral blocks and broke loose from the reef, the natives jumped overboard and tried to hold her. They did not know the Kon-Tiki and her ungovernable urge to push on westward; so they were towed along helplessly with her. She was soon moving at a good speed right across the reef and into the lagoon. She became slightly at a loss when she reached quieter water and seemed to be looking round as though to obtain a survey of further possibilities. Before she began to move again and discovered the exit across the lagoon, the natives had already succeeded in getting the end of the rope around a palm on land. And there the Kon-Tiki hung, tied up fast in the lagoon. The craft that went over land and water had made her way across the barricade and into the lagoon in the interior of Raroia.

  With inspiring war cries, to which “ke-ke-te-huru-huru” formed an animating refrain, we hauled the Kon-Tiki by our combined efforts in to the shore of the island of her own name. The tide reached a point four feet above normal high water. We had though
t the whole island was going to disappear before our eyes.

  The wind-whipped waves were breaking all over the lagoon, and we could not get much of our equipment into the narrow, wet canoes. The natives had to get back to the village in a hurry, and Bengt and Herman went with them to see a small boy who lay dying in a hut in the village. The boy had an abscess on his head, and we had penicillin.

  Next day we four were alone on Kon-Tiki Island. The east wind was now so strong that the natives could not come across the lagoon, which was studded with sharp coral formations and shoals. The tide, which had somewhat receded, flowed in again fiercely, in long, rushing step formations.

  Next day it was quieter again. We were now able to dive under the Kon-Tiki and ascertain that the nine logs were intact, even if the reef had planed an inch or two off the bottom. The cordage lay so deep in its grooves that only four of the numerous ropes had been cut by the corals. We set about clearing up on board. Our proud vessel looked better when the mess had been removed from the deck, the cabin pulled out again like a concertina, and the mast spliced and set upright.

  In the course of the day the sails appeared on the horizon again; the natives were coming to fetch us and the rest of the cargo. Herman and Bengt were with them, and they told us that the natives had prepared great festivities in the village. When we got over to the other island, we must not leave the canoes till the chief himself had indicated that we might do so.

  We ran across the lagoon, which here was seven miles wide, before a fresh breeze. It was with real sorrow that we saw the familiar palms on Kon-Tiki Island waving us good-by as they changed into a clump and shrank into one small indefinable island like all the others along the eastern reef. But ahead of us larger islands were broadening out. And on one of them we saw a jetty and smoke rising from huts among the palm trunks.

  The village looked quite dead; not a soul was to be seen. What was brewing now? Down on the beach, behind a jetty of coral blocks, stood two solitary figures, one tall and thin and one big and stout as a barrel. As we came in, we saluted them both. They were the chief Teka and the vice-chief Tupuhoe. We all fell for Tupuhoe’s broad hearty smile. Teka was a clear brain and a diplomat, but Tupuhoe was a pure child of nature and a sterling fellow, with a humor and a primitive force the like of which one meets but rarely. With his powerful body and kingly features he was exactly what one expects a Polynesian chief to be. Tupuhoe was, indeed, the real chief on the island, but Teka had gradually acquired the supreme position because he could speak French and count and write, so that the village was not cheated when the schooner came from Tahiti to fetch copra.

  Teka explained that we were to march together up to the meetinghouse in the village, and when all the boys had come ashore we set off thither in ceremonial procession, Herman first with the flag waving on a harpoon shaft, and then I myself between the two chiefs.

  The village bore obvious marks of the copra trade with Tahiti; both planks and corrugated iron had been imported in the schooner. While some huts were built in a picturesque old-fashioned style, with twigs and plaited palm leaves, others were knocked together with nails and planks as small tropical bungalows. A large house built of planks, standing alone among the palms, was the new village meetinghouse; there we six whites were to stay. We marched in with the flag by a small back door and out on to a broad flight of steps before the façade. Before us in the square stood everyone in the village who could walk or crawl—women and children, old and young. All were intensely serious; even our cheerful friends from Kon-Tiki Island stood drawn up among the others and did not give us a sign of recognition.

  When we had all come out on the steps, the whole assembly opened their mouths simultaneously and joined in singing—the “Marseillaise”! Teka, who knew the words, led the singing, and it went fairly well in spite of a few old women getting stuck up on the high notes. They had been training hard for this. The French and Norwegian flags were hoisted in front of the steps, and this ended the official reception by the chief Teka. He retired quietly into the background, and now stout Tupuhoe sprang forward and became master of the ceremonies. Tupuhoe gave a quick sign, on which the whole assembly burst into a new song. This time it went better, for the tune was composed by themselves and the words, too, were in their language—and sing their own hula they could. The melody was so fascinating, in all its touching simplicity, that we felt a tingling down our backs as the South Sea came roaring toward us. A few individuals led the singing and the whole choir joined in regularly; there were variations in the melody, though the words were always the same:

  “Good day, Terai Mateata and your men, who have come across the sea on a pae-pae to us on Raroia; yes, good day, may you remain long among us and share memories with us so that we can always be together, even when you go away to a far land. Good day.”

