Westward Voyage

Anthropologists will put themselves to a lot of trouble to prove a pet theory. Last week, five Norwegians and a Swede were making plans to sail westward from Callao, Peru, on a seagoing raft. They were taking many of the same chances as their theoretical primitives: the raft was modeled after the balsas of the ancient Peruvians. They hoped to prove that the South Pacific islands had been visited--perhaps partly peopled--by civilized Indians from South America.

The leader of the expedition, Thor Heyerdahl, 32, had been to Tahiti in 1937 to finish a doctorate thesis in zoology. Like other scholars before him, he was struck by resemblances between the cultures of Polynesia and South America. Both regions have "stepped" pyramids, "megalithic" structures, elaborate feather-work. Both cultivate sweet potatoes and call them by names which closely resemble their ancient Peruvian name: kumara. The strange stone heads on Easter Island look a great deal like some sculpture in Peru.

Civilizing Trickle. One common explanation of these likenesses: a thin trickle of Polynesian canoemen might have brought such cultural bits from the South Seas to the Americas. But Heyerdahl decided that the trickle must have moved in the opposite direction. Ancient Peru, even during the Tiahuanaco period (about 1,000 A.D., before the start of the Inca Empire), was far more civilized than Polynesia. The Peruvians built large rafts of balsa wood which were probably capable of voyaging as far as the South Seas. The prevailing winds and the ocean currents (both moving from east to west--see map) would help them make the one-way trip.

There is fair historical evidence of at least one such voyage. According to Peruvian tradition, the Inca Tupac Yupanqui sailed a large fleet of balsas into the Pacific, about 1470 A.D. Gone nearly a year, he returned with news of two islands he had discovered.

Kon-Tiki. After the war, Heyerdahl gathered around him a group of his countrymen, most of them veterans of Norway's underground, and led them to Peru. There they were joined by a Swedish anthropologist. Their daring plan: to sail to Tahiti. 5,000 miles from Callao. If they make Tahiti safely, the world's anthropologists will have to admit that ancient Peruvians could have done it.

Last week, the balsa was almost ready to sail. Named the Kon-Tiki after a Peruvian god, she is 40 ft. long, 18 ft. wide, built of buoyant balsa wood logs cut in the jungles of Ecuador. There is no metal in her; all parts are lashed together with ropes, as the ancient Peruvians did it.

The Kon-Tiki has a bamboo deck and a small bamboo cabin. Two masts support a primitive square sail. Modern conveniences are iron rations, U.S. Army sun-cream, anti-exposure suits. A radio will send daily weather reports to the U.S. Weather Bureau.

The voyage to Tahiti, Heyerdahl estimates, will take about 140 days. The Peru current will carry the balsa northward up the coast. Then the east wind and the "south equatorial current" will waft it across the Pacific. For entertainment while they drift, the Norwegians are taking along a guitar.

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