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Kon-Tiki! - Ep 131
1.5k Plays11 months ago
When I was a kid, I loved the story of Thor Heyerdahl and the Kon-Tiki. I was enraptured in wonder as I read about the exciting and dangerous expedition across the Pacific in an “ancient craft.” As per usual, it’s time for me to destroy my childhood dreams. Join me as we skewer my inner child and put the Kon-Tiki to the test!
Transcripts
For rough transcripts of this episode go to https://www.archpodnet.com/pseudo/131
Links
- Wikipedia Kon-Tiki: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kon-Tiki_expedition
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Transcript
Introduction to Pseudo-Archaeology Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
You're listening to the Archaeology Podcast Network. You are now entering the pseudo-archaeology podcast, a show that uncovers what's fact, what's fake, and what's fun in the crazy world of pseudo-archaeology.
Episode 131 and the Con Tiki Topic
00:00:23
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the pseudo archaeology podcast, episode one hundred and thirty one. I am your host, Dr. Andrew Kinkela. And tonight, Con Tiki, can you sail a balsa wood boat across the Pacific Ocean in the wrong direction? We shall see.
00:00:48
Speaker
All right. So today's little story slash adventure. The Con Tiki is done by student request. Now, I know what you're thinking.
00:01:00
Speaker
You're like, can kill a man. Why do you interact with your students? What's wrong with you? You know, they're they're dirty. Don't don't do that. Don't dirty yourself with your own students. Just have your own ideas, man. And I'm like, no, no, no, I will steal their ideas and then put my name on them.
00:01:22
Speaker
See, genius move. I think so. So their name will not be said here. So aren't we all happy and excited that I the great Andrew Kinkella came up with this idea? I know, I know. You're welcome, world. So.
00:01:41
Speaker
You know, when my student and I were talking about this, it's funny, they had asked me about their hate, like, hey, can you tell what about the content?
Dr. Kinkela's Fascination with Con Tiki
00:01:49
Speaker
I'm like, oh, my God, what a great idea. And what I will say is I do have this long list that I keep for ideas for this show, you know, just this big it's like this big.
00:02:05
Speaker
like sheet of lined paper that just has like this big old list of ideas on it. And hopefully nobody will ever find it and see it because it's all scribbly and weird. And you'll be like, was this written by a crazy person?
00:02:19
Speaker
Yeah. And I honestly, I can't remember if I had it on there or not, but it is an idea that I've had sort of in the back of my mind. And I'll tell you why. And again, in seriousness, I'm so thankful for my student for sort of jogging all the cobwebs in my brain and like, hey, man, the Contica, what a great story. This is why I wanted to do this story. It's because.
00:02:40
Speaker
I have a little hook where I can tell my own little mini story that goes with it. And actually, I think you are here, dear listener, for the earliest Kinkela story so far.
Thor Heyerdahl's Con Tiki Expedition
00:02:58
Speaker
I thought I couldn't beat some of my earlier stories. I said some stuff in earlier podcasts that happened when I was like 12. This one, I think is from when I was like seven.
00:03:09
Speaker
I was really young and I think that puts it in the 1970s, just barely. Let me take you back to 1979 when a young first grader reads some sort of first grader easy read book complete with headphones that you put on and a tape that you put in the tape player.
00:03:34
Speaker
about Thor Heyerdahl and his voyage on the Khan Tiki. Now, I thought this was just the coolest thing when I was like in the first grade, right? And I just remember little flashes of the story because usually you'd get some crappy story just about, you know, somebody who has a dog or something.
00:03:59
Speaker
But this one was like a voyage with a boat across the Pacific. And I just thought it was so fascinating in my little like first grade mind. And I do remember this, that I was super freaked out by the last name Heyerdahl. I was like, oh, my God, I have no idea how to say that. I have no idea what that is. And I was I remember having anxiety about like, oh, I'm not going to be able to say this word. We're going to have like a test on it or something. I won't know.
00:04:29
Speaker
But man, I thought it was super cool. So. You know, what what hooked it for me now, those of you who are old enough to remember, and I'm sure there's like two of you out there still living, you know, the rest of us are long dead. Not only was this sort of one of those easy read books or, you know, one that may have even included a cassette tape that you put in that sort of reads along with you.
00:04:56
Speaker
I think there may have also been some sort of book on the Scholastic Books page for any of us in California in like the I think probably the 70s and the 80s. Every so often you would get this like sheet that was like maybe four pages long printed on kind of newspaper cheap paper.