  We had to ask them to sing the song over again, and more and more life came into the whole assembly as they began to feel less constrained. Then Tupuhoe asked me to say a few words to the people as to why we had come across the sea on a pae-pae; they had all been counting on this. I was to speak in French, and Teka would translate bit by bit.

  It was an uneducated but highly intelligent gathering of brown people that stood waiting for me to speak. I told them that I had been among their kinsmen out here in the South Sea islands before, and that I had heard of their first chief, Tiki, who had brought their forefathers out to the islands from a mysterious country whose whereabouts no one knew any longer. But in a distant land called Peru, I said, a mighty chief had once ruled whose name was Tiki. The people called him Kon-Tiki, or Sun-Tiki, because he said he was descended from the sun. Tiki and a number of followers had at last disappeared from their country on big pae-paes; therefore we six thought that he was the same Tiki who had come to those islands. As nobody would believe that a pae-pae could make the voyage across the sea, we ourselves had set out from Peru on a pae-pae, and here we were, so it could be done.

  When the little speech was translated by Teka, Tupuhoe was all fire and flame and sprang forward in front of the assembly in a kind of ecstasy. He rumbled away in Polynesian, flung out his arms, pointed to heaven and us, and in his flood of speech constantly repeated the word Tiki. He talked so fast that it was impossible to follow the thread of what he said, but the whole assembly swallowed every word and was visibly excited. Teka, on the contrary, looked quite embarrassed when he had to translate.

  Tupuhoe had said that his father and grandfather, and his fathers before him, had told of Tiki and had said that Tiki was their first chief who was now in heaven. But then the white men came and said that the traditions of their ancestors were lies. Tiki had never existed. He was not in heaven at all, for Jehovah was there. Tiki was a heathen god, and they must not believe in him any longer. But now we six had come to them across the sea on a pae-pae. We were the first whites who had admitted that their fathers had spoken the truth. Tiki had lived, he had been real, but now he was dead and in heaven.

  Horrified at the thought of upsetting the missionaries’ work, I had to hurry forward and explain that Tiki had lived, that was sure and certain, and now he was dead. But whether he was in heaven or in hell today only Jehovah knew, for Jehovah was in heaven while Tiki himself had been a mortal man, a great chief like Teka and Tupuhoe, perhaps still greater.

  This produced both cheerfulness and contentment among the brown men, and the nodding and mumbling among them showed clearly that the explanation had fallen on good soil. Tiki had lived—that was the main thing. If he was in hell now, no one was any the worse for it but himself; on the contrary, Tupuhoe suggested, perhaps it increased the chances of seeing him again.

  Three old men pushed forward and wanted to shake hands with us. There was no doubt that it was they who had kept the memories of Tiki alive among the people, and the chief told us that one of the old men knew an immense number of traditions and historical ballads from his forefathers’ time. I asked the old man if there was, in the traditions, any hint of the direc
tion from which Tiki had come. No, none of the old men could remember having heard that. But after long and careful reflection the oldest of the three said that Tiki had with him a near relation who was called Maui, and in the ballad of Maui it was said that he had come to the islands from Pura and pura was the word for the part of the sky where the sun rose. If Maui had come from Pura, the old man said, Tiki had no doubt come from the same place, and we six on the pae-pae had also come from pura—that was sure enough.

  I told the brown men that on a lonely island near Easter Island, called Mangareva, the people had never learned the use of canoes and had continued to use big pae-paes at sea right down to our time. This the old men did not know, but they knew that their forefathers also had used big pae-paes. However, they had gradually gone out of use, and now they had nothing but the name and traditions left. In really ancient times they had been called rongo-rongo, the oldest man said, but that was a word which no longer existed in the language. Rongo-rongo were mentioned in the most ancient legends.

  This name was interesting, for Rongo—on certain islands pronounced “Lono”—was the name of one of the Polynesians’ best-known legendary ancestors. He was expressly described as white and fair-haired. When Captain Cook first came to Hawaii, he was received with open arms by the islanders because they thought he was their white kinsman Rongo, who, after an absence of generations, had come back from their ancestors’ homeland in his big sailing ship. And on Easter Island the word “rongo-rongo” was the designation for the mysterious hieroglyphs the secret of which was lost with the last “long-ears” who could write.

  While the old men wanted to discuss Tiki and rongo-rongo, the young ones wanted to hear about the whale shark and the voyage across the sea. But the food was waiting, and Teka was tired of interpreting.