Thor Heyerdahl — Enter the Tiki

A professional ethnographer, geologist, archaeologist, anthropologist and adventurer, Thor Heyerdahl was a true man of the world.

Not only did he lead the first archaeological expedition to Easter Island, his inevitable encounter with the lost civilization of Tiki would be one of the major catalysts to usher in the huge post-war fascination with Polynesia.

While studying geography and zoology at the University of Oslo, Heyerdahl became so so fascinated with Polynesia that in 1937 his professors agreed to sponsor him on an expedition.

Upon arriving, he and his wife were greeted by the Supreme Chief of Tahiti, after which they spent a year in the Marquesas Islands, immersing themselves in Polynesian culture and studying its plant and animal life.

While officially a zoologist, the anthropologist in Heyerdahl couldn’t help but wonder exactly where the original inhabitants of Polynesia came from. As its flora and fauna had come from the West, Heyerdahl reasoned that the first inhabitants must have as well, most likely from Peru and Easter Island.

Adding to such speculation was Incan legend in which the sun-god Con-Tici Viracocha (original name Kon Tiki, meaning Sun- or Fire-Tiki) ruled over a mythical race of light-skinned people in Peru. When a rival chief exterminated this fair race, Kon-Tiki escaped with a few others via the Pacific and eventually reached Polynesia.

To test both theory and legend, Heyerdahl and five other explorers decided they would also sail from Peru to Polynesia themselves on exactly the same kind of pre-Columbian balsa log raft supposedly used by the Incans. Christening the raft Kon-Tiki, Heyerdahl and his crew set sail on April 28, 1947.

After 101 days and 4,300 miles, they finally reached the Tuamotu Islands on August 7, 1947, proving that ancient American tribes could have reached Polynesia.

(Although DNA evidence has since proved that Polynesians actually descended from Asia, genes known to exist only in indigenous Americans were recently discovered among some of them, partially vindicating Theyerdahl.)

Heyerdahl chronicled his exploits in 1948 with a book The Kon-Tiki Expedition, so popular that it was translated into sixty different languages. Shortly after, footage from the voyage was made into a movie, Kon-Tiki, winning an Academy Award for Best Documentary in 1951.

After his huge successes, Heyerdahl organized an expedition to Easter Island in 1955, which he immortalized in his immensely popular book Aku Aku. The huge Maori statues there bore such a strong resemblance to Tikis that they were called Aku Aku heads, or Aku-Tikis.

Throughout the next decades of his long career, Heyerdahl made similar expeditions around the world through the Tigris River, the Maldives Islands, Morocco and Azerbaijan, receiving numerous awards and honours for his work.

The original balsa log raft and many other exhibits from these expeditions are on display at the Kon Tiki Museum in Oslo, Norway.

Thor Heyerdahl - The Indiana Jones of Polynesia