00:05:17
Speaker
And it was like the scholastic books. It would come like maybe once every two or three months. And you could try and get your parents to buy you a book or two. They were very inexpensive and you could go through the whole motions of like Xing the box of the book you want and trying to add all the money together and stuff, you know, then buy a book for yourself. And I believe there might have been some obviously super abridged version of Contiki on there as well.
00:05:44
Speaker
I do remember that usually I just bought like Star Wars books all the time, right? That was my main go to. I bought every Star Wars movie, but abridged for a second grader to read book like I bought all I was and still am a Star Wars fanatic.
00:06:04
Speaker
But in that world, it's a testament to Contiki that it would get me to not get a Star Wars thing right that month in my, you know, seven year old brain and get this other thing as well. So it just really lit that fire in me of exploration. I do think it was the first thing that really did. Now, yes, Luke Skywalker staring at the twin sons of Tatooine
00:06:31
Speaker
Did do it for me some to, of course, but this was real. Right. I'm like, this is something that people could actually do.
Success and Publicity of the Con Tiki
00:06:39
Speaker
They could like build a boat and go across the wilds of the Pacific. Right. So.
00:06:46
Speaker
What is this story, right? What is Contiki? So this this takes place, honestly, in 1947, and it's the brainchild of this guy, Thor Heyerdahl. Now, my last several podcasts, I talked about how people with terrible names like Ignatius Loyola Donnelly, they're forced to become pseudo archaeologists, you know, because their name, they can't do anything else. What about their name?
00:07:14
Speaker
I have to say this bucks my trend a little because the name Thor hired all. I mean, dude, that's an awesome name. What can you do? That might be the best name there ever was. Might be number one.
00:07:28
Speaker
So this guy, he, just to give you his dates, he was born in 1914 and he dies in, I think 2002, lives a long life. A lot of these explorer guys tend to, if they don't get killed, you know, at some point they're vaguely healthy individuals, you know.
00:07:45
Speaker
Thor, growing up, was really excited in the whole sort of adventuring around the world, the finding treasure, right? That sort of adventuresome spirit. And so in his 30s, and this is right after World War Two, right? This is this is a different world for everyone. This is World War Two ends in 1945.
00:08:09
Speaker
And I think its timing was part of its success. Now, I don't mean success so much in what it actually did. We'll get to that in a minute. I mean, in terms of its publicity, the Contiki voyage was huge in terms of publicity. And that's why me, you know, if this happens in 1947, so it's like 30 years later, why I'm still going to read a little scholastic book on it. Right.
00:08:36
Speaker
So what they're hired all does is he thinks that Polynesia, the islands of the Pacific were populated by people coming from Peru. Right. So this is from South America and going west across the Pacific.
00:08:54
Speaker
So he's going to quote unquote prove this by building a quote unquote native rap and then sailing it across.
Documentary and Explorers Club Membership
00:09:07
Speaker
Right. It's a fairly crazy idea. We got to say that, you know.
00:09:12
Speaker
But he does it. And what he does is he it's made out of balsa. Basically, it's like a big old wrap. Now, I will link down below to I think I'll link to the Wikipedia page because I think later I'll read some quotes off it because they have some pretty funny quotes on there. But it's really good about some of its photos and stuff. And you can Google Contiki. You'll come up in a minute. The name Contiki is for the boat and for a higher dollar had some
00:09:41
Speaker
backstory to the name, like it had to do with the anchor or something. It makes no sense. And what we're going to see is unfortunately Thor hired all while being very into the exploration side of things. He doesn't really do his homework, right? He just gets these crazy ideas and then seeks to prove them.
00:10:01
Speaker
But then all he really does is prove a crazy idea. He doesn't prove anything about history or what actually happened. So builds this boat and then goes on this forge with several other people. He's not alone.
00:10:13
Speaker
The boat is really weird because he says he makes it off of notes from the Spanish conquistadors or something. But honestly, it's just this weird pastiche of sort of native esque. You know, is it nativist? It reminds me of the idea that I talked about in previous podcast, Mayanism, the idea where the ancient Maya, it's sort of
00:10:36
Speaker
gets this new age thing with it, right? It's very new age and has nothing to do with facts. So he pulls this boat out of balsa, kind of straps it together. And again, it's this combo. It's just, it's odd. It's like a raft. It almost almost looks like some huckleberry fin raft, but like much bigger.
00:10:56
Speaker
But they has mass on it and stuff again a pastiche of modern technology and pseudo old technologies is just a weird thing. But they set up on their journey takes him a hundred and one days i believe it's like four thousand three hundred miles or something like this and they finally do get to an island in the pacific so he does show you that you can take a funky weird pastiche boat.
00:11:21
Speaker
and make it to an island from South America across the Pacific into a real island in Polynesia. Now, this becomes just a huge smash pop culture event, so much so that they put out a documentary in 1950 on the voyage of the Contiki, and it wins the Academy Award, I believe, for best documentary in 1951. So it's just huge.
00:11:50
Speaker
Thor Heyerdahl also becomes a member of the Explorers Club, and he's not the only member of the Explorers Club. OK, I am a member of the Explorers Club. And when we come back, what does that mean?
Critique of Heyerdahl's Scientific Basis
00:12:10
Speaker
Hello and welcome back to the pseudo archaeology podcast episode one hundred and thirty one. And I'm your host, Dr. Andrew Kinkella, member of the Explorers Club. And we have been discussing the story of Contiki. Now, as you saw in the first segment, the story of Contiki is pretty straightforward.
00:12:27
Speaker
crazily driven explorer Thor Heyerdahl makes Funky Boat out of Balsa and sails it willy nilly across the Pacific and makes it to a Polynesian island, right? And becomes quite a bit of a celebrity.
00:12:42
Speaker
in the late 1940s, in the 1950s. Now, Thor Heyerdahl in the after this does do a couple other funky expeditions like that, always with the same sort of spacey ideas. He does like a Easter Island thing later in the 1950s. He builds a couple more boats. I remember like the raw and the raw two that were supposedly, I believe, to sail from
00:13:12
Speaker
Africa to the new world, I believe. Don't quote me on it. But, you know, the reason why I believe the two had to be made was the raw one basically started to sink and he did one other one with a boat, I believe, called the Tigris, where he did some stuff around Mesopotamia. So always with this idea of.
00:13:33
Speaker
exploration, but again, with no scientific or historical deep knowledge. So that part is a bit of a bummer. And the downside of Thor Heyerdahl now, he's you know, he makes a great character, this explorers, explorer, you know, great name.
00:13:56
Speaker
The downside, though, is his unscientific, again, not thought out plans were basically to prove first that Polynesia and by I mean, all the islands of Polynesia were basically colonized in the ancient past by people from South America, but that these people were were white.
00:14:22
Speaker
You know, it's just odd. Now, I might be getting bits and bobs of this wrong because honestly, I like confuse them sometimes because he has a couple of different expeditions and they're all the same. But here I'll quote the Wikipedia entry, which I really like. Wikipedia says the basis of the Contiki expedition was pseudoscientific, radically controversial and has not gained acceptance among scientists even prior to the voyage. That's pretty bad.
00:14:48
Speaker
Heyerdahl believed that the original inhabitants of Easter Island were the Tiki people, a race of white bearded men who supposedly originally sailed from Peroia. He described these Tiki people as being sun-worshipping fair-skinned people with blue eyes, fair red hair, tall statues, and beards. And these people were originally from the Middle East and across the Atlantic earlier, right? So
00:15:14
Speaker
Once you hear this, which is very silly and sort of that has that pseudo ignorant racist thing, you know, it's so sad. It's so unfortunate. But then his all his other voyages makes sense because he's trying to show that everything kind of comes from the Middle East and goes westward. Right. It goes across the Atlantic and then to the new world and then out into the.
00:15:40
Speaker
Pacific Islands, it's just really too bad. It really ends up where there's this kind of fun explorers vibe thing, you know, that is kind of dirtied by by some really stupid ideas, even for the time.
00:15:57
Speaker
Right. I'm not here to apply the ethos of 2023 to somebody who's doing something in 1947, but I am here to apply the ethos of 1947 to somebody who's doing something in 1947. And even then, come on, we all know, especially me, because I have like a big PhD, so everything I say is right.
00:16:19
Speaker
that in terms of anthropology and in terms of the understanding of people, peoples of the world, even in 1947, we knew that that that idea was like preposterous and stupid. So just really too bad. Now, with that said,
00:16:35
Speaker
he was a member of the Explorers Club and I honestly, I really enjoy the Explorers Club. So the Explorers Club is kind of this old school group and it really is an international club, right? Of people who explore stuff, you know? And
00:16:57
Speaker
While you have stories like this, where the ideology behind it is obviously just foolish as hell. Like the Explorers Club can do good stuff, too. You know, the Explorers Club basically supports certain explorations, you know, and will give money and support to two groups if they apply for it, just like just like any place else.
00:17:17
Speaker
So I've seen very good projects run for the Explorers Club, but this is this is that that ideology of exploration.
Cultural Impact and Misplaced Success of Con Tiki
00:17:25
Speaker
Thor Heyerdahl is a great example of adventure for adventure's sake with no.
00:17:33
Speaker
academic thought behind it. Right. So it's so sad because with the Contiki, that could have been a time to do some really great experimental archaeology. And what experimental archaeology is, right, is you like rebuild something from the past and try it out and see if it works. I love experimental archaeology.
00:17:52
Speaker
But the Contiki is so weird that it's not experimental archaeology because it's not based on anything historic. Right. It's just it's just an oddity. So as we find so often on this show, you know, I'm thinking back like way back to some of my episodes, like on the thing.
00:18:12
Speaker
You get these eccentric people who have these little odd adventures or make these odd things and they gain popularity just because they're so odd and in left field. And I think the Contiki totally fits with that. And also, I think the Contiki kind of.
00:18:32
Speaker
Because it comes out in the late 1940s, early 50s, it rides that wave of like sort of Polynesian kitschiness, you know, the 1950s like the Tiki Room, you know, that that sort of.
00:18:47
Speaker
that 50s, you know, sort of bamboo looking vaguely Polynesian, right? You have your you have your Polynesian themed party in that time. You know, if you're watching something like Mad Men, you know, the show Mad Men, you could see them doing that, having like a Polynesian theme.
00:19:06
Speaker
That's sort of like this kitschy pastiche of Polynesian culture that doesn't really stand for much of anything.
Comparison with Hokulea Expedition
00:19:13
Speaker
So ultimately, what gives his project a big boost is really that he's in the right place at the right time, and he has that explorers vibe and look when we return. Some final ideas on Thor Heyerdahl on the Kon-Tiki.
00:19:32
Speaker
and some ideas that might have been at slightly the wrong time, but were really good.
00:19:40
Speaker
Hello and welcome back to the pseudo archaeology podcast episode one hundred and thirty one. I'm your host one last time, Dr. Andrew Kinkela, and we have been discussing the Contiki and Thor Heyerdahl. And it's we'll we'll move on towards the sort of long term effects. What does it mean now? But before we get there, I teased you at the end of the last segment with a tease, because that's how I like keep you listening, you know,
00:20:09
Speaker
I know how to do this. And I was like, hey, sometimes there's some great ideas that might not have the same luck in terms of like cultural timing. Right. So what kind of Tiki this silly, funky boat? Oh, that basically sunk right by the end. I think they I think they hit a reef right at the end. And then but, you know, they had problems that they basically the boat just basically drifted.
00:20:39
Speaker
That's the contiki did the contiki. It had like a sale, but it just sort of it just sort of followed the prevailing winds and that kind of thing. And that was one of the higher dollars points is is look, I can just basically set this thing adrift and it'll hit something out in the out in the Pacific on the flip side.
00:20:56
Speaker
About 25 years after Kontiki, a little bit more, 28 or something like this, the Polynesian Voyaging Society in Hawaii built a double holed canoe called the Hokulea. And this thing, man, is badass. And I think what's so sad is we all have heard the term Kontiki
00:21:23
Speaker
But we have not heard the name Hokulea, right? Hokulea is not launched in 1975. And this is like a culturally correct double holed canoe.
00:21:39
Speaker
of that Polynesian style, right? Correct. And this, before I even get to what it did, this can be a really great experimental archaeology moment here, right? Where we're trying a real boat made to real specifications and seeing how it does. And guess what?
00:22:00
Speaker
The hokulea went from Hawaii to Tahiti using only traditional navigation, right? Just only using the stars and that sort of thing. Traditional navigation techniques. That's amazing. Good for them. They didn't get to start at a big ass continent like Contiki. They went island to island. Right.
00:22:23
Speaker
thousands of miles away, Hawaii to Tahiti, that's forever and a day gone. That is an amazing voyage. So good for them. Right. And they tried to do it in the style in sort of what we were, you know, you could say like sort of the ancient style or the cultural style. Whereas Kondiki, of course, had like radios on it, its extents, and, you know, they could they had technology on it to figure out where they
Excitement in Archaeology
00:22:47
Speaker
were.
00:22:47
Speaker
The Hokulea didn't. And what I will say, too, is that the Hokulea started its initial voyage from Honolulu Bay. Honolulu Bay is in Maui. I've been to Honolulu Bay and Honolulu Bay, you guys, is beautiful. It's on the north. What is it? The Northwest
00:23:09
Speaker
corner the far northwest corner of Maui way up top in the corner and that bay like it is some of just note to self if you're ever on Maui it is some of the best snorkeling over there the parking you just sort of have to park on the side side of the road it's one of those you even have to walk across
00:23:30
Speaker
It's like this little tiny strip of jungle. All of a sudden you're in the jungle for a moment. There's a little there's a little tiny little creek there. You walk through it. You bring your backpack with your snorkeling stuff in it. It's kind of rocky. There's no real beach there. But then you get out there and the snorkeling is fantastic. I highly recommend Honolulu Bay for snorkeling. Now, that's in the summer in the winter. That's some of the biggest big wave surfing in Hawaii is in that area. But
00:23:57
Speaker
Anyway, I just thought it was really interesting reading that I'm like, wow, they they took off from Honolulu Bay. Oh, what a pretty place. And then after the Hokulea did its voyage to Tahiti, it wasn't on the verge of crapping out like the Kontiki. It did nine additional voyages, right? They went to like Micronesia. This is showing off Polynesian Japan.
00:24:22
Speaker
went over to the United States just with a hell of it like that. Oh, dude, good for you. Right. And in a lot of ways, it was it was also sort of done to show the middle finger to the Contiki. And I think it did a great job. But the bummer is you just hear again and again and again about Thor Heyerdahl and and Contiki. And we should be hearing more about the hokulei just because, dude, what a great story. Right.
00:24:50
Speaker
So at least there's that. So as we kind of wind down, you know, and we kind of have this wider look at Thor Heyerdahl, you know, what can we say about this? These are in a way some of my favorite conversations.
00:25:09
Speaker
because we're totally in a gray area, you know, because if you look at some somebody like Thor Heyerdahl, his his ideas on how Polynesia was populated are utterly racist and disproven and a pointless waste of time. Right. That the people of Easter Island were blonde haired or whatever. It's just that's just ludicrous. Like we're grown ups, man. What what the hell?
00:25:38
Speaker
You know, so. So you got that. But we have to analyze him with cold scientific mind, we would say on the other side, the Contiki voyage. Does sell like that sense of wonder, right, that sense of excitement. Some of that, you know, sometimes I do see missing a bit in modern archaeology, I find it
00:26:05
Speaker
I find that a lot of times modern archaeologists, they try and be too cool. They try and be too cool for school. They're like, well, you know, archaeology, it's a lot of work. It's not really that exciting. And I hear that again and again. And I think that academics are really shooting themselves in the foot because
00:26:27
Speaker
What's sad is real academic archaeology does have the best answers to the past, right? It does have the data and the knowledge. You can tell the very best, the most accurate story of the past using real archaeology, but then to sell it to the public like, yeah, but it's boring.
00:26:47
Speaker
And that's not the public saying that. That's actual archaeologists because they think that saying somehow that their work is exciting takes away cheapens it or something.
Promoting Archaeological Excitement to the Public
00:26:58
Speaker
And I am here to say, friends, we must stop that because then you have pseudo scientists like Thor Heyerdahl who are going to take the public's imagination away because we're not filling it.
00:27:15
Speaker
So you know what I'm going to do? You know what, friends? My research, it's exciting as hell. I work on the ancient Maya. I work in the Cenotes. Yeah, that's right. I swashbuckle through the jungle with a backpack and a canteen. I spend the night in the middle of the jungle. I can hear jaguars. I go diving to 100 feet in the middle of the jungle. Is it super exciting? Yeah, it's as exciting as it sounds. And
00:27:45
Speaker
My story is not alone. Other archaeologists have stories just like mine. So my little note here to other archaeologists is please, please, please brag about yourselves. And with that, I'll talk to you guys next time.
00:28:09
Speaker
Thanks for listening to the pseudo archeology podcast. Please like and subscribe wherever you'd like and subscribe. And if you have questions for me, Dr. Andrew Kinkella, feel free to reach out using the links below or go to my YouTube channel, Kinkella teaches archeology. See you guys next time.
00:28:30
Speaker
This episode was produced by Chris Webster from his RV traveling the United States, Tristan Boyle in Scotland, DigTech LLC, Cultural Media, and the Archaeology Podcast Network, and was edited by Chris Webster. This has been a presentation of the Archaeology Podcast Network. Visit us on the web for show notes and other podcasts at www.archpodnet.com. Contact us at chrisatarchaeologypodcastnetwork.com